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IRS Now Wants To Repeal Cell Phone Tax
narramissic writes "Last week the IRS caused an uproar when it requested public comments on ways to clarify a decades-old law, seldom enforced, that would tax personal usage of business cell phones. But IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman said that the request for comments did not mean that the largely ignored rule would now be enforced. 'Some have incorrectly implied that the IRS is "cracking down" on employee use of employer-provided cell phones,' Shulman wrote. 'To the contrary, the IRS is attempting to simplify the rules and eliminate uncertainty for businesses and individuals.' And in fact, the IRS is now recommending that the law be repealed, saying that 'the passage of time, advances in technology, and the nature of communication in the modern workplace have rendered this law obsolete.'"
The IRS wants to get RID of a tax?
Why am I deeply suspicious of this?
What's really going on here? What am I quietly going to get nailed on instead?
The IRS wants to repeal a tax law?
Who are you people, and what have you done with our Internal Revenue Service?
I have a bad feeling about this...
Sorry. What? The IRS is being logical? They want to repeal an outdated law? Who is this new IRS?
. . . it is sure to be replaced by a new tax which generates more revenue than the never-used cell phone tax. In fact, that's how they'll justify the new tax ("well, we did get rid of this obsolete tax no one ever paid, so this is more than fair"). At the current rate of spend of this administration, we'll soon be taxed by the breath.
It's time to be patriotic, after all.
*shakes Magic 8-Ball* "Don't Count On It."
Hmmm, this thing is pretty accurate. I wonder if it can help me with my office's email software problems?
*shaks again* "Outlook Not No Good."
Wow, this thing DOES know a few things about computers!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/En_passant and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pissant
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
I was reading an article on Slashdot, not even two hours ago, where a poster begged for someone to post an example of a tax being repealed.
:)
Your move
How about while were at it we repeal any tax that the government didn't deserve in the first place (that they did nothing more than basic safety/defense). Perhaps then we can see lower taxes, more sane taxes, and a general economic boom.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Do these right wing nutties have any idea of the dangers of a cash economy? Today, in USA, 1$ in cash is worth 1$ in bank. But 1 million dollars in cash is worth lot less than 1 million dollars properly accounted for in the bank. Black money is worth lot less in USA than white money. That is not the case in Mexico, Phillipines, Pakistan, Bangladesh etc. Once unaccounted money gets decent buying power, then corruption sets in. We are paying pittance for our judges, police chiefs, auditors and law enforcers in general. Once cash economy takes root, corrupt people will work their way into every crevice of power and it would exceedingly difficult to get rid of them. The source of cash economy is tax evasion. Purely on that account, we should stop drinking the cool aid about consumption tax and such stupid ideas.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
But if you want social spending, and haven't told me how you're doing it without chronic deficit spending, you haven't told me much.
This part's actually not that hard, my country (Soviet Canuckistan) had been deficit-free for several successive governments now. We're probably going to have a deficit this year, thanks to your country's free-market true believers deregulating the hell out of your banks (and other causes) since Reagan, and finally taking down the world economy, but we're expecting the return to deficit spending to be temporary. There's a good chance that the current government will fall, because the deficit is going to be bigger than projected (the PM's a Conservative, incidentally). But not to worry, Canadians in all demographic groups will continue to receive their universal health care.
The trick seems to be 1) don't deregulate the financial system, because greedy bastards will rob you blind if given a free hand. 2) turf out politicians who take too much pork (a little pork fat does keep the wheels turning), because the greedy bastards will rob you blind if they can and 3) turf out politicians who threaten to take away your most cherished social programs, because the greedy bastards would rather spend the money on pork (see 2).
Of course I'm being too glib, but if your basic requirements are social spending and no deficit (I suspect you'd rather see no social spending, given some of your sources), then it's been done, and done consistently (if not always done well).
Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
Now imagine how willing they will be to pay a 17% or 22% tax to distant Washington DC?
That's a feature, not a bug.
So you are advocating for an intentionally crippled system and would cheer on wide spread tax evasion. You are not fit to live in a Democracy. Do you know how Democracy will die? Not with bullets and guns. It will die because of people like you who keep granting themselves benefits of Democracy without the willingness to pay for them.
I am a rugged independent fella living out in Arizona and I want the federal government off my back. Just go build Hoover Dam and give me my electricity. Just regulate the utilities so that they don't over charge me. Regulate the stock market so that I know safe companies to invest. Just build roads and administer the air traffic. And then just go away, I am not paying any taxes. I am a rugged independent fella living out in Arizona.
You are a clueless idiot who had the luck of being born in the USA due to some kind of good karma you got in your previous birth. Just enjoy the life here and pass away without mucking it up for all the future generations.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Cool down buddy. Consumption tax flat tax etc are all stupid ideas sold to people like you who are easily persuaded that the grass is greener on the other side. Have you lived in economies that tax goods and services at more than 10%? Can you imagine the kind of tax evasion that goes on, and the parallel cash economy that springs up immediately? How many people you know who evade the simple 5% or 6% local sales tax on the services by the landscaper or the handy man? That is the tax that goes to pay for your own local neighbourhood schools and snow removal. Now imagine how willing they will be to pay a 17% or 22% tax to distant Washington DC? Can you imagine the kind of intrusive systems needed to catch the scofflaws? If you think IRS is intrusive looking at your pay slip, wait till you get IRS demanding you show documentation for having paid tax on your wrist watch and shaving blades.
Do these right wing nutties have any idea of the dangers of a cash economy? Today, in USA, 1$ in cash is worth 1$ in bank. But 1 million dollars in cash is worth lot less than 1 million dollars properly accounted for in the bank. Black money is worth lot less in USA than white money. That is not the case in Mexico, Phillipines, Pakistan, Bangladesh etc. Once unaccounted money gets decent buying power, then corruption sets in. We are paying pittance for our judges, police chiefs,
auditors and law enforcers in general. Once cash economy takes root, corrupt people will work their way into every crevice of power and it would exceedingly difficult to get rid of them.
The source of cash economy is tax evasion. Purely on that account, we should stop drinking the cool aid about consumption tax and such stupid ideas.
All of Europe lives with a VAT, which is a consumption tax. The rates are usually around 20%. Citizens aren't ever asked to show they paid tax - that's put on the businesses. I've seen more under the table money in the US than in Europe, perhaps because the VAT is so much simpler to enforce across the board. Prices in Europe always include tax - no one shakes their fists at the tax markup, and those who have a problem with it don't seem as upset as the typical American who is upset with the income tax.
"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
A 2.5% flat income tax? 2.5%?? My dear friend, I don't even need the back of an envelope to tell you that you'll never take in enough tax with that to cover even the most basic of public services. Making up the shortfall with a tax on luxury goods won't work because, well, they're luxury goods! Per definition people are willing to forgo their purchase. And, even if they weren't, I highly doubt the turnover on luxury goods is high enough that even a 100% tax would fill the Government's coffers much.
Further, your flat income tax suggestion ignores the ability-to-pay-principle: those who can afford to pay more, should (i.e. progressive taxation). Otherwise you are expecting the weak to carry the same burden as the strong, when the weak should be supported by the strong. Because the weak (poor) spend a greater proportion of their income on the necessities of life than their strong (rich), a flat tax hits them proportionally harder – though it seems counter-intuitive, a flat tax discriminates against low-income earners. Also supporting the ability-to-pay-principle is the decreasing marginal utility of income.
A possible ammendment to your suggestion would be to have a tax-free threshold that would allow everyone to purchase the necessities of life, then taxing flatly from then on -- the tax is then weakly progressive, as with each dollar you earn your average tax rate rises, though the marginal rate remains unchanged. This flat tax has been calculated to be (for Australia) around 40% (I'm going from memory here, so +/- 10%). In any case, an order of magnitude higher than your suggestion.
Another possibility, though less accepted in the anglo-saxon world (a little more so in Europe, where socialism isn't a dirty word), is to simply give everyone a basic income (say, US$11000 – the US Poverty Threshold in 2008) and then tax every dollar of income.
Antiquis temporibus, nati tibi similes in rupibus ventosissimis exponebantur ad necem.
Can you imagine the kind of tax evasion that goes on, and the parallel cash economy that springs up immediately?
Is this so much worse than the current situation, where many just charge and pay 15% or higher interest to those wonderful financial institutions responsible for our current economic crisis?
How many people you know who evade the simple 5% or 6% local sales tax on the services by the landscaper or the handy man? That is the tax that goes to pay for your own local neighbourhood schools and snow removal
Not in my state. School budgets, county and local services come out of property taxes. State Sales Tax and State Income Tax goes to big feeding troth in Trenton.
Now imagine how willing they will be to pay a 17% or 22% tax to distant Washington DC?
I already pay that amount. If it comes out as a sales tax then I'm better off because a) I don't have to deal with filing returns and the associated costs, and b) my savings and investments aren't taxed.
Once cash economy takes root, corrupt people will work their way into every crevice of power and it would exceedingly difficult to get rid of them.
Once again, I live in NJ. We already have corrupt people in every crevice of power. Taking power away from the corrupt banks would be an improvement.
--- A man with a briefcase can steal more money, than any man with a gun. [Don Henley]
This isn't some "cell phone tax" that companies are charged for owning cell phones. When you buy any equipment to run a business, and that equipment is expected to last more than a year, you have to depreciate it. There's a particular part of the depreciation schedule that you have to fill in for various pieces of technology, like cell phones, where you have to provide a percentage of usage that is personal rather than business. And you're only able to depreciate business use of the phone over a 5 year period.
What the IRS is saying is that the effort to calculate this percentage with itemized statements, and identifying every person called, is usually greater than the extra few dollars of tax they may collect. Contrary to popular belief, the IRS doesn't want your money, Congress does. The IRS is just making sure you've paid the right amount. If you want to be upset at someone for taking your money, be upset at your representatives in the Capital.
Food for thought, if the phone is destroyed or trashed before 5 years are up, I've yet to find a place in the tax code where you can write off the remaining value, and you're no longer allowed to depreciate a destroyed item. Another thought, if you start a company that earns $500k in its first year, but requires $400k in equipment, if depreciation lets you write off $100k, you'll be taxed on $300k of income that first year, or about $100k, the entire amount of profit for that year. The depreciation portion of the tax code is pretty messed up. And what the IRS gives back in business write offs, local governments take away in business taxes based on how much equipment your business has. For everyone that's against business people and their write offs, try running a business yourself before knocking it next time.