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Blogger Loses Unemployment Check Because of Ads
Techdirt is reporting that one unfortunate, unemployed New York lawyer recently had her unemployment benefits greatly reduced because of the incredible $1/day she was earning via ads on her blog. "The whole thing sounds like a bureaucratic nightmare, with NY State asking her to get a form from her new 'employer' who didn't exist. Then NY Department of Labor started giving her all sorts of contradicting information, and eventually an 'investigation' into her 'business' — during which time her unemployment benefits were stopped entirely. She's now pulled the Google AdSense from her blog (total earned over the life of the blog $238.75)."
Back in 2000 I was denied unemployment benefits because I made the mistake of telling the interviewer I had tried to get some contract positions. Never mind that I DIDN'T GET THEM, simply the fact I was now "an independent contractor" meant I was employed.
Never tell them anything. No, woe si me; I'm unemployed and unemployable, I simply don't know what I am going to do...
She reported herself. She was being a good person and reporting ALL income. The rare breed who'd probably pay local state tax on items purchased out of state.
From the Forbes article (it's linked from the linked article): When the check came in, Karin realized she had a legal obligation to disclose the income to New York State, even though doing so might reduce the weekly unemployment benefits she received.
They didn't stop her checks. They merely reduced the payout to reflect her new "part time but not fully employed" status. Unfortunately rather than subtracting $1 each month they subtract a percentage - about 33% - off your check.
That's why she removed the ads, so she can go back to getting full checks instead of ~66% checks.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
With unemployment and welfare folded into one smooth curve, there're no perverse incentives and we don't have to pay an army of bureaucrats and lawyers to figure out who doesn't deserve assistance.
I beleive that working as a contract employee, if you make less than $600, you do not have to report it.
I base this off of my previous place of employement where we would have to collect Tax information for the independant contractors we paid over $600, but did not need to worry about those we paid less than $600 a year.
Spelling and Grammar errors have been added to this post for your enjoyment
No. Actually taxes are based on both where you live and where you work. That is, you are subject to their income tax rules if you live OR work in the state. Most states have built into their tax codes methods to avoid double taxation between states. The majority of these are via a credit on the resident state tax return for taxes paid to the non-resident state. Or, in other words, the state where you WORK gets the tax money. So for example, if you were a resident of Colorado on a temporary assignment in Texas, you would pay Colorado income tax on that money, because there's no income tax from Texas to generate a credit. If you were a resident of Colorado on a temporary assignment in California, you would file a tax return for both California and Colorado. You would pay the California taxes, and then apply taxes paid to California as a credit on your Colorado return and end up not paying Colorado income tax (so long as California has equal or greater tax rates than Colorado, otherwise Colorado would take the difference.)
There are certain exceptions. For example a few states have reciprocal agreements. As you experienced, Pennsylvania and New Jersey have a reciprocal agreement. What that means is the states have an agreement not to tax each other's residents. So Pennsylvania residents that work in New Jersey will pay only Pennsylvania income tax and New Jersey residents that work in Pennsylvania will pay only New Jersey income tax. But this is the EXCEPTION not the RULE. In fact, Pennsylvania only has reciprocal agreements with 6 states (Indiana, Maryland, New Jersey, Ohio, Virginia, West Virginia) - had you worked in any other state with an income tax you would have paid income tax to the state you worked in. And the majority of states have no reciprocal agreements at all.
That depends entirely on the particular state.
In Minnesota, you could turn around after that one-month temporary job and receive benefits from the first job (assuming you did not already exhaust them). Also, part-time work will reduce benefits dollar-for-dollar until you exceed 32 hours a week (or make more money from part-time work than you'd receive on unemployment).
As you point out, the real problem here is a system with idiotic rules, not her honesty in reporting $238.
I call this the law of Assholes.
Assholes ruin everything for everyone else. They go searching for ways to be just annoying enough to be an "asshole" but take great care and diligence to make sure that they don't run afoul of any rules/laws that might be in place.
It doesn't matter where you draw the rules/laws, they are assholes, and will always exploit the current version to perfection.
Then, somebody comes along and says "There ought to be a law" because of some asshole somewhere. There is no cure for assholes, because they will always exist. And passing ridiculous rules/laws to prevent them from being assholes is stupid as it is pointless.
I know one asshole, when confronted about being an asshole ("you're ruining it for everyone else"), said "I don't care, I'm just playing by the rules". And when the rules changed because of the asshole, it diminishes us all. They don't care about "everyone else" which is why they are assholes.
They just need to have their asses kicked.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.