Democrats Are All About Screwing The Productive
Monday, April 26, 2010 at 4:25PM It seems almost everyday that a new surprise is found in the healthcare legislation. The latest example comes to us from the Daily Caller:
Most people understand that the IRS is likely to need thousands of new agents to enforce the Obama Administration’s new health insurance mandate – starting in 2014, you can either buy health insurance or the government will confiscate your tax refund, at least.
But hidden deep within the 2,000 plus page law is a vast new authority for the IRS that proponents admit has nothing at all to do with health care.
Instead, its purpose is to squeeze more and more tax dollars from businesses to eliminate the so-called “tax gap” – bureaucratese for every red cent Americans owe the IRS but don’t pay up come April 15.
In section 9006 of the health care law, many businesses will be required for the first time to report every expense they incur over $600.
Right now, businesses must report the wages they pay employees. But they are exempt from reporting payments to other businesses and for merchandise.
Even small businesses can easily incur thousands of business expenses over $600 each year. Critics say the requirement will inundate businesses with new red tape and cost them huge sums preparing paperwork.
“This is an enormous and costly new paperwork burden that likely hit about every business, regardless of how small,” Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO) said in a December floor statement about the section.
A Democratic aide who spoke on the condition of anonymity said Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT), chairman of the pivotal finance committee, was a key backer of including the section in the health care law.
The aide defended the provision as a “voluntary” way of increasing tax revenues without raising tax rates, adding that then President George W. Bush’s administration supported the requirement.
“Voluntary information reporting improves tax compliance without raising taxes on small businesses, which is why Presidents . . . Bush and Obama both proposed similar policies to this one,” the aide said.
The information will give the IRS new ammo against businesses that under-report their income or overstate their expenses. If the IRS wants to audit that business, it can roughly calculate its income by analyzing reported payments to that business and its expenses by the payments the business reported.
The Democratic aide said the requirement merely extends the reporting requirement beyond corporations to other types of businesses like limited liability companies (LLC). But the language of the statute makes no apparent distinction between the different types of businesses. Instead it says the requirement applies to “any corporation.”
Either way, many small businesses are going to need to file thousands more 1099 forms to the IRS – on top of the new requirements and fees they already face in the health care law.
The National Federation of Independent Businesses has been leading the charge against the language and calls the new requirement “a tremendous new paperwork burden for small business.”
House Republicans are already scrutinizing the language and considering legislation that would repeal it.
Reader Comments (6)
Do IRS employees belong to the SEIU? Government spending = grow the unions = more lifetime Dem voters = more special interest lobbyist campaign donations = enforcers at Obama public appearances. Makes me sick.
Rip them off and screw this people, they will never figure it out, bsides we know
what is good for them...Give them a little Pork and we got them for life..
You are winning the war right now, but you will lose the battle in November...
Keep it up Dem's, we are coming for you......
Coming for them like a damn freight train. They are badly underestimating the anger of the average citizen. Virtually everyone I know blames the Democrats nearly universally for the position we are in with spending, etc.
Oh goody. I can't wait until we get all the blame for that, too. You know, right after all the blame for how crappy Obamacare turns out.
You can always win a bet on which way the government will act by picking the choice that adds government control and red-tape. Adding detailed expense reporting requirements will undoubtedly add to IRS overhead, and will have minimal return. Instead of enacting reforms that make government and private industry more efficent, they take the other route.
I haven't read the entire bill, but I wonder if Fannie and Freddie (and Charlie Rangel) are exempt from these reporting requirements?
This is just another thing wrong with Washington. What was this doing in this bill in the first place? My accountant tells me that this will probably add about $2000/year to my tax preparation bill because of all of the bills and receipts they will have to go through. Now, instead of just paying my bills, I will have to preemptively catalog and justify all of the bills I pay. I already employ people, pay for their health, dental and vision insurance, pay commercial activity taxes, SS taxes, payroll taxes, unemployment insurance, worker’s comp., etc. What more do they want?
I like how the democratic aide wants to remain anonymous. They are so scared of the positions that they have taken in the last year. If they really believed that this was good for America they wouldn’t be afraid to comment on it.