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IRS starts mopping up Congress's tax-reporting mess

• hga 16y ago
  Something significant for the HN crowd: "[ SMC Business Councils President Tom ] Henschke foresees another unintended consequence of the new reporting provisions: that in order to cut down on tax forms to be filed, businesses will trim the number of vendors they do business with. "I've actually heard businesses talking about consolidating their purchases, going from 150, 200 vendors, down to less than 100," he said. "That will most certainly lead to some small businesses being swept under the door." "The [ official IRS ] taxpayer advocate's office shares that concern. "Many large vendors already have computer systems that can track purchases by customer. They are likely to advertise that they will track each customer's total purchases and send them a report at the end of the year that business customers can use to comply with the Form 1099 filing requirement," the office wrote in its report. "Small businesses that lack the capacity to track customer purchases may lose customers, leaving the economy with more large national vendors and less local competition."" One fun bottom line: "[T]he Joint Committee on Taxation -- a nonpartisan Congressional committee that analyzes pending tax legislation -- estimated that it would bring in only about $2 billion a year in new tax revenue."