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1099 will end the world in 2012
- javery 16y agoAlready discussed here in-depth: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1306434 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1306434 (and about 10 more I don't feel like linking)
- rortian 16y agoA bunch of uninformed whining is hardly in-depth. You'd think you couldn't file these electronically or that people have to create, gasp, invoices for the vast majority of such transactions.
- jcnnghm 16y agoCool so where do I send the 1099 for SAMs club, Office Depot, and the restaurant down the street to? Will you come deal with the reporting discrepancies for me. I'll be getting at least 1000 1099's a year, will you deal with those for me? This is needless bueracratic bullshit to the maximum.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- kaens 16y agoI hate to break it to you, but a whole lot of people in the US don't have accountants and yet still spend more than $600 at various stores over the course of a year.
- _delirium 16y agoAs the article notes, this doesn't apply to individuals, no matter how much money they spend at a store per year; it only applies to businesses, who are already required to keep track of their business expenses.
- spinchange 16y agoIndividuals are small businesses too. Consultants, contractors, lots of people. More people, yes people, file a Schedule C than you might be aware of. Hell, someone who does a lot of business selling stuff on eBay or Craigslist is subject to this I they're reporting their income from that activity. Many do.
- _delirium 16y agoSure, I file a Schedule C myself (for a pretty tiny side business). But I also keep track of all the expenses for that, since I have to to report on the Schedule C, so it's trivial for me to determine if I paid anyone more than $600 this year (just export my expenses from Gnucash, grouped by payee). And yes, it'd be an added hassle to file 1099s, and I don't really support it. My main point is that, contrary to the impression some people here seem to have, non-business expenses won't require 1099s. The discussion here (in particular the thread I was replying to) seemed to think that the law would require their grandmother to send Best Buy a 1099 if she spent more than $600 on her new computer, or that you'd have to add up all your Home Depot receipts to see if you spent more than $600 on home-improvement this year, which isn't the case.
- jcnnghm 16y agoThis is at least a full time job, probably two, and maybe three depending on how many of our clients get the reporting wrong. That's a cost of $100k - $300k each year just for the accountants. Let's not forget that some clients will misreport, so we will need to chase them down and deal with their accountants and lawyers. And remember, if the numbers don't match you'll also need a tax lawyer, because you'll be getting audited. Off by more than 25%, have fun in prison. This is a major, onerous reporting process. If you have a $50/month service with 1000 clients, you're doing $600k. This will eat at leSt half of your gross.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- phreeza 16y agoSounds like a business opportunity to me? Build a specialized service that handles those for mom'n'pops, small businesses, etc?
- donw 16y agoAnd how; a service that just catalogues tax IDs and handles sending out the right paperwork would make mint... this might be perfect for somebody like Indinero (a recent YC addition).
- bsaunder 16y agoSounds like job creation to me.
- rick888 16y agoIt's things like this that will eventually force me to move my business (and invariably, my employees) to another country. Why do they want to make it even more difficult for small businesses?
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- russell 16y agoDont pull that Patriot crap. Probably all the Fortune 1000, particularly the drug companies, are flowing revenue through tax havens to lower taxes. There was an article in the past couple of months about it, here I think. Most small companies cant do it, but HN style companies can. Push fulfillment to Ireland, development anywhere. Let Ireland charge through the noose, and let the euros pile up in Switzerland.
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- rick888 16y ago"Dont pull that Patriot crap. Probably all the Fortune 1000, particularly the drug companies, are flowing revenue through tax havens to lower taxes. There was an article in the past couple of months about it, here I think." If you open a company in another country, tax collection is under the jurisdiction of that country, not the US. I'm also not advocating no taxes, I just wish the Obama administration would think about the consequences of these types of decisions. I'm also not trying to "pull that patriot crap". I'm just giving you the consequences of making it difficult for me to do business in the US. I will move my business elsewhere, which will also mean a loss of jobs for US workers. I know I'm not alone with this.
- 16y ago
- roboneal 16y agoThis can't generate remotely enough revenue to offset the compliance cost to the business sector. This is nothing more than a Federal jobs program at the expense of the private sector.
- subwindow 16y agoWow. Jump to conclusions without evidence? Sign me up! More likely it was an attempt to close a perceived tax loophole without understanding of the cost of compliance. I have no doubt it will get fixed before it actually goes into effect.
- mattmcknight 16y agoPart of what they are doing is getting the system ready to put a sales tax on services. That will generate some serious revenue (or provide another effective mechanism to steal money from some people to give to other people, depending on your perspective.)
- _delirium 16y agoAren't services already covered by most states' sales taxes? I paid sales tax when I got my oil changed recently, and my VPS provider charges sales tax if I'm in the same state.
- 16y ago
- patrickgzill 16y agoThe underground economy will explode. Working under the table will become much more prevalent.
- lsc 16y agomaybe? the problem is that if I pay you under the table, I'm paying you out of /post tax/ money. this is to say, paying people under the table costs me about 50% more than reporting it. I don't think 1099s jack up the cost /that/ much.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- hop 16y agoAnyone know why this was put into the bill? What good intentioned upside someone is trying to accomplish? Are cell phone companies going to issue 1099s to most of America, and all users have to do the same?
- Anechoic 16y agoAnyone know why this was put into the bill? What good intentioned upside someone is trying to accomplish? To make sure that retailers/sellers are accurately reporting their sales and not lowballing their revenue numbers on their tax returns. It's basically to reduce tax fraud with the hope that the extra tax income (which is assumed that corps or fraudulently not paying) can be used to pay for health care without having to add additional taxes.
- friendlyhacker 16y agohttp://money.cnn.com/2010/05/05/smallbusiness/1099_health_care_tax_change/ http://money.cnn.com/2010/05/05/smallbusiness/1099_health_ca...
- jcnnghm 16y agoThis will be an unmitigated disaster. Office Depot will get 50 million or so 1099's. How do you deal with that many accounting discrepancies? How do you match that many transactions to all those forms. What about under and over-reporting? This is a Democrat clusterfuck if there ever was one.
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- Retric 16y agoThis does not apply to transaction made with a credit card so I don't think Office Depot is going to notice.
- walkon 16y agoYou're saying there are no customers of Office Depot that make a total of $600 in purchases in a given year with means of payment other than a credit card (e.g. cash, purchase order, or check)? Seems quite unlikely.
- Retric 16y agoSure there is some, but it's impact is going to be far less than a 1% tax increase on them. Especially when most small business start using CC to avoid the hassle and or simply ignore the issue. Edit: Thanks for the down vote, but as a practical matter the IRS is going to use this as an audit trail. So a company needs to report revenue > the submitted 1099's. While they will get some 1099's their reported gross income is going to be dominated by people who don't need to send 1099's so it's going to have minimal impact. Note: There is zero new tax implications, it’s simply a reporting issue so being sent 1099’s DOES NOT IMPACT the taxes they pay. The people receiving 1099's that are going to suffer are those who try and hide income. Companies are going to need to report revenue > 1099's or the IRS can easily find issue based on that discrepancy. On the other hand Apple is going to need to send a lot of 1099's out to developers.
- ck2 16y agohttp://money.cnn.com/2010/05/05/smallbusiness/1099_health_care_tax_change/ http://money.cnn.com/2010/05/05/smallbusiness/1099_health_ca... In any case, the final impact of the law won't be known until the IRS issues its regulations on the new law, which aren't expected to arrive until sometime next year. The IRS has not yet commented on when it will release regulations or schedule public hearings, and an agency spokesman was unsure when it will do so.
- cedsav 16y agoanother quote: "Rep. Dan Lungren, R-Calif., introduced legislation last week that would repeal the new 1099 requirements." Bottom line, a misguided attempt to improve income reporting and tax collection is going to be either watered down by the IRS or killed in congress. Maybe I'm a sad optimist, but to me it looks like democracy's still working well :-)
- jcnnghm 16y agoDemocracy would be allowing the populace the time to read and digest multi-thousand page bills before voting, and not allowing totally unrelated sweeping changes hidden in bills. This has nothing to do with health care, whatsoever, in any way shape or form.
- knowtheory 16y agoThen you haven't been paying attention to either health care in general, or the health care effort in specific. The health care bill was effectively implemented as a tax bill. The entire structure of the bill is a set of rules and initiatives set up to encourage businesses and individuals to get or provide health insurance through a series of tax raises and tax cuts. The tax code is the mechanism through which this policy is implemented. I'd love to hear what other mechanism you'd prefer for implementing a health care plan. (And copping out by saying "it shouldn't have been implemented" isn't gonna fly)
- dantheman 16y ago
- ojbyrne 16y agoNew budgeting guideline - spend no more than $599 at any individual supplier.
- sophacles 16y agoWait -- wouldn't this help the economy by creating many competing entities in any given space?
- Yzupnick 16y agoOr hurt it by forcing people to use a less efficient supplier. Competition is only good if it organic in nature, (ie: comes about because both have efficient methods and high quality products, even though they differ to some degree) not if it forced competition. Then you end up getting a worse product when you could have gotten a better one.
- randallsquared 16y agoOr, use a credit or debit card for purchases that would otherwise aggregate to more than $599.
- yummyfajitas 16y agoUnlikely, that sounds like more work than just sending out the 1099.
- count 16y agoCheck out: http://www.taxgirl.com/new-rules-about-forms-1099-are-causing-a-stir/ http://www.taxgirl.com/new-rules-about-forms-1099-are-causin... for a less dramatic look at things.
- mcritz 16y agoThanks that link was the most helpful thing I read on the matter.
- Anechoic 16y agoThe good news is that purchases made with a credit or debit card will be exempt from this requirement. However this requirement is still likely to be a huge pain for me at least because I use PayPal for a lot of vendors for totral purchases over $600 in a year. The IRS is accepting comments on this requirement at http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=225029,00.html http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=225029,00.html
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- btucker 16y agoExactly. I'd assume most businesses do nearly all their purchasing through credit/debit card. I know we certainly do. So I don't see how this is such a big deal.
- jcnnghm 16y agoThe massive processing fees charged by the colluding credit card duopoly? Why aren't checks, electronic funds transfers, and electronic checks included?
- ccamrobertson 16y agoThank's for bringing this out - it really gets to the heart of who is getting paid off and the results of lobbying in creating artificial barriers through regulation. Ostensible justification is likely along the lines that the IRS can already track credit & debit card purchases far more easily than purchase orders, checks and cash. Regardless, this would be a major boon for the credit card industry if it in fact goes forward as planned.
- Alex63 16y agoSmall businesses may use credit/debit cards predominantly, but I think you'll find a lot of medium and large size businesses use Purchase Orders.
- 16y ago
- DanielBMarkham 16y ago[warning. rant head] This has to be the most mind-numbingly stupid thing I have seen the government do in the last couple of decades -- and that includes bad wars, if that's your thing. Why can it be so bad? Because it screws with every single economic entity in the nation, in a way that pervasive, subtle, and micro-managing. If you want to know where "1984" is, with Big Brother watching all of your moves, it's not bullshit programs like TIA. It's making you rat out the guy who is on disability but mows lawns on the side, or the guy who paints houses at nights without reporting the income so he can send his kid to school. Or the mom that babysits kids so that she can stay home. Yes. These people are law-breakers. In a web of such complexity that 80% of IRS's own employees can't answer sample tax questions, we are all law-breakers. But this takes tax collection to a new low -- now I am going to be responsible for "double-checking" on my neighbor who sold me those used lawn mowers last year. I need to do my part to make sure he's reporting everything. It is so outrageously stupid and infuriating that I still can't believe it is true. I'm beside myself. So if I eat at Burger King during the week when I travel, about the 120th time I buy a burger, I need to chalk them up for a 1099. It's the worst thing for small businesses and the underground economy that I've ever heard of the government doing. It just can't be true. </rant> ADD: And don't get me started with some bullshit about how the agency hasn't decided yet how to enforce it. This is like saying the Congress voted to install cameras in everybody's homes, but that might not be so bad because the administrative work hasn't been done to decide who exactly gets a camera and when. As if this somehow mitigates things. Also, for all of you folks down-voting me. Tell me I am wrong. I'm not a tax professional and I don't read the political spin sites. The only reason I've commented now is that this is the 3rd or 4th time I've seen this posted on HN. So please. I would love to be wrong about this.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- _delirium 16y agoMan, talk about hyperbole. This is probably a terrible idea economically, but it's hardly a Nineteen Eighty-Four scenario. It's not becoming illegal to say "the IRS sucks", the IRS will not have cameras in your house looking for the slightest sign of dissent, and it'll actually be nearly impossible to get imprisoned for anything at all (tax penalties are generally merely more taxes, unless you deliberately lie). Also, you, as an individual, won't have to send 1099s to anyone, whether your baby-sitter or lawn-mower or Office Depot. Only businesses will, though this does include small businessmen and sole proprietorships (the way to distinguish a sole proprietor from "just a person" is by whether you're deducting those expenses as business expenses on a Schedule C or not).
- whyenot 16y agoNext time link to the original article, which is here: http://www.chcchoices.org/Article/28083/Consumer_Power_Report_231.html http://www.chcchoices.org/Article/28083/Consumer_Power_Repor... In this case the report was produced by the Hearland Institute which Wikipedia describes as "an American conservative public policy think tank based in Chicago, Illinois that advocates free market policies." Based on some of the bullshit they have published when it comes to global warming, they seem to be more interested in pursuing a political agenda than sticking to the facts. "Most scientists do not believe human activities threaten to disrupt the Earth's climate." "The most reliable temperature data show no global warming trend." "A modest amount of global warming, should it occur, would be beneficial to the natural world and to human civilization." "The best strategy to pursue is one of 'no regrets'."
- hugh3 16y agoHow is that relevant to anything?
- whyenot 16y agoHow do you know they are telling the truth? Maybe this is just scaremongering from a group with a certain political agenda. Before getting excited it would be nice to see the same information from a less biased source. How is that not relevant?
- jerf 16y agoMan, I wish I could cancel laws just by getting a "conservative public policy think tank" to talk about them; have you actually got a link to anyone contradicting this? Because so far I haven't seen one. Here's a guy who actually quotes the law in question, and since the health care bill manifests as a patch to the original law, also expands out the 1099 law to what it now says: http://thefinancebuff.com/2010/05/1099-filing-requirement-in-health-care-law.html http://thefinancebuff.com/2010/05/1099-filing-requirement-in... I have no idea what his political affiliation is, I just linked for the law quote. Or do I not have to worry about this law, because the Heartland Institute are global warming heretics?
- maw 16y ago
- mark_l_watson 16y agoI am a little concerned about this. While I do some consulting work for large companies and we do 1099s anyway, I also do a lot of very small projects (mostly helping other developers get started or get up to speed on something I know more about than they do). For these little jobs that are paid for via PayPal, now small customers need to do a 1099 with me - a hassle for them probably means not as many little 1 week jobs. Also, as a consumer of goods and services, now I need to do a 1099 for Amazon, people I hire for small bits of work, the local electronics store, etc.?
- subwindow 16y agoAs for getting paid for small jobs and paying people for small jobs, if you paid the person more than $600 in a tax year, you should have already been giving/receiving 1099s. The only difference with the new rule is that you'd have to give 1099s to vendors.
- mark_l_watson 16y agoWe are OK on paying vendors: for hiring a handyman one or twice a year, a plumber about once a year, and a brush removal service we are under the $600 limit - we mostly do things ourselves. I am more concerned with small customers who pay me a thousand or two a year via PayPal - now they have hassles. It would be really good if PayPal had some service that automated this!
- chronomex 16y agoThey very well may, by the time this rolls around.
- borisk 16y agoA popular tactic of totalitarian governments is to pass laws which everyone will have to break. So that if they don’t like someone, there is always a lawful reason to take them down.
- jorgem 16y agoWe should do that to migrant labor.
- kaens 16y agoIt's almost like the government is trying to get its populace to silently replace it.
- shadowfox 16y agoWith what?
- kaens 16y agoI don't have a good "end goal" answer for that right now. I do think that the technology that has popped up over the last few decades allows for means of organization and collaboration for providing life necessities that were not available for the vast majority of human history. If I'm being idealistic, I think that a good bit of the historically useful functions of government ( on a more abstract level, historically useful functions of centralized authority )is made quite outdated by the availability of global communications and exchange to the "common man". It's a can of worms of a topic, and I don't really have the time to get into it right now, so I'll leave it at that. If I'm being extremely idealistic, I think we should be in a state of post-scarcity in terms of shelter and food, and I think that the internet is a large part of the way that humanity will get to that point if it ever does. In the same vein, I lean towards thinking that getting to that state will become rather necessary for the continued growth and survival of our species, if we're going to continue to grow and survive. But yeah, can o' worms.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- subwindow 16y agoWhat the hell is up with this thread? This has to be the worst thread I've ever seen at HN. You'd think this were a comment thread on Fox News or something. People: Chill the fuck out. The IRS is accepting comments on the issue. The rule doesn't go into effect until, realistically, April of 2013. By then, it is almost guaranteed that the rule will be significantly weakened to the point where it is not much different than what we have in place now. This isn't a world-ending or economy-destroying fuckup organized by big-governement Democrats. It was a short-sighted clause put in by a politician trying to close a loophole. This is why we have checks and balances- the executive branch, which is actually in charge of implementing these rules, will implement them in a sane way. So put your conspiracy theories to bed and get on with life. File a comment with the IRS and wait a couple of years. Then maybe you'll see that this was just one big stink over nothing.
- nkassis 16y agoRealistically most new bill have a ton of shitty things in them that get fixed through other bills later on, it's always been like that and the small business lobby is fairly powerful so 2 years should be enough to kill this clause.
- Sirocco 16y agoIn all seriousness, the Reddit influx is upon us, full tilt.
- RyanMcGreal 16y agoFrom the Hacker News Guidelines: [1] "If your account is less than a year old, please don't submit comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. (It's a common semi-noob illusion.)" [1] http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- MartinCron 16y agoI just checked, and your account is exactly one year old, so you may submit comments saying HN is turning into Reddit, if you would like.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- akmiller 16y agoI don't like this at all but if you want to attempt to take a positive spin on it you could see that this would be a lucrative area for many startups to start offering services for handling these 1099's.
- revicon 16y agoCam here to make this comment. Wouldn't be too difficult to build a quick site that aggregates all your transactions, auto-generates appropriate 1099s and mails them to the company accounting addresses it has on file matching the transaction records.
- nhebb 16y agoLast year a customer accidentally double entered my invoice in their system, and paid me two checks instead of one. I contacted them to let them know of the discrepancy, and never cashed the second check. Their system was never corrected, and I got a 1099 showing I earned double the actual amount. I'm still trying to iron this mess out, and it's just one 1099.
- Anechoic 16y agoThe good news for you is that the uncashed second check will eventually show up as a discrepancy on their books and they will have to deal with it. It make take some time but it will happen.
- jcnnghm 16y agoAnd if he gets audited before then for under-reporting his income?
- anigbrowl 16y agoThe original invoice and uncashed check would substantiate his explanation of the error. I don't enjoy filling out forms etc., but somehow I manage to keep my tax paperwork and business receipts chronically organized in case I ever need to verify something.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- mattchew 16y agoSo, is this going to be mitigated somehow, or will everyone just ignore the requirement, or will somebody launch Fresh1099s.com and make a pile of money to reduce my headaches considerably? Stay tuned . . .
- ubernostrum 16y agoI'd be curious to hear how many of the outraged people in this thread already deal with at least, say, 4-5 1099s (other than the obligatory one your bank sends you to report interest earned) in a year.
- korch 16y agoTheoretically, an Age of Bureaucracy can last until a paper shortage develops, but, in practice, it never lasts longer than 73 permutations. — Adam Weishaupt — Robert Anton Wilson, The Illuminatus! Trilogy I say great, bring it on! The sooner we Immanentize the Eschaton, the better! Fiction aside, I predict this law will get repealed pretty quickly and quietly before it goes into effect. The amount of added annual tax revenue from this is projected to only be $20 billion, and as soon as various interest and trade groups realize how much more the extra paperwork is going to cost them, then they'll be screaming at the Congress-critters. They already went through this process with SOX. It's the Government's duty to maximize tax revenues, so if the cost of doing business in general causes a decrease in many company's profits, then there is less overall income to tax. If that amount of lost tax revenue is more than the projected increase of $20 billion, and I bet it is, then it makes sense to repeal that particular law.
- Calamitous 16y ago> I predict this law will get repealed pretty quickly and quietly before it goes into effect. > They already went through this process with SOX Has SOX been repealed, then? I know of at least two businesses it's prevented from an IPO. It only makes sense to repeal if the gov't motive is to maximize revenue. As we've seen repeatedly, "duty" is not a concept that impacts career politicians in the slightest.
- gruseom 16y agoIt's easy to see that this is much ado about nothing: if it actually happens as described, it will do significant harm to major politician-owning interests. Therefore it won't happen.
- mmaunder 16y agoThere is an incredible amount of rhetoric from both sides of the isle on supporting small businesses, supporting the entrepreneur, that entrepreneurs are the job creators, that innovation will lead us out of this recession. But it's all just politically correct talk. This forum is filled with entrepreneurs and innovators. It has one of the highest density of job creators of any forum on the web. Has anyone here seen any help from the government in creating jobs? Either on the supply side (grants) or on the demand side (tax breaks)? Or by reducing our administrative workload? From either side of the isle, conservative or liberal? Instead we have bureaucratic nightmares like this 1099 legislation that create work that has a not insignificant opportunity cost for innovation and job creation in this country. You could be coding, but instead you're issuing 1099's to walmart. The reality is that even if this passes, we'll all do just fine and keep innovating. But the next time some politician tells you he supports job creation in this country be sure to call bullshit on him. They only say it because it sounds good and they have done nothing to help us create jobs.
- lol 16y agoHas anyone here seen any help from the government in creating jobs? I have.
- terrellm 16y agoIn addition to the 1099 nightmare, there's also the S-corp self employment tax nightmare where all s-corp income has the 15.3% self-employment tax imposed, not just the earned income. I predict a mass switch to C-corps. From http://www.businessbrief.com/feds-take-aim-at-small-biz-loopholes/ http://www.businessbrief.com/feds-take-aim-at-small-biz-loop... Both House and Senate bills address what some lawmakers see as evasion of employment tax by certain individuals. The Internal Revenue Service has stated that many taxpayers receive nominal salaries and take their earnings through distributions by S corps., limited partnerships, or other entities. The House and Senate bills would change that situation by imposing self-employment payroll taxes on 100% of S-corp. pass-through income when: - The S corp. is engaged in a professional service business, with the key assets being the reputation and skill of no more than three employees, or - The S corp. is a partner in a professional service business.
- SkyMarshal 16y agoThe great injustice here as I see it is, Wall Street destroys the economy, makes billions doing it, passes the cost on to US Government via skilled use of FUD (especially the F part), capture, and paid-for access, and gets away clean (with a few show trials like Madoff). Now the government is so cash strapped that they're looking to squeeze the rest of the country to make up for it. This appears to be the greatest reverse wealth transfer I've ever witnessed or even read about.
- rbranson 16y agoAll they did was make corporations the same as people for 1099 reporting. Don't you just LOVE the hypocritical irony?
- lsc 16y agoseems like an opportunity for automation. I bet you could do something where you slurp down a csv of your credit card transactions (most banks let you do this) and then go through the merchant IDs to figure out who to send the 1099 to. Now, sure, going from the merchant ID to a tax id and address for a 1099 would be quite a lot of work, but that's where the central service comes in. You could either sell the credit card id-> tax id database, or you could 'crowdsource' it- (though you would have to solve a major trust problem) when one user of your service figured out the tax id mapping they would share it with the others.
- rwhitman 16y agoI know this is a really alarming issue, but there's no way this will ever happen. Business lobbies are far too powerful to allow something like this to slip by without a serious fight, and we've got 2 years. Solution: write your congress person. Sign petitions etc and make a whole lot of stinkin noise.. But I'm sure every Fortune 500 corp will be making even more noise about this than small business owners. I can't imagine Walmart likes this anymore than Joe's Hardware
- netmau5 16y agoI think that we feel a loss of control over our common politic and that is making even the most rational of us feel like we have to yell and curse to have our disagreements registered, even in a quiet room.
- rradu 16y ago1099s are for services only, not products. Buying paper doesn't count as a service.
- chronomex 16y agoThis bill changes the requirement to apply to physical goods as well.
- drawkbox 16y agoI see this as an immense opportunity to automate this via an software by your identity at purchase. Why can't this be part of the software transaction and automatically reported and available at the IRS real-time. Our tax system is way too form and administrative based still. It is always delayed and never real-time. Get this stuff out of the way and automate it throughout the year. Hide income taxes and 1099s for contractors just like they hide sales tax in transactions, or just rid of the income tax altogether and go another direction.
- RancheroTaco 16y agoWhile I disagree with the manner in which many of the "calm down, folks"-esque comments take for granted that this issue will automagically sort itself out, I do agree with them that there are more constructive ways to deal with it than writing rants on HN. Please, if you are, as I am, concerned about the potential consequences of this provision, please calmly inform your representatives (especially ones on the [very powerful] House Ways & Means Committee) that you would like them to support HR 5141 ( http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h5141/show http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h5141/show ), which selectively voids this provision. Concisely and realistically emphasize the impact you believe this provision will have on your present or future business(es). Also, IMHO, it would be constructive to mention that (regardless of your stance of the ACA) you are not expressing concern about the ACA as a whole, but rather about this specific provision; Democrats may otherwise interpret your message as a general attack on their hard-fought (perhaps Pyrrhic?) victory and Republicans may take it as encouragement to frame the debate over HR 5141 as part of an overall attack on the ACA, which would likely cause the the bill to fail. IOW, know your audience.
- danbmil99 16y agowhat this means in practice I suspect is that audits will result in more findings of non-compliance, therefore more penalty revenue for the IRS. While I agree it's stupid paperwork, if your vendors pay their taxes, and you are keeping your accounts correctly, it probably won't be the biggest deal on the planet to generate a bunch of 1099's for your expenses.
- bsnss-mn-cdr 16y agoIf (Government && GetRidOfCash) $response = MakeCashUnusable($year=2012); // Returns array with multiple options echo $response[0]; "Success! New law implemented that will effectively make it so painful to use cash, checks, ach and wire-transfers that everyone will use credit and debit cards which we have full digital access to without direct user knowledge." echo $response[1]; "Success! New law implemented that will effectively make it so painful to use cash that everyone will start buying everything possible from overseas companies who still accept PO's ( checks, ach and wire-transfers ) because the shipping cost are more easy to predict than cost associated with absolute compliance with this new law."