The Homa Files

Ken’s Take: Taxing every dollar earned by the evil top 1% doesn’t come close to funding the current government spending spree.  First, it’ll be tax gimmicks like this; then higher rates – much higher rates – for the 49% of workers who pay income taxes.  It’s going to get ugly.

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From the WSJ, “The IRS Phones Home”, June 15, 2009

With federal spending in 2009 at 28% of the economy and deficits heading north, Democrats are eyeing tax increases on everything from soft drinks to electricity to health benefits to charitable contributions. The IRS is even contemplating a new tax on the use of business cellphones.

The IRS believes that some percentage of the costs incurred by employees using company-provided wireless devices should count as a “fringe benefit” and thus be subject to taxation. Since workers inevitably end up taking personal calls or emails, the thinking goes, it’s only fair that they pay for the privilege. The IRS suggests that businesses automatically assign 25% of annual phone expenses as a taxable liability.

What’s next? Maybe a per-cup tax on office coffee, or targeting furtive visits to ESPN or Hulu on the office PC? Or maybe taxing use of the company washroom.”

Full article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124501952511913563.html

This entry was posted on June 15, 2009 at 7:59 am and is filed under Taxes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.