Archive for October 14th, 2011

Tanning salon update: tax collections 64% below ObamaCare projections

October 14, 2011

Well, well, well.

It appears that tanning salons either don’t know about their targeted ObamaCare tax or they aren’t complying with it or the added tax has dampened demand … and the IRS is having trouble tracking the  salons down to figure out what’s going on.

So, the new federal tax on indoor tanning services isn’t bringing in as much revenue as promised.

The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration says the new federal tax on indoor tanning services isn’t bringing in as much revenue as hoped.

Tanning tax receipts for that nine-month period ending March 31, 2011  totaled $54.4 million, the report found.

That was below projections by the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, which had estimated the tax would raise $50 million per quarter.

The IRS had difficulty determining the actual number of tanning salons and the contact info for businesses required to collect the new tax from customers.

Using an April 2010 Indoor Tanning Association estimate, the IRS initially projected the tax would be due quarterly from roughly 25,000 stand-alone tanning salons, plus spas, health clubs and beauty parlors.

But the inspector general report found that actual tax returns filed for the first three quarters through March 31 averaged just above 10,300.

Source: USA Today

It’s a shocker, isn’t it ?

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Rewarding failure to spur innovation … say, what?

October 14, 2011

TakeAway: Companies are looking for a new way to be innovative by rewarding individuals on their failures.

The rewards for failures vary by company from statues to monetary awards with the hope of generating innovation.

Excerpted from WSJ: “Better Ideas Through Failure

Amid worries that we are becoming less innovative, some companies are rewarding employees for their mistakes or questionable risks.

The tactic is rooted in research showing that innovations are often accompanied by a high rate of failure.

“Failure, and how companies deal with failure, is a very big part of innovation,” …. Failures caused by sloppiness or laziness are bad. But “if employees try something that was worth trying and fail, and if they are open about it, and if they learn from that failure, that is a good thing.”

A unit of WPP’s Grey Group started handing out the “Heroic Failure” award because he was worried that fast growth at the agency was making employees “a little more conservative, maybe a little slower,”

Extracting lessons from foul-ups is the focal point of Michael Alter’s “Best New Mistake” awards at SurePayroll.

Only people who are trying to do a good job, make a mistake and learn from it are eligible for the $400 annual cash award.

Edited by ARK

Ken’s Take: I always scratch my head when I hear people say that companies punish risk takers.

If  GE and Black & Decker had given trophies for ‘nice tries’ that didn’t pan out, I’d need another wing on the house to hold them. 

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