The IRS may dial up new rules that could cost you more in taxes if your employer gives you a cell phone.
The feds have proposed taxing 25% of business cell phone use as income.
That means someone who’s in a 28% tax bracket and whose work cell phone costs their company $1,000 a year would pay $70 more in federal income tax.
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The IRS has had a law on the books regarding taxation of personal calls on business cell phones for two decades, but companies have rarely complied because of the difficulty of keeping such records.
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One choice would be for employees to offer proof that they have a personal cell phone that they use during working hours. That would substantiate that the business cell phone was being used solely for work purposes.Another option being floated would allow companies to use a statistical sampling to figure out how much of their employees’ phone bills are for personal calls.
[...]
The IRS said it is awaiting responses to its proposals from the public.
56 Sea Lawyer said, “#54, #55, I find your lack of patriotism disturbing.”
If you mean because I haven’t organized an armed revolution, you would be correct.
#58,
Quit avoiding the question.
Are you going to pay three years of cell phone back taxes and start recording your cell phone on your taxes every year from here on out?
#59, Well that is almost one. It isn’t new and it is also designed to reduce smoking, a health problem. Then again, it is an increase, not new.
That’s the cheesiest answer I’ve heard out of you. An increase in taxes is not a new tax? You are full of more shit than a Christmas goose.
And to think you support the idea that a tax is for their own good? You need a Marine microchip installed.
#59, wrong, it’s designed to help pay for increased medicare coverage for children. Cigarette taxes are also widely used to pay for pre-school programs, which are both in a direct conflict of interest with any goal of actually reducing cigarette consumption.
#64, should be medicaid, not medicare.
#60 Fusion:
“But we live with the laws we have, not decide which laws we will obey and which we won’t.”
I agree to a point, but should we obey unjust laws?
Your saying someone is wrong for breaking any law, at any time. If I refuse to follow a law, which is later found to be unconstitutional, or morally repugnant, am I in the wrong?
I think most people would disagree with you on this.
In fact, we (rightly) glorify people who helped slaves escape, even though this made them, under the law, thieves.
I’m not comparing helping slaves escape with protesting unjust taxes, but your idea that breaking the law is *always* wrong is just, well, wrong.
#60 Fusion:
After reading this comment again, I don’t EVER want to hear you complain about gays not being allowed to marry.
I mean, it’s illegal for them to, so they should just obey the law.
Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it?
# 60 Mr. Fusion, said, “But we live with the laws we have, not decide which laws we will obey and which we won’t.”
Not being from the US perhaps you don’t understand. If we had followed this idea, the US wouldn’t even exist…
Oh and read up on the end of slavery. It didn’t happen democratically. There was a Civil War in between.
They want a public response? I say tar and feather them and ride them to the border on a rail. The kick them out of the country. I’m already paying all the taxes I want to pay.
#70:
“I’m already paying all the taxes I want to pay.”
Why don’t you want to be *more* patriotic?
#62, Liberty Loser,
The easy answer is no. I don’t use a “company” phone. That though is irrelevant. The real question is why are you avoiding paying your proper and legal share of taxes?
#63, Liberty Loser,
So where are these “NEW TAXES” you guys are drowning in? You keep mentioning them. Where are they? The way you guys talk about the government taking so much more money from you it should be easy to list a few.
BTW, if you don’t want to pay more in tobacco taxes, don’t smoke. It is a dirty habit anyway. That should make it voluntary. Only those that wish to pay will smoke.
#66, brm,
If I refuse to follow a law, which is later found to be unconstitutional, or morally repugnant, am I in the wrong?
Until the law is found unconstitutional you are wrong and may be punished according to the law. All laws are valid on their face until such time as a Judge declares they are unconstitutional. YOU are not the one who gets to decide which laws to obey and which to ignore.
To keep it simple, if a driver doesn’t believe a 20 MPH in a school zone is constitutional and he should be allowed to drive at unlimited speeds meets a similar driver who thinks a Red Light should be the signal to proceed through the intersection . . .
If someone believes he should be able to use an 80 rd magazine on his new full auto and decides to use it for target practice on Main Street as an exercise of his 2nd Amendment right . . .
If someone likes Alphie decides that your 12 yr old daughter should be made a breeding stock to populate the western world with his progeny, and any law that prohibits that, to him, is morally repugnant . . .
Please, think about your answer a little first.
There are currently many laws that segments of our society find morally repugnant. An example would be income and property taxes paid by the Amish. Yet they do it. Because our laws do not segregate that some people are better than others. During the military draft, Amish and others were almost always exempt as conscience objectors or allowed to serve in non-combat positions such as hospital orderlies.
#74, You are a complete fool. A local law concerning school zone speed limits has absolutely nothing to do with the federal Constitution. Just as murdering people has nothing to do with a 2nd Amendment right to bear arms.
An invalid law is an invalid law. That is exactly the reason why you cannot be prosecuted for a crime without an impartial jury… because the jury is meant to be the final protection against tyranny of the state.
And unless it is perfectly clear to you, a quote by Thomas Jefferson:
“I consider trial by jury as the only anchor yet imagined by man by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution.”
#74:
“Until the law is found unconstitutional you are wrong and may be punished according to the law.”
True, but if a law is found unconstitutional, that means it was *always* unconstitutional. And judgments against people according to this law erased, right?
“All laws are valid on their face until such time as a Judge declares they are unconstitutional.”
I’m not sure if that’s how it works. An unconstitutional law would not be one we have to obey.
Again, I don’t know for sure, but I’m assuming that if I go to jail because I broke a law that was later found to be unconstitutional, I’ll be released because it was OK for me to ‘break’ that law in the first place.
“YOU are not the one who gets to decide which laws to obey and which to ignore.”
I’m the *only* person who decides which laws I obey and which ones I ignore. Who is making these decisions for me?
“Please, think about your answer a little first.”
I am thinking. There is no clear agreement on the morality of certain taxes in America. That’s something to think about: how should Americans think morally about taxation.
But, there is clear near-unanimous agreement that having sex with 12-year-olds is wrong, and has nothing to do with the Constitution.
Nice straw man, though.
#73:
“So where are these “NEW TAXES” you guys are drowning in?”
Inflation.
#72, The easy answer is no. I don’t use a “company” phone.
Ah, so it’s a jealously thing. Gotcha.
Are you going to recommend to your liberal buddies they should start paying their taxes?
#73 BTW, if you don’t want to pay more in tobacco taxes, don’t smoke.
WOW!!! After all that complaining about me saying the same thing about credit cards rates.
So, if YOU think the tax is ok, then obviously it is a just tax. If someone else thinks differently, they are wrong.
This is the problem with “fair share,” Fusion. Who gets to decide?