Friday, February 19, 2010
Obama Administration to Crack Down on Independent Contractor Tax Issue Cited by Austin Pilot
Following up on this morning's post on the Austin pilot's grievance against the IRS over the treatment of independent contractors: New York Times, U.S. Cracks Down on ‘Contractors’ as a Tax Dodge:
(Hat Tip: Ann Murphy.)Federal and state officials, many facing record budget deficits, are starting to aggressively pursue companies that try to pass off regular employees as independent contractors.
President Obama’s 2010 budget assumes that the federal crackdown will yield at least $7 billion over 10 years. More than two dozen states also have stepped up enforcement, often by enacting stricter penalties for misclassifying workers.
https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2010/02/obama-administration-1.html
Comments
Off the top of my head, "What's new?" could include:
- A population that has become highly interdependent. The bulk of the population no longer lives self-sustaining lives; they're much more dependent on economies of scale and group action in their daily lives. Our economy, in fact, depends on this to free up the labor pool and create a consumer base of people who are able to buy goods on the world market, rather than trade chicken eggs and salt with the neighbors.
- A large and growing segment of the popular media that now encourages anti-government sentiment at Civil War levels of hysteria, with anti-government rhetoric and meaningless fear mongering.
- A nation that is stuck in two unpopular and expensive wars, requiring more spending and sacrifice than most people appear willing to bear.
Posted by: Liz | Feb 21, 2010 1:16:45 PM
This is a game of whack-a-mole with several million moles.
Over the past 35 years or so I seem to remember several of these crackdowns.
Posted by: save_the_rustbelt | Feb 19, 2010 8:21:08 PM