Category Archives: Tax Time Prep

On May 6, 2013, Charles Ramsey made national news – all while eating a hamburger. His 9-1-1 call was instrumental in the rescue of kidnapping victim Amanda Berry and two other women, Michelle Knight and Gina DeJesus. Berry had been missing since 2003; Knight and DeJesus disappeared in 2002 and 2004, respectively.

Ramsey had just returned from McDonald’s when he heard a scream and noticed Berry trying to escape from the house next door. He ran from his living room and together with a neighbor, Angel Cordero, he broke down the door and let her out. Berry explained who she was and Ramsey called 9-1-1. He was remarkably calm while offering her description to the dispatcher and confirming that she needed an ambulance. Ramsey couldn’t answer whether the captor was still in the house, saying “I don’t have a fuckin’ clue, bro. I’m just standing here with my McDonald’s.” That line went viral as news of the remarkable discovery of the girls spread like wildfire on the internet.

Please read the rest at Internet Sensation Charles Ramsey Gets Free Food From McDonald’s: Do You Want Taxes To Go With That? – Forbes. Wonderful story.

The Senate on Monday approved legislation that would for the first time allow states to collect billions of dollars in online sales tax revenue from out-of-state purchases.The 69-27 vote is a major victory for retail groups and state governments, who for years have fought to close what they see as a loophole that allows as much as $23 billion in annual taxes from online sales to go uncollected.

“I’ve been saying it for the past 12 years,” lead sponsor Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) said ahead of the vote. “This bill is about fairness, it’s about leveling the playing field for brick-and-mortar shops.”

The measure split Republicans senators, as 22 Republicans voted no in addition to five Democrats. Nineteen Republicans supported the measure.

via Senate approves Internet sales tax bill – The Hill’s Floor Action.

Internal Revenue Service auditors showed up with little warning at Brian Robinson’s staffing firm in Atlanta a year ago, seeking to verify that a dozen outside contractors he had hired to handle his information-technology services weren’t, in fact, full-time staffers.

The audit was part of a government crackdown on employers who misclassify workers as independent contractors to avoid paying payroll taxes, and other employment-related expenses.

TRC Staffing Services CEO Brian Robinson says that the legal distinction between full-time staff and independent contractors can be very confusing for many employers.

Mr. Robinson says the auditors ultimately found that his 30-year-old family business, TRC Staffing Services Inc., with its 100 permanent employees and up to 20 temporary workers, was in the clear. But he says the audit was “nerve wracking” because tax law doesn’t make it easy to distinguish between full-time staff and independent contractors doing full-time work. He says the legal distinction can be confusing even for an employer with his decades of experience in the labor market.

The appeal of using outside workers is growing as many small businesses struggle to stay lean. Some employers also are turning to contractors to avoid hitting the 50-employee threshold that would require them to pay for employees’ health insurance, starting next year, under the federal health-care law, or pay a penalty.

State studies have shown that local businesses misclassify anywhere from 10% to more than 60% of their workers as independent contractors. Many business owners blame the complex tax code, which doesn’t offer black-and-white standards for telling the difference. The distinction is based on the employer’s degree of control over a worker, the length of the relationship and a series of other factors. But such factors are open to interpretation. Past court cases on the issue have

via Payroll Audits Put Employers on Edge – WSJ.com.