Thursday, April 29, 2010

Got paperwork?


We're almost there. The unveiling of our rolling post Nancy's Nuances: A Journey of Discovery is nigh and probably would've occurred today were it not for finding yet another gem in ObamaCare now that the bill has been passed.

Chris Edwards of the Cato Institute points out that businesses that currently issue 1099s in a limited set of situations will now be required to issue 1099s whenever they do more than $600 of business with another entity in a year.

Here's Edwards:

For the $14 trillion U.S. economy, that’s a hell of a lot of 1099s. When a business buys a $1,000 used car, it will have to gather information on the seller and mail 1099s to the seller and the IRS. When a small shop owner pays her rent, she will have to send a 1099 to the landlord and IRS. Recipients of the vast flood of these forms will have to match them with existing accounting records. There will be huge numbers of errors and mismatches, which will probably generate many costly battles with the IRS.


And this from the Air Conditioner Contractors of America:
The House bill would extend the Form 1099 filing requirement to ALL vendors (including corporate) to which they pay more than $600 annually for services or property. Consider all the payments a small business makes in the course of business, paying for things such as computers, software, office supplies, and fuel to services, including janitorial services, coffee services, and package delivery services.

In order to file all these 1099s, you’ll need to collect the necessary information from all your service providers. In order to comply with the law, you would have to get a Taxpayer Information Number or TIN from the business. If the vendor does not supply you with a TIN, you are obligated to withhold on your payments.

With unemployment still hovering around 10%, does all this additional paperwork and increased overhead/administrative costs sound like a great idea to spur economic growth?

This is, of course, bad for any business but particularly small and medium-sized businesses that do not have the resources to keep up with this paper mill that has been generated by ObamaCare.

All that... in a healthcare bill!

When the IRS claimed the 16,000 additional employees they would need was not to enforce mandatory enrollment in a healthcare plan, perhaps they were telling the truth.



H/T: Hot Air