Posted on 09/15/2014 9:20:50 AM PDT by John Semmens
Some employers provide employees with company-paid free lunches. The idea is to keep workers at their desks and improve productivity. The expense has normally been lumped in with other expenses as a cost of doing business. The IRS now wants to tax these lunches as income to the employees.
IRS spokesperson Jason Coveter explained that “most employees have to furnish their own lunches. Whether they go out and buy it or bring it from home, they are bearing this cost themselves. It is unfair for other employees to get a lunch paid for by their employer. We’re just trying to level the playing field.”
The “leveling” will be retroactive “to help rectify previous wrongs,” according to Coveter. “We’re going to try to go back at least a few years if we can,” he said. “Consuming free lunches is kind of a social crime and we’re using a sort of ‘statute of limitations’ model that would impose a significant penalty, but not an unlimited one.”
Some taxpayers could end up owing thousands in back taxes and penalties. Not to worry says Coveter, though. “We will have easy payment plans in place that will allow those who owe to pay in installments over the course of a year or two.”
Other employer provided amenities that are in line for future IRS scrutiny include free parking, heating/cooling, lights, and toilet facilities. “Those are all things that the employee has to pay for when he’s at home,” Coverter said. “There’s no good reason why he should be relieved of the cost of these burdens just because he’s at work.”
if you missed any of this week's other semi-news/semi-satire posts you can find them at...
http://azconservative.org/2014/09/13/mexican-president-calls-perry-border-policy-unneighborly/
Tax “Free Lunch” at schools.
Since we had a food vendor operating the cafeteria vendors had to go through them to supply the meal. They could either order sandwiches from the cafeteria(terrible) or have them order from a restaurant. I knew the order gal in the cafeteria and would find out the menu. Only certain ones were worth giving up the lunch hour.
That’s not satire. That’s true and has been since at least 1986.
It taxed the business. If you own a shop and had a 100 year old screw machine that your great grandfather owned, it was taxed.
Its bad enough that they tax the parts made by the machine.
My boss wrote off the $4 for each day for each of us. Did we get $4? No way. It doesn’t show up in the wage statements.
Shouldn’t they be taxing beheadings?
-PJ
Believe it or not at one time the tax maniacs were looking at proposals to cull state taxes from flight and train crews on the money they earned while flying over or riding through the respective states. IOW if you took off from O'hare and five minutes later you left the Illinois jurisdiction over Lake Michigan they wanted to deduct 5 minutes worth of the crews hourly pay as a state income tax. These were serious proposals made by government employees paid by taxpayers. Pogo was right,"We have met the enemy and they are us."
“It is unfair for other employees to get a lunch paid for by their employer.”
This is only unfair in Upsidedown World.
The carbon dioxide you exhale contributes to “climate changee,” which somehow costs other people money. These satires write themselves.
“Did we get $4”
You got the food, now pay up!
We didn’t get food or $4. And Scrooge is dead.
Scrooge, at least, was a private businessman. He didn’t claim all power in heaven and earth like the IRS, only the power to nickel and dime his employees, partners, and customers.
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