Posted on 11/22/2022 2:12:34 AM PST by EBH
The problem is that shaking down the little guy isn't cost-effective. An agent needs to bring in revenue at a rate significantly higher than his cost or he is actually a loss-center.
An IRS agent probably costs at least $100,000 a year (including benefits) and that's lot of small taxpayers coughing up $2-3,000.
I'm not suggesting that the IRS is a profit center, but, well, it is in a way. High-producing agents are clearly going to be favored over guys and gals that bring in nickels and dimes.
From an employer point of view, I agree. We have been yelling for it for years.
But now there is a whole new generation being exposed to the abuse of the tax code, will there be enough people now?
It takes someone to start peeling back the onion layers and workers desiring remote work, just might have it start.
“it is ridiculous to rate employees on their hardworking appearance instead of their output.”
Really. If just logging in at 2 a.m. satisfied the employer’s requirements, then that’s the employer’s fault. It has to be results oriented in order to be successful.
I said, or meant to say, that an employee should be judged on output/performance, not because they "look" busy.
That was the advice I gave to clients when I started my career as a CPA back in the Jurassic Era.
FWIW, Trump has also abided by that rule otherwise, given he was audited every year, he would have been in a lot of trouble all the time.
I even advised my clients to avoid investments that were unnecessarily complex tax-wise, however much they might have offered a high return. It's just not worth it.
The problem is the company is often compensating based the geographical area of the office. If the the WFH lovers want to keep doing it, they should put their salary up for renegotiation as the company sets the base pay indexed to Indian outsourcing firms. If you want a remote world, let’s have it, but let the employees see what global competition for compensation is really like.
For instance, a chinese prison. If you can do your work remotely, so can they.
I worked for a company that said taking home the laptop was a “fringe benefit”....
Then they expected me to do work at home afterhours with the “benefit”
I was having none of it since my workload didnt require it.
Moved on.
The easiest way around this is to simply have requirements for employees to document the location of their primary residence as a condition of employment, and to require them to notify the company any time they work somewhere else.
Sounds a little like my boss demanding my cell phone number back in the day when there was no “limited talk and text”. Every minute cost me money. I refused — told her the company could supply a device if she might need to contact me.
Yeah they think they own you, and in your case, at your expense.
The problem is state income taxes. If you work for a day in a state, you owe that state income taxes.
For example, if a Houston Astro plays the Yankees at Yankee Stadium, the player owes New York State income tax for the game.
Although the high-paid athlete or entertainer is the obvious target for state tax enforcement, the law is the same for all workers. If you work more than 10 days a year in NY, NY will come after you. If you work for a NY firm from a CT or NJ office, you make sure you don’t go to meetings in the city more often than that.
How the Jock Tax Works
https://awmcap.com/blog/jock-tax-2020
Same here. I have a supervisor who is jealous of me. She’ll say…..where are you? On my sailboat in Ventura Harbor. She’ll sigh and say dreamily….how nice. As long as I’m working they don’t care where I am.
Our problem is “The people that do work do all the work”. If you can’t get hold of someone, you go to the guy that responds instead of figuring why you can’t find that person.
Yeah they can always get ahold of me. And if I’m going to be out for awhile I let them know. But since I can do everything from my phone or iPad…even on the go….they don’t care. One night we had an emergency and I was working from the bar from the casino. And I told her where I was.
I have been working from home now since Covid hit - except for a couple brief periods where we were called back into the office. 2020 and 2021 I got the 2 best performance reviews in my 26+ years with the company. I traded 450 miles per week commuting time and MA State Income Tax for a 25 step commute into the spare bedroom and no state income tax. A majority of my co-workers chose to work remote while about 1/4 work 2 or 3 days in the office and 1/8th work full time in the office. My company moved from a 450-500 person office space to a 150 person office space and is still half empty most days. Performance has not suffered as the company has been growing much faster since 2020 then prior to 2018 and we are not in any industry that was helped by Covid. Initially (1st 18 months) of Covid we lost half our income, but we outworked our competition and are now growing like crazy while several of our competitors are suffering and 2 are looking to exit the business they compete with us on. Not sure if it has anything to do with it but our company ONLY hires US Citizens - even dual citizens are not eligible to work for us.
I’m a programmer so I need to remote into a computer. We don’t want data going through the VPN. I am also the easiest person on the team to find so things tend to default to me even though I am eligible to retire next year
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.