Free Republic

Last Thursday, Texas based email provider Lavabit suddenly shut down their encrypted email service, leaving behind a message for its customers on the company's website. The owner of Lavabit, Ladar Levinson, intimated that the company had received a secret search order from the government and shut his business down to avoid being "complicit in crimes against the American people."

Thousands of small-business owners have received letters from the Internal Revenue Service questioning whether they are underreporting their business income, a harbinger of a broader initiative aimed at boosting federal tax receipts and ensuring compliance. The program is the latest move in the agency's effort to combat what it sees as a widespread problem: failure by businesses, including mom-and-pops, to report all cash sales in order to minimize tax bills. Tax officials say the letters don't constitute an audit and instead are simply a request for more information. Some business owners and some lawmakers, however, call the new IRS program...

Some rules are needed to keep order in a society, promote fair dealing, safety, etc.  But, regulation isn't free.  The cost of compliance is added to everything that is grown, mined, manufactured, processed, sold, and consumed.  Cost of regulatory compliance is a real cost of operation for businesses that effects market competitiveness of goods and services and thus can stifle job creation as well as salaries and wages. Taxation is tangible.  State, local, and federal tax obligations are paid directly.  They show up on a P & L in a line item, or at the bottom of a receipt at...

Keeping in mind that, under ObamaCare, a “full-time” work week is only 30 hours, the SBA website provides an example: Company X has 40 full-time employees working 40 hours per week, along with 20 part-time employees working 15 hours per week. The 20 part-time employees are counted as 10 full-time equivalent employees. Company X has 50 full-time employees and is subject to the employer shared responsibility provisions. The rules are a “problem for employers at the margin” of 50 full-time workers, said Edmund F. Haisimaier of the Heritage Foundation. In addition, the mandates include seasonal employees, so even if a...

Detroit just became the biggest city to file for bankruptcy in America. ....Many people are hoping that bankruptcy, the largest of its kind on U.S. soil, will give Detroit another chance. But that'll remain wishful thinking until Detroit reverses its backward economic strategy. Every mayor for the last two decades has tried to jump-start Detroit by reviving its crumbling downtown. In the 1990s, Dennis Archer erected stadiums and casinos. His successor, Kwame Kilpatrick (now serving time on federal extortion and racketeering charges) hosted mega-events.... Since then, however, things have only gotten worse as more residents have fled and city services...

Despite the administration's controversial decision to delay forcing companies to join Obamacare for a year, three-quarters of small businesses are still making plans to duck the costly law by firing workers, reducing hours of full-time staff, or shift many to part-time, according to a sobering survey released by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. "Small businesses expect the requirement to negatively impact their employees. Twenty-seven percent say they will cut hours to reduce full time employees, 24 percent will reduce hiring, and 23 percent plan to replace full time employees with part-time workers to avoid triggering the mandate," said the Chamber...

dhensley813 wrote: The city of Chicago really had no option but to curtail the benefits of retirees. It's not as bankrupt as Detroit, but it was getting there. Obamacare wasn't so much the reason the city cut retiree insurance, as the excuse it gave them to say that they weren't really being dropped. - Obama Solves Mass-Layoff Problem by Laying Off Mass-Layoff Statistics Guys at BLS Dear Comrade 813, I think they had no choice once they negotiated a contract that allowed retirees to have benefits that the city knew it couldn’t afford. That’s outrageous enough. But to make matters...

The “Help Wanted” sign is out again in America. But it’s not what you think. A report from the newswire Reuters says that massive hiring is in effect for Obamacare with state and federal agencies hiring both directly and issuing grants to community organizations to act as kind of insurance agents, signing up as many people to Obamacare as possible under the law. “State offices that will run insurance exchanges are hiring tens of thousands,” reports Reuters, “either on staff or through outsourcing firms. Federal agencies that are key to implementing the law, such as the Internal Revenue Service, plan...

Although he implemented a flat tax in Russia, I don’t think of Vladimir Putin as a supporter of free markets. Heck, he was head of the KGB during the communist era, and he presides over a country that is more known for cronyism rather than competitive markets. So if he criticizes European nations for having excessive welfare states, it’s like being called ugly by a frog. Here are some of the amusing details from Euractiv.com. He’s no Milton Friedman, but he’s right about the welfare state Russian President Vladimir Putin, speaking ahead of the G8 Summit in Northern Ireland on...

I’ve repeatedly explained that Keynesian economics doesn’t work because any money the government spends must first be diverted from the productive sector of the economy, which means either higher taxes or more red ink. So unless one actually thinks that politicians spend money with high levels of effectiveness and efficiency, this certainly suggests that growth will be stronger when the burden of government spending is modest (and if spending is concentrated on “public goods,” which do have a positive “rate of return” for the economy). I’ve also complained (to the point of being a nuisance!) that there are too many...

Silicon Valley is world-renowned for the Nobel Prize winners and MacArthur "geniuses" behind theoretical breakthroughs in science, technology, engineering and math. Less well-known are people like Patrick Pickerell, a high school dropout whose $10 million-a-year Pleasanton metal manufacturing company is powered by people with no university credentials but plenty of math and fix-it skills -- ingredients essential to innovation. A new report, "The Hidden STEM Economy," reveals that a university degree is not required for 27.5 percent of all jobs in the San Jose area in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math. The number is even higher --...

I received still more emails from French and Canadian readers on preserving culture. Since it's a slow news day, let's take a look at them. Olivier writes "Wouldn't a true conservative pay at least some respect to local cultural norms instead of trying to impose some economic diktat from on down?" Talk about getting things ass backwards. It is the social police attempting to impose cultural and economic diktats to preserve the local bookstore and the local farm to the point of absolute absurdity. Email From Canada Reader Mike from Canada writes ... Hi Mish, I totally agree with the...

Industrial Policy: What if government created an insurance "marketplace" and no one came? As the launch of the ObamaCare insurance exchanges draws near, that could happen — bringing the reform crashing to the ground. The premise of ObamaCare's exchanges was that they would provide individuals and small businesses a choice of many competing health plans. And because the plans all have to provide the same benefits, consumers would be able to shop around for the best deal. But evidence is piling up that the law won't live up to this promise, as insurance companies, small businesses and individuals seek to...

Many small-business owners worry that a new tax on insurance providers in the health-care law will mean higher premiums for them, undermining the law’s capacity to lower their health-care costs. Starting next year, the federal government will charge a new fee on health insurance firms based on the plans they sell to individuals and companies, known as the fully insured market. Meanwhile, the provision exempts health-insurance plans that are set up and operated by businesses themselves (the self-insured market). Revenue from the tax will help pay for the health-care overhaul, which is expected to extend coverage to millions of uninsured...

The percentage of Americans that are working for themselves has never been lower in the history of the United States. Once upon a time, the United States was a paradise for entrepreneurs and small businesses, but now the control freak bureaucrats that dominate our society have created a system that absolutely eviscerates them. This is very unfortunate, because by murdering small business, the bureaucrats are destroying the primary engine of job growth in this country. One of the big reasons why there are not enough jobs in America today is because small business creation is way down. As I mentioned...

The 50/30 Rule There's no requirement to provide health care if you employ fewer than 50 people. Shared responsibility requirements kick in if you are a business owner with 50 or more employees who work 30 hours or more per week. Thirty hours is considered full-time. As a business owner, you also face shared responsibility if you employ the equivalent of 50 full-time employees-for example, a combination of 100 part-time employees who work 15 hours a week. To make matters more complicated, right now the rule applies even when those workers are split across multiple businesses. "One of the key...

Retired Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus declared to Newsmax TV in an exclusive interview that “Obamacare is going to kill off small business.” “If [employees] are thrown out of their medical plans now, where they’re covered in a good plan and thrown under the bus, they’re going to be destroyed,” Marcus said on Thursday. “If, in fact, they don’t stay as full-time employees but go to part-time employees, they’re going to be destroyed. He talked to Newsmax at the Job Creators Alliance Free Enterprise Leadership Summit in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. “People have to understand that the villain is not...

The administration wants small business in the Obamacare net. Three federal agencies have asked the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) to consider raising the "attachment points" on stop-loss insurance for small businesses that self-insure. 70% of insurance claims are paid by companies that self-fund health insurance. Self-insurance means the employer creates its own "trust fund" out of which it pays health care expenses for its employees. The "attachment point" is essentially a deductible. If the deductible is met (attachment point is reached), the stop-loss insurer pays the rest of the cost for care. The stop-loss insurer insures the company...

Under pressure from large health insurance companies, the Obama administration last week announced it would delay implementation of a key aspect of its signature health reform law that will provide affordable health insurance to small businesses and their employees. Although the federal and some state governments must still set up Small Business Health Options Program (SHOP) exchanges to allow small business employees access to lower rates, the SHOP exchanges will not be required to offer a choice of plans to individual employees by January 1, 2014, as the Affordable Care Act (ACA) had contemplated. That mandate will be pushed back...

A Costly Employer Mandate It's a Regressive Tax:The House and Senate draft proposals for health care reform include employer mandates that require employers to pay higher taxes (as much as an 8% payroll tax) if they do not offer health insurance or if they offer it but some employees decline it and use the government system. The result of such a tax penalty will cause lower pay and job losses, especially for low-income workers. By the Numbers: According to The Heritage Foundation, the mandates could cost businesses up to $49 billion a year, 10.2 million workers will be at risk...