2010-05-04

Another side effect of not reading the Health Care Bill

Health care has passed and now law.  As business start researching thru the bill, we keep finding more and more "unintended consequences" that are going to cost American businesses, and taxpayers, billions of dollars not previously disclosed.

The latest is a mandate that will require all businesses to issue a IRS 1099 Form for any purchases over $600.  According to the CATO institute, some wording changes to the tax code's section 6041 will force businesses to issue millions, if not billions, of additional IRS 1099 forms, which would be a costly, anti-business nightmare.

In a change to the current law, which only requires 1099's to be sent for specific circumstances and exempts corporations, businesses will now be required to send these forms to any business with which they have any exchange in excess of $600 and will include this burden on corporations.  Think about that for a second.  $600 is not a huge cost when it comes to business expense.  Should a business buy office supplies in bulk, be it copier paper, pens, etc, and the bill is $601, then the company will have to issue a 1099 form.  Even if a business was to treat a client to a business-related meal, this condition could possibly kick in, requiring the business to file a form 1099 to the restaurant.  Should they have a contract for coffee service, janitorial service, well hell, basically anything, they will be required to send these IRS forms.  Due to this mandate, for virtually any business expense, the company will be required to gather information from their vendor, TIN (tax identification number), etc, fill out the form, then the IRS will need to match these forms to accounting records.  No wonder the IRS is wanting to hire an additional 16,000 people.  Considering the billions of additional forms that they will receiving each year, 16,000 may be short of the required resources.

Not only is the paper work going to be monumental and an administrative nightmare, but think of the expense that the business must now take on just to maintain compliance, else risk penalization from our federal collections agency tax system.  Now, instead of using money to hire new workers, this money will have to be set aside to ensure compliance with this new law.  Each company will have to have a person, or more, strictly dedicated just to issuing 1099 forms.  Suppliers, vendors, services, will all be subjected to this. 

I've said it once and I will continue to say it until people start listening, the federal government destroys everything it touches.  It's starting to seem that the rule of "unintended consequences" is the norm for every bit of legislation that comes out of our capital.  This law does not provide health care to all, but instead requires that people purchase insurance, regardless of their ability.  What the bill is going to be successful at thou, is destroying American business and entrpenurial spirit.  As more and more hidden taxes, suffocating mandates, and penalties come to light after the fact, we are seeing our government single handedly destroying private enterprise.  Be aware, more types of these mandates will be found.  The Fed needs to milk as many funds as possible to feed it's incredible growth,  and the only way to do this is to confiscate from the American businesses and taxpayer.  However, they fail to see, if they continue to use this as their personal piggy bank for the expansion of welfare entitlements, that there will soon be no more providers to fund their ill-conceived projects.  As the statement goes, you can only squeeze so much blood for a turnip, but it appears that our government looks to challenge that statement.

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