STUMP » Articles » Taxing Tuesday: Putting the Black in Black Friday » 27 November 2018, 04:03

Where Stu & MP spout off about everything.

Taxing Tuesday: Putting the Black in Black Friday  

by

27 November 2018, 04:03

What do I mean? Heck if I know. Let’s just go through some of the wacky tax stories popping up.

BLACK FRIDAY ONLINE SALES TAXES MAY NOT BE ALL THAT

Why States Hoping for Online Holiday Sales to Boost Budgets May Not Get Their Wish

Retail experts are anticipating that the Thanksgiving shopping weekend will once again be record-breaking, particularly for online sales. Last year, the Monday after Thanksgiving — nicknamed Cyber Monday — saw a record $6.6 billion in sales, up 16.8 percent from the previous year.

But if states are hoping for a revenue windfall in the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling this year that allowed them to collect online sales taxes — not so fast. “Ultimately, I think there will be a nice little bump to states,” says Brian Kirkell, a principal at the tax consulting firm RSM, “but it’s not going to change much.”

That’s because there are still a lot of unknowns when it comes to how much the ruling will affect revenues.

….
That evolution has led to wildly different projections of how much revenue states are missing out on. On the low end, a U.S. Government Accountability Office report estimated that state and local governments could gain between $8 billion and $13 billion in additional annual revenue from online sales taxes. The National Conference of State Legislatures, however, pegs that figure at around $23 billion a year.

That amount over all the states? That’s not a whole lot of money.

The next month and a half will also be a crucial technological test of whether state websites can handle the increased traffic both from businesses’ software accessing sales tax rates to complete transactions, and from businesses remitting their sales taxes. “The uptick,” Maniace says, “will be enormous.”

Oh jeez, I’m flashing back to 2013 and the Obamacare exchanges coming online. This should be amusing.

The states that have yet to start collecting online taxes from out-of-state retailers have the most to gain — but many won’t this season. One-third of the country’s population still isn’t subject to out-of-state seller taxes because California, Florida, New York and Texas have yet to enact a rule or law doing so. While proposals have been floated in most of these states, Maniace says, the next few months could help shape these states’ approach.

Well, most of the online places I buy from have NY locations, so I’ve been paying NY sales tax on online purchases for decades.

Dammit.

TAXING THE ROYALS FROM THE REBEL COLONIES

This is known: Royals face ‘tax nightmare’ as US officials use Meghan’s American citizenship to line up a raid on Harry’s multi-million pound fortune

The Royal Family faces a tax ‘nightmare’ as US officials examine whether Meghan and Harry owe them a slice of their multi-million pound fortune, according to reports.

The Duchess of Sussex is still an American citizen so has to pay tax in the US, and this could extend to anyone else she draws money from, including her husband.

This could deplete both her $5million US fortune and Prince Harry’s main source of private wealth, a £300,000-a-year trust fund on which he pays UK income tax.

The probe could even extend to the Queen and Prince Charles as they provide funding for the couple, aides told the Sunday Express, which reported that the royals are set to employ a team of US financial consultants to deal with the issue.

Oh, pity the royals but don’t pity all the professionals getting their fees.

FWIW, Meghan can renounce her U.S. citizenship, but if I remember correctly, it takes up to 10 years for the tax liability to go completely away. That’ll learn the royals for picking up a spouse from one of those rebel lands.

Bambridge, who has offices in New York, London and Vancouver, explained: ‘Duchess or no duchess, when it comes to the IRS, Meghan is like every other American citizen.

‘Each year she must file her tax return and pay any tax she owes to Washington.

‘The US income tax system is citizenship-based, so as an American it doesn’t matter where in the world you live and work – your tax affairs are always Uncle Sam’s business.

‘Clearly Meghan’s case is a unique one, as she may be taxed according to the rental value of a home she lives in for free – Kensington Palace.

‘Working out the market rental value of a royal palace is not a task for the fainthearted.’

Really, we do the imputed income thing? Does that actually happen?

You can tell I am not an expert on individual income taxes… my area is taxation of insurance companies, and even there, I tend to look at only a small corner.

Here’s a piece on what’s involved in renouncing U.S. citizenship for tax purposes.

And stealing a line from somebody else:

British Crown declares independence from “tyrannical” US over “taxation without representation” issue.

Of course, if Meghan is still a U.S. citizen, she can vote by absentee, so … oh well.

TAX-NARCING THE WHORES

Or something.

A couple of my facebook friends have been on about this, so FINE, I’m including it in Taxing Tuesday.

Also, because “sex workers” are involved, there are going to be multiple angles to this. I am not going to even guess which are the closest to the truth about people’s motives.

Fed-Up Gamers Report Intrusive Sex Workers to the IRS for Tax Evasion

Just when you thought it would be impossible to top the return of 4chan’s “He Will Not Divide Us” live-action game of capture the flag with Shia LaBeouf, they’ve found a new hobby: Reporting tax fraud by THOTs to the IRS.

A Reddit user shared an example text message from one of these women trying to trap a man into sending her money:

….
For the newspeak uninitiated, THOT is an acronym for “That Ho Over There,” usually used to refer to loose women.

FWIW, like the normal usage of “ho”, “strumpet”, “bitch”, and “driggle-draggle” it can also refer to a woman a man finds sexually attractive who won’t put out for him (though will for other folks.)

It seems that THOTs on Snapchat and other platforms are using PayPal to charge men to see “premium snaps,” which are nudes or pornography. It’s also possible that these ladies of social media are not reporting their earnings to the IRS. In an effort that can only be described as hilarious, the anons at 4chan have launched a full-scale war on THOTs across all platforms. Women who fish for lonely and susceptible beta boys are the bane of many gamers, whose platforms are being taken over by the sex trollers. These women solicit in male-dominated platforms and many of the men who use the platforms are sick of it.

Or maybe they just want the wares for free.

Let’s see another take.

People Are Threatening to Report Sex Workers to the IRS in #ThotAudit

By encouraging people to report sex workers to the IRS, online harassers are putting them at risk.

…. Yes, because those who work in the lofty realms of “sex work” have never been harassed. I mean, look, nobody pops up to trash talk my spreadsheets (though perhaps they should), but if I involved different types of sheets (and spreads) I would expect some untoward comment. It’s part of the profession as it were. In an adjacent example, if I were running book on cock-fighting, I would not get uppity about some untoward language. I would expect threats from the clientele.

But let’s see this version:

Misogynists online are threatening to send the Internal Revenue Service after sex workers, in a viral harassment campaign known as #thotaudit.

Many sex workers have “premium” Snapchat accounts, where they share exclusive photos and videos with people who send them money (usually through PayPal, Venmo, or a cryptocurrency.) Unless reported as income to the IRS, this income is off the books. Recently, trolls have begun harassing sex workers by saying they’re going to report them to the IRS, and many sex workers are worried that they’ll be audited.

I am supposed to worry about sex workers compared to all the other shady cash operators? Are you kidding me?

Anyway, pay your taxes ladies (and gents, for those sorts).

This harassment campaign seems to have originated last week, with a joke someone posted to Facebook about being audited for income made through a Snapchat account. From there, it was picked up by misogynists and trolls on Facebook and spread to Reddit and 4chan. It gained more traction on Twitter over the weekend, with the hashtag #thotaudit. As more people piled into the conversation to defend or degrade sex workers, it kept spreading.

Look, the guys who sold stereos on the street out of the back of vans… you know that biz was not on the up-and-up, right? They actually dealt in cash, as opposed to digital transactions that are traceable. Also, if you live a lifestyle much higher on the hog than your stated income would reflect… yes, get ready for an audit.

Whether people are actually going through the process of reporting sex workers to the IRS or not, they’re definitely using the threat to shame and intimidate, and boost their own social karma within toxic communities. That doesn’t make it less dangerous. Outing a sex worker is a serious threat to their lives and livelihoods, as is the psychological toll of being harassed in this way.

Too bad that they’re in a biz that depends on LOOKS, which makes it easy to ID people.

At least if I started doing an under-the-table financial analysis business, building cash flow models on the sly and being paid only in bitcoin… people may never have to know who I am (except for the meta data in the files, which I would have to strip).

In any case, people not in the “adult entertainment biz” also get audited. Perhaps one should ask Donald Trump about how scary it is. Hire a tax lawyer, kiddo.

And after we get two takes, here’s a bunch more. Enjoy.

I love how Newsweek (the last link) has turned into Buzzfeed.

Also, has free porn disappeared? I have no idea. I assume there’s a bunch of unpaid amateurs out there, some of whom may even be appealing.

Oh, and this last bit:

Reason mag: The #ThotAudit Is Deeply, Painfully Stupid

Over the long weekend, a vigilante gang of keyboard warriors launched a campaign to report random internet strangers to the IRS for tax evasion, using the hashtag #thotaudit. The snitch crusade is ostensibly geared at making sure that hot women aren’t making money off their hotness without giving the government a cut.

Now, see, there is a completely above board way one can make money off one’s (fleeting) hotness without having to pay more in taxes — indeed, one may see a tax cut. Get married to a highly-paid man. It’s a wonder nobody else has ever thought of this.

Otherwise, look, you’re providing a service that’s taxable, just like all the other people who are running cash businesses and trying to lowball their tax bill.

And this bit isn’t quite right, but is somewhat correct:

Then, even if they did have all the correct information, there’s little likelihood that the IRS would care. The page specifically notes that it’s interested in situations involving “a significant Federal tax issue“—i.e., not someone making a few hundred unreported dollars per year selling used underwear and butt selfies. As dominatrix Mistress Matisse put it: “Dudes, they want Donald Trump, they don’t want camgirls.”

Well, that’s not exactly true. They go after low income folks getting the Earned Income Tax Credit, quite a bit: a story on an EITC-related audit. To be sure, the IRS doesn’t do these EITC audits based on citizen squealers, but their own automatic flagging. More on EITC audits.

The IRS is unlikely to follow up just some rando saying “Hey! This person has an etsy shop they’re not paying taxes on!”

But here’s something helpful: What Cash Businesses Can Do to Avoid IRS Audits.

I’ve done some side consulting back in the day that netted me a few hundred dollars, and I reported it (sometimes people sent me 1099s, many times not). It’s not a big deal. Just report your income as “online services”. There are digital transactions going on, so you may as well report it. It’s not like you can’t easily look up how many transactions you have and for how much.

Besides, don’t you want to be paying FICA? You should be earning some SocSec earnings credits on your premium pics!

TAXING STORIES

TAX TWEETS



Oh, and I would like to horn in here about the GM bailout back in 2008 or whatever. I mean, the bailout of the pension funds.


Hmmm, sounds like a talking point has gone out. I wonder how long this one will last.





(Sorry, I can’t help myself. There’s nothing special about camgirls for cash compared to other cash businesses)


That is correct. It’s just the exclusion amount is so high now, the people who have that sort of assets can afford to do some frickin estate planning.



Okay, I’m finding this very funny.





Seriously, nothing stopping you from reporting your income. It’s not difficult. TurboTax even has special small business owner versions.

Oh, and don’t forget those internet sales taxes. Hey, a photo is a good… gotta pay those sales taxes.


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