Telecommute Tax Relief Gathers Steam 339
coondoggie writes to tell us NetworkWorld is reporting that backers of new telecommuter friendly tax legislation have high hopes that this might be the year that it sticks. From the article: " If passed, the Telecommuter Tax Fairness Act would prevent states from taxing income that nonresidents who telecommute to an in-state employer earn while working from home. The legislation is aimed in particular at New York, which is legendary for its stance on nonresident teleworkers. It requires those who sometimes work in the office of their New York employers to pay state taxes -- not only on the income they earn while physically in New York, but also on the income they earn at home. This often results in a double tax when the telecommuter's home state expects tax on the income the telecommuter earns at home."
It'll never pass (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It'll never pass (Score:3, Funny)
Considering all of those telecommuters in India!
Re:It'll never pass (Score:2)
Re:It'll never pass (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It'll never pass (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It'll never pass (Score:3, Interesting)
Not good for big business? Exactly what is the biggest expense that business has to pay in the United States?
Answer: Salary
So please, raise your hand with me if you would be willing to be PAID LESS if you could WORK FROM HOME?
Re:It'll never pass (Score:2)
You have to wonder. The GOP was all hot and bothered about eliminating the capital gains tax which they referred to as "double taxation." Will they fight for relief of this tax which really is double taxation?
The main difference between the two: Rich guys get capital gains while average folks telecommute.
I think the GOP has a chance to show what kind of a party they really are. I
Re:It'll never pass (Score:4, Interesting)
That means that when they take more money than they were entitled to out of my paycheck, they get to use it for a year without paying me for the privilege. Then when I catch them at it and they return it to me, the next year they say are suddenly entitled to a piece of something they weren't entitled to before?
So the government gets a one-year interest-free loan from me, then loans it back to me for a year, and then charges me interest on that!
At least I don't have to telecommute and have to deal with double-taxation from two states. I live close enough to my workplace that I could walk, even in Winter.
Re:It'll never pass (Score:4, Insightful)
WTF state are you in? And why haven't you sued them yet for equity? And why aren't there bloody mobs with bloody pitchforks storming the capitol? Though I believe you if you say so, I find this almost hard to believe. Boiling a frog with slowly rising taxes is one thing. Stabbing them in the eye with a skewer is something else entirely.
State Tax Refund Tax (Score:3, Informative)
The state tax refund is treated as "additional" income because it wasn't taxed to begin with. It's withheld from your net paycheck and, therefore, not taxed as income at that time. When you get it back via refund, it goes back in the "taxable income" column and is then taxed - after the fact.
The feds do the same thing, in case you haven't noticed. You're supposed to declare any state tax refunds on your federal return.
In all cases, the one-year-free-loan is accurat
Re:It'll never pass. Huh? (Score:4, Interesting)
Are you saying big business wants to pay a 50% premium on consulting services?
Re:It'll never pass. Huh? (Score:4, Funny)
You can post on Slashdot in your bunny slippers? Who knew!
Re:It'll never pass. Huh? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:It'll never pass (Score:2)
Re:It'll never pass (Score:2)
not using infrastructure (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:not using infrastructure (Score:2)
If a company wants to have a NYC address, they can have that NYC address: and they should pay real e
Re:not using infrastructure (Score:3, Interesting)
What I'm saying is that the very fact that your employer can employ you at all has at least something to do with taxes at its location. Businesses don't choose NYC for its cleanliness or safety. They choose NYC because it is a great place to do business. That's because of the infrastructure that taxation of wages at least partially provides. So your taxes are bolstering the infrastructure that makes your job possible. (Not that I feel in
Re:not using infrastructure (Score:4, Insightful)
I may have eaten a Georgia peach, a Florida Tangerine, a Texas Grapefruit and a California orange today. Not to mention the Oklahoma oil and a car from Michigan. So I guess that one could argue that I'm using those states' resources, too, but please don't. I really don't want to pay state income tax to 48 states I don't work in whose "resources" I indirectly use.
Re:not using infrastructure (Score:3, Interesting)
How could they make you pay it anyway? (Score:4, Interesting)
What if my local employer opens a branch office in NYC. Do I owe NY taxes then, even though I don't work there? What if I do some remote administration for that office? What if they're connected via VPN and I occasionally browse fileservers on their LAN? At what point do I cross the line where they mistakenly think I should pay them something?
I'm glad to see this legislation go through, even though I think it's incredibly stupid that there's a need for it.
Re:How could they make you pay it anyway? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:How could they make you pay it anyway? (Score:2)
Should it ever come up, remind me to get a local judgement against Bloomberg for some fictional fee.
As far as how your "locale" is determined - that's up to your employer.
OK, then. Is there any incentive for your employer to list you as a NY employee?
Re:How could they make you pay it anyway? (Score:2)
Their offices are in New York, they file taxes in New York, the servers you're telecomuting are in New York, and they don't have any other offices?
A better question is: "Why don't more buisnesses move out of New York?"
Re:How could they make you pay it anyway? (Score:2)
Financial capital of the world?
Besides, they don't give a shit how you and I get taxed.
Re:How could they make you pay it anyway? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:How could they make you pay it anyway? (Score:2)
If you are selling your stuff to businesses you need to shcmooze with them. You need to be able to meet at the ultra chic bar or restaurant to wine and dine the CEO. When you get together you need to be able to talk to him/her in a common vernacular about shared experiences. You can't just pop on
Re: (Score:2)
Re:How could they make you pay it anyway? (Score:3, Informative)
The scary part is that many of the upstate residents think their taxes are perfectly reasonable. My father-in-law thinks it's awful that I have to pay for garbage pickup, since the city of Buffalo provides his for free. Never mind that he's paying twice the taxes on half the house that I am; that extra $25
Re:How could they make you pay it anyway? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:How could they make you pay it anyway? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:How could they make you pay it anyway? (Score:2)
Inertia. I telecommute full time from Florida (and previously from England) to California. My employer kept reporting my income as CA income. I don't think there's any definite policy on it, though. I wasn't able to get a straight answer from anybody I talked to, and the wording of the tax pubs all lean towards reporting income as CA income. So it was up to me to convince them my income shouldn't be taxable by CA since
Re:How could they make you pay it anyway? (Score:2)
2) If you are employed by a NYS company and you live in a state that doesn't have an office, then you could get taxed if you enter the state on business (You can enter for pleasure).
3) If you are employed outside NYS by a NYS company, and you have an office in your state that you goto, then you don't pay NYS taxes.
I think on point #2, if you are an at-will out of state employee, your living out of state becuase you want to, then you h
Re:How could they make you pay it anyway? (Score:3, Insightful)
If you never work from the NY office, you're not a NY employee. Remote admin doesn't apply, you have to be phyisically present at NY base of operations for your
Heh (Score:5, Insightful)
Darn that Bush. I always knew he was conspiring with the oil companies!
Much larger problem (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Much larger problem (Score:2)
Re:Much larger problem (Score:4, Informative)
You get a tax credit from your home state for taxes paid in the state you work in. Or the other way around.
If it didn't work that way, there would've been a revolt long, long time ago already.
Wow, it's about time. (Score:3, Interesting)
NY has always been a problem with taxing non-residents... whether they telecommute or not.
I used to work in NYC while living in NJ. Even with going in to the office on a daily basis, NY wanted me to report all income (interest, dividends, side job not in NY, etc), then calculate the tax on that, using the non-resident scale, then multiply it by the percentage of my total income earned in NY. Net result is that I had to pay more in taxes instead of paying based solely on money earned in NY.
That only makes sense (Score:2)
Re:That only makes sense (Score:3, Insightful)
As you can see, taxing you based on your total income is the only way to ensure that you're paying the same amount in tax as someone who earns the same amount in one state.
You're missing the point. Income wholly in one state shouldn't affect the other state's tax revenue. NYC has no claim on income in NJ just because I also work in NYC some of the time.
No help for NJ residents (Score:5, Informative)
Sucks anyway for me, since NY state tax is approximately 2.5-3 times the NJ tax, and I derive very little benefit from the NY taxes I pay. But, for telecommuters who sometimes have to work in NY -- nice deal. Makes me want to telecommute and pay the NJ tax rate when I'm working from home.
A scenario though -- if an employer has a telecommuting employee in another state, do they need to pay employment taxes in that state? My company has satellite offices in other states, and legally it's a bit of a pain. Would a company have to file also as a NJ employer if their telecommuting employees were treated as working in NJ while telecommuting?
Re:No help for NJ residents (Score:2)
Re:No help for NJ residents (Score:2)
Of course, NJ and my municipality make a metric buttload of cash off me from sales tax and real estate tax, respectively --
Re: No help for NJ residents (Score:2)
2) The business would probably have to establish a place of business in NJ (which probably couldn't be your house). Or, if your company really liked you, you could establish an LLC in NJ and consult. You'd save ALOT more than just state taxes that way.
Re: No help for NJ residents (Score:2)
As to 2), LLC not gonna happen -- I've tried
And as to setting up a NJ Franchise, that's the legal PITA I was referring to. We already do it for CA, CT, and MA. CA is the worst, we pay CA Franchise Tax up the wazoo for only two employees -- let alone what they pay in income tax.
Re: No help for NJ residents (Score:2)
Re:No help for NJ residents (Score:2)
You work in NY. So you're using NY services when in NY. If you get hurt you'll probably go to a NY hospital by the fire department or city ambulance. You probably take public transportation to get to work, which is partly subsidized by the city. Or you drive on NY roads. You're protected by NY police. Taxes may be high, but you do get significant benefits from them.
state tax reciprocity (Score:4, Informative)
I am pretty sure that Connecticut is the only state that doesn't have reciprocity for state taxes. IOW, in most states, you can deduct state taxes paid to another state so you don't get double whacked. This is useful for people who live on state borders. Of course, you accountant makes out better.check with your accountant.
The people who really get screwed are those that don't pay any state tax.
When in New York... (Score:2)
That's a penalty to an employer and employee who sets up shop in NYC - just deal with it. Or leave.
So, if the employer really liked you and wanted to support telecommuting, they'd just setup a satellite office in NJ or Connecticut and host a few servers there so that could be your main location. So bl
Fairness? (Score:2, Interesting)
Why not just go all the way [fairtax.org] and not tax income?
The way to fix this is simple... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The way to fix this is simple... (Score:2)
Amazing. A national federal sales tax is supposed to eliminate State (i.e. non-federal) income taxes? The issue in TFA is double taxation by two different States, not the Federal government taxing someone twice.
Re:The way to fix this is simple... (Score:3, Insightful)
You have to make a special case for the poor, because that's where everyone looks first, but it just has to SOUND like it will help them... it can actually increase the burden on most of them even more than the current situation, as almost nobody will check the numbers, or ask for specifics.
But you don't have any such restriction on the middle class. Everyone's worried about the
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
What about representation (Score:2)
Taxation is for the birds. (Score:4, Interesting)
The people of a nation collectively put together a pile of money in order to do useful things which everybody agrees they need. Right? Building roads and water supply systems, police agencies, hospitals etc.
But then. .
Who gets elected? Why, the people who are cut-throat and unfair in their methods. The ones who lie the best. --The ones who are drawn to power!
Why do they win? Because they use all the normal tools to get elected which good people have, PLUS they also use lies and underhanded manipulations. They win over good-hearted people because good-hearted people limit themselves to only using above-board tactics. And so, with limited tool-boxes, the good guys tend to lose more often than the criminals, who arm themselves, not just with above-board tactics like posters and election promises, but also with wonky voting machines and hate-based propaganda about how they will punish, 'welfare moms'. (Which make up a microscopic fraction of the public spending in even the most socialist of nations). But Hate and Dark Side emotions are much easier to kindle in a voting public than rational thought. And anybody who is above hate will lose their vote anyway to a fixed voting machine. And if that doesn't work, the state-owned media will just lie about who won. Or they'll just kill the honest politicians in plane crashes. One way or another, the Dark Side wins time and again. The good guys don't stand a chance once the bad guys get in and own the game board!
So these greedy, morally bankrupt politicians and their industry-owning friends realize, "Hey! Check it out. With my brother-in-law in office, I can get all kinds of policies passed which entitle me to a big slice of that nice juicy public cash pie without my actually having to earn it! People are plenty stupid, they'll believe any old lie, and we just have to organize it so that the state has all the guns. Keen! I can live high and never have to put in a real day of work ever again!"
And so it goes.
But. .
Because the greedy are greedy, they never feel like they have enough, and so the taxes rise, and the hidden taxes, (such as oil and energy), rise. And they cut away at the actual things a nation would probably want, like education funds and medical care. (You just trick the people through massive propaganda into believing that such things are bad for them. Sounds insane, but look around you.) With social spending cut, there's more money for the greedy politician and his friends and family.
But somehow. . , even with the billions flowing into the politician's family coffers, it's still not enough. This is because greed is NOT good. Greed is a disease! --And so the greedy looked around to find new ways to make even more money, and they realized that it was advantageous to them if the other nations of the world never achieved first-world status. Cheep, 1-cent an hour labor is a great way to get and stay rich! --So they use the secret-service agencies to subvert and de-stabalize nations on the brink of industrial success. This is done through funding coups of legitimate foriegn leaders and channeling heavy narcotics trade through those nations. Drug corridor nations quickly become user nations. (The Opium War in China was a good example of how drugs were used to destroy a nation's growth momentum.)
But high taxes and hidden taxes and entire slave nations are still are not enough for the greedy. Nope. --So they start wars, filling the people with fear, all to ensure that the people are too afraid to think rationally and otherwise recognize that they are being abused by their own government. --Plus, the weapons sales are another excellent way to cut into that nice juicy public cash pie!
So what percentage of your tax dollars do you think are being spent on things the collective public actually wanted in the first place? 30 percent? 20 percent? I'm willing to bet it's even less.
So what do you do about it?
Well, you can't
Point - Counterpoint (Score:3, Insightful)
(Pardon me while I play point/counter-point with myself)
Are you suggesting violence? Well, that's stupid. It's a good way to create a lot of misery and chaos. --In particular, it's a good way to give the administration an excuse to let loose with its big guns and really enact a lock-down. Sorry, but you don't have enough fire-power to contest the government. Have you not read your Machiavelli? He described the very tactic; essentially, political judo with guns. You don't
Re:Taxation is for the birds. (Score:3, Informative)
I doubt this will end up as a good thing (Score:3, Insightful)
I hear you when you say that why should I pay if I don't live there or if I don't go there to an office. But your clients do live there or work there and they are there because of the huge investment in tax dollars to make NYC a place for you to find clients. Otherwise you'd just find local clients. So it's reasonable to ask for you to pitch into that community effort. I think we just need to come up with a better way to measure that 'pitch in' amount and make sure it's directly tied to your direct benefit and not to pork projects in upstate NY that primarily benefit politicians trying to hold on to thier positions.
My feeling is that this is just another wedge issue, like the marriage penalty tax, that certain people in Washington will use to push through more tax cuts for the wealthy or for corporations. We will get our commuter tax 'relief' but 100 times more in tax breaks to people with enough already will be attached to it.
Personally I think all taxes are too high, but I am wary of people in washington with an agenda riding my annoyance to push through things I am not in favor of.
Not much of a concern. (Score:2)
I doubt very much that spammers pay taxes anyway. Unless you count the bribes they're probably paying to the Russian mob as "taxes."
Re:taxation without borders (Score:2)
Re:taxation without borders (Score:2)
Re:Free Lunch (Score:2)
Re:Free Lunch (Score:2)
Here's a good test for sarcasm: take the communication at face value. Is a response ridiculous? If not, it's safe to assume you're not dealing with sarcasm.
Re:Free Lunch (Score:2)
*sigh* (Score:2)
If only.
Re:Free Lunch (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't tell whether or not you're joking.
I'm sorry, but if I'm telecommuting into an "office" in NYC, I'm using zero services from the City of New York, that are not already being paid for by my employer there.
If I keel over at my desk onto my "virtual office," NYC isn't going to pay for the ambulance to come pick me up. When I flush the toilet, it's not NYC's sewage system that the waste is going to go into. The only reason I'm commuting to NYC at all is because there are (presumably) other people there that I want to communicate with -- after all, "telecommuting" is just a fancy word for communicate -- and those people pay taxes. So NYC is still getting their cut for the value they're providing.
This whole argument is ridiculous. What happens if a person in New York and a person in Des Moines have a discussion over a forum or Wiki, that's on a server in a colo in San Francisco. Should both people pay tax in SF? They're "working" there (they may not know it), aren't they? Oh wait, SF has already been paid -- by the company that runs the colo facility. Likewise, if I "telecommute" into NYC, whoever I'm commuting in to see is paying taxes.
New York City isn't doing anything to make itself a "great place to work virtually," they just happen to have a lot of people living there. Those people live there and pay taxes, but there's no reason why people not physically residing there should.
Your argument fails to make any sense.
In my mind, the problem here is why companies that have telecommuting employees insist on keeping them based, on paper, in NYC. If the guy works form his house in Jersey, put that down as his work location. If he works from the North Pole, put that down on his W-2. I've done remote-work jobs, and I've never used the location I'm calling-in to as my work location: I use whatever piece of ground I'm sitting on while I'm doing the work.
Computer do a lot of things, but they do not allow you to physically be in two places at the same time. All of this "tele-work" stuff just confuses the issue, which is inherently just a person sitting somewhere, in front of a computer and a telephone, talking to some other people, in a different place. There's no reason why this should be difficult to figure out.
Re:Free Lunch (Score:2)
The problem is generally when people actually do work in the office from
Re:Free Lunch (Score:2)
Here's an interesting tidbit about New Jersey and New York income taxes
Re:Free Lunch (Score:2)
Re:Free Lunch (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Free Lunch (Score:2)
In other words you might not have this job if your company wasn't located in NY.
Re:Free Lunch (Score:2)
That's a good reason for the business that employs you to pay tax
Re:Free Lunch (Score:2)
Re:Free Lunch (Score:2)
As someone who lives in Chicago, telecommutes to support a development office in California, for a company headquartered in Texas, how many state's income taxes should I be paying?
(Actual answer: I pay Illinois income taxes.)
Re:Free Lunch (Score:2)
I don't think that the telecommuter should pay for all the redundant services delivered in multiple places. In fact, it's long been clear to me that the most appropriate tax is sales tax, with true necessities excluded - and labor included (instead of income tax).
In t
Re:Free Lunch (Score:3, Interesting)
I telecommute from suburban Philadelphia to ... well, thats a good question. My employer has an office in NYC that is home to about 6 people, but it also has an office in LA and Nashville, as well as London, Paris, Berlin and Tokyo. Even if I used my company's computing equipment (I don't), it would be hard to pin point exactly what is special about the NYC office o
Re:Free Lunch (Score:5, Funny)
How should NYC pay for the costs of legislating, policing, and judging the protections of the workers while they're telecommunting to NYC businesses?
Ever been mugged on your vpn?
Re:Free Lunch (Score:2)
Re:Free Lunch (Score:2)
The taxes from the NYC-based ISP.
Re:Free Lunch (Score:2)
Remember, corporations don't pay as much taxes as they consume in services already. Especially in cities like NYC which have cut taxes and made deals, supposedly to keep companies from leaving for places like New Jersey which don't charge taxes - or of
Re:Free Lunch (Score:2)
Until Elliot Spitzer showed up, its hard to argue that NY or NYC offered services above or beyond those present in Jersey City on the other side of the Hudson. Telecommuting isn't suitable for positions where people make things using industrial infrastructure as offered by major cities and ports. Telecommuters use networking facilities that were (unfortunately, from many perspectives) built and maintained by private corporations (admittedly under city-granted monopoly conditions). Its hard to argue that a
Re:Free Lunch (Score:2)
Its hard to argue that a telecommuter who works from her home on 5th Avenue in NYC is using any more or less city/state/federal services for her work than one who works across the water in Hoboken.
It's pretty eaasy, actually - the telecommuter is using network resources, which are private, and server resources, which are in real estate taxed by the city. They aren't using the roads, trains, or utilities.
Re:Free Lunch (Score:2)
You mean to tell me that where you live, if you change the price you charge for your services then you can expect to hear from Consumer Affairs, the cops, the AG, and other government offices?
I think I've identified the disconnect between our logic: You've been living around
Re:Free Lunch (Score:2)
Oh, I don't know, how about the company?
Re:Free Lunch (Score:2)
How can you miss that?
Those people are also responsible for more than their proportional share of action by government, especially legal action.
Maybe you think there's such a thing as a free lunch, like the people trying to drown government in a bathtub.
Re:Free Lunch (Score:2)
And in pretend-land, where law enforcement actually does something about computer crime, well, the ISP has employees in NY paying for it.
Re:Free Lunch (Score:2)
Here in realitytown, we know that the extra demand on the ISP placed by its customers makes extra work for the legal services. And that the ISP is even more likely to have telecommuters.
Which part of pretend-land do you live in? The part where there's always someone else to pay the tab, so t
Re:Free Lunch (Score:2)
Re:New York Sucks! (Score:4, Funny)
Stay in New York, New Yahkuhs.
It probably won't surprise you in the least when I say.... Up yours!
Re:Why Does Anyone Base Their Company In New York? (Score:3, Insightful)
Businesses choose NYC for lots of reasons, some of which are:
1) Lots of other businesses are there. That makes doing business more efficient, since most of it is done face to face.
2) NYSE, and other cornerstones of the financial world are located in NYC
3) Vast numbers of people to employ
4) Several world-class Universities are located in NYC or its environs, so there is no shortage of brain-power
All of t
Re:Why Does Anyone Base Their Company In New York? (Score:2)
Not only that, the Met Life building will soon be converted into condominium apartments.
Re:Taxation without representation (Score:2)
If that
Re:Taxation without representation (Score:2)
I'm guessing the reasoning goes like this: you have the choice to do your business in another state if you don't like what happens when you go out of your current state of residence and earn money in that otherstate (NY). For example, you could telecommute and occasionally make a trip to Delaware, and have none of that tax liability. Or Nevada. But you're choosing to make money in NY, and
Give it up (Score:2)
Re:Whatever happened to no taxation (Score:2)
Re:Whatever happened to no taxation (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, but Washington DC wasn't supposed to be a city in the conventional sense. It was supposed to be the seat of Federal government, period. The only people supposed to be living there would be Federal employees who weren't supposed to have a direct say in their own authority.
Re:Its not exactly how it sounds... (Score:2)
This is the real problem...when you work and live in different states you end up paying taxes on whichever state charges the highest taxes.