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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: SilentZ who wrote (222349)	3/6/2005 11:25:42 AM
From: i-node	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 1576349

Of course, this gets easier with computerization of the process. My company of 20 or so employees just has a CPA handle this and it takes him just a day or so every year. It has gotten easier with computerization -- but the burden is still huge. You underestimate the work it takes, however. With 20 employees, every time your employer makes payroll, he has to determine his tax liability and make a transfer of funds to cover it. Depending on the amount, that transfer must occur within a day, or within 3 days of the payroll. At the end of each quarter, he has to file form 941 reconciling every period's tax liability with the payments that were made. Depending on the state, he likely files a similar form for the state. In addition, he files some sort of reconcililation form with payment for your state unemployment tax. And if the accrued federal unemployment tax exceeds a certain amount (I believe it is now $500) he has to transfer those funds each quarter. Similarly, a quarterly state withholding report is usually required. Should any of these tax payments be delinquent or insufficient in amount, there are massive penalties. As a result, many employers are not able to risk a mistake and choose to have the CPA involved in this process, as well. At year end, all of the above must be done, but in addition, each employee must be provided with a W2, and the W2s along with a W3 must be filed with SSA. Similar reports must be filed for the state. To facilitate this process, every new employee must file a W4 with the employer, and update it as required. Employers are required to keep these records for at least 4 years. It gets worse. Should one of your employer's employees get behind on their taxes or child support (as happens), his wages may be garnished or levied. Employers are required to withhold money from the employee, account for, and pay over those funds to the federal government. Every payday. More that you don't see is that there are people on the other end of the process, as well. When form 941 is filed, someone has to key it into the computer at IRS. If any amount required to be paid is delinquent, a collection process is started -- it may result in a payment or it could proceed to issuing levy notices to banks, or even to seizing and selling property. In some cases, even employees of the company (who are deemed "responsible individuals") will have their property seized and sold. The number of W2/1099/K1 forms generated annually is in the billions, each of which must be incorporated into someone's tax return. Yes, most are computer generated, but the amount of handling these documents require is massive. And why would sales tax reporting be that much easier? You're kidding, right? Sales tax reporting requires a small fraction of the time payroll tax reporting requires. But it goes way beyond that. You do away with hundreds of millions of annual income tax returns (individuals, estates, trusts, corporations, partnerships). Instead of assessing and collecting tax against hundreds of millions of entities, you assess and collect tax on 1% that number -- essentially, retail businesses. In most states preparing a monthly sales tax return requires minutes -- not 30 minutes, but maybe 5. A federal return would be similar. More importantly, compliance is greatly increased. Because you're collecting taxes when people SPEND their money, you're going to get a share from pimps and drug dealers. More importantly, it becomes feasible to conduct audits of every sizable business (many states do this every 4 years for sizable businesses) because it is so much more straightforward (very little expense analysis is required). No it's not -- it's to put more money into the pockets of the executives and stockholders. So, when you install a NST, executives get a raise and stockholders get bigger dividends? You don't think the markets have a little something to do with this? LOL. Z, you would benefit from taking a couple of economics courses yourself. You might want to get out of the Blue States to do it, though LOL.