Posted on 09/05/2014 7:00:18 AM PDT by SoFloFreeper
When I was contemplating where I might want to practice after law school, I was struck by the description of one particular firm in Philadelphia with a thriving tax practice. A former partner warned me off, explaining that they brought lunch to your desk. After years of scratching together my own lunch, I thought that sounded pretty great so I asked what was so terrible about having your lunch brought to you.
“They do it,” she said simply, “Because they don’t want you to leave.”
....On August 26, 2014, the Department of Treasury released the 2014-2015 Priority Guidance Plan (downloads as a pdf) which raised the issue of employer-provided meals as one of 317 projects that are priorities for the upcoming year. The plan “represents projects we intend to work on actively during the plan year.”
In other words: the IRS is rethinking looking the other way when it comes to free meals. While the plan did not focus on how IRS specifically plans to evaluate the issue – nor did it establish any timeline – it’s likely that the agency will shift resources to consider how and whether to force companies to include “free” meals as compensation for employees.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
The libs at Google are going to get taxed big time for all of their extra goodies.
ya mean there IS No Free Lunch??
How is an employee meal any different?
Yeah, I believe they are coming after the taxes on what my employer pays for my insurance, and the beer they give me...
Taxing lunch, sounds like a boon for fast food workers...a boon for the unemployment line.
That’s nothing - Obama’s IRS is now considering taking your first-born male child and your left nut.
Carbon tax.
Tax our health benefits.
Obamacare
Forced EPA regs
Mandatory use of renewable energy sources.
etc
etc.
Kiss our middle class way of life good bye.
Perhaps they should tax free school breakfasts and lunches, food stamps, while they are at it.
I agree, those people need to learn to pay their fair share.
For most that means a couple thousand dollars added to their tax bill. A typical health care plan can be at least $10,000 a year. Tax that at 20 percent = $2000 to the feds. 30% = $3000. And that doesn't include the States cut.
Who has that kind of spare cash these days?
The first half is certainly true - that's why they want to control public school indoctrination.
I retired over twenty years ago and for years the IRS had been taxing lunches (and dinners) unless you were in overnight travel status.
The real tax money can be found in all taxing all those apartments and condos that the corporations provide (in NYC. et al) to their higher echelon people tax free. Hell I’d tax the expenses for all those minstrel and arty shows the POTUS hosts for his political donors and admirers.
This simply illustrates why it is silly and practically impossible to tax labor and production. Imagine instead a true, non-VAT, consumption tax - such as the proposed national retail sales tax - in thta case you don’t have to figure out what’s a cost to the company or a benefit to the employee (or both!) and how to tax the situation accordingly; in this particular case, since the lunch is a consumption good, whoever pays for the lunch also pays the tax, and that’s the end of it.
But such a scheme is opposed for selfish reasons - big-government types want to hide the true cost of taxation from the taxpayer, layered invisibly inside of prices and payroll deductions, and they also don’t want to lose all of the control over behavior they can make with the tax code. Others know how to game the system and don’t want their gravy train to dry up.
Employee meals are considered a taxable benefit. If you paid the employee more to cover the cost of the formerly free meal, the employee would be liable for taxes on it.
Where I start to get a little exercised is when the IRS starts threatening to tax my portion of business lunch paid for by my company. That’s only the beginning.
After that, they’ll want us to report the names and tax ID/SSN of each individual at the table, how much the cost of the meal was, and who ate and drank what.
Actually, this fits right in to the government keeping track of what you eat and drink.
It WILL be a nightmare.
Quick question -
what legislation passed through Congress to allow the IRS to tax something new, like lunches?
It’s not “new”, it’s just expanding/clarifying the existing definition of “benefits” and “compensation”. And frankly, they do seem to fit the definitions, it’s just more and more invasive creep to police the situation.
A boon for those making robots to replace fast food workers!
“How is an employee meal any different? “
It is a ‘benefit’ to the employee.
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