Thanks Obamacare!
I just got the first year bill from my payroll company for the extra reporting we have to do each year vis a vis Obamacare: $7195.50 for 2015. Note that this adds absolutely no value -- this is not the cost of insurance or cost of any extra taxes sent to Uncle Sam. This is merely the cost to handle all the new paperwork required in the law.
I will repeat what I have said before -- the Republicans tend to focus narrowly on taxes and often tend to miss or downplay the regulatory issues, which I think actually loom larger in destroying economic growth.
mesaeconoguy:
This is what happens when an economically illiterate electorate elects people who have zero background and information about running a business.
September 14, 2015, 3:26 pmAnn_In_Illinois:
You're absolutely right that we should focus more on these 'hidden taxes'. As you said, they're often pure dead-weight loss. They don't get as much emphasis in part because they're harder to measure.
September 14, 2015, 5:13 pmjoe:
One provision in Obamacare that was subsequently repealed (see Repubs and dems can work together to improve Obumacare) was the onerous 1099 filing requirement for virtually all purchases of goods and services.
September 14, 2015, 5:41 pmmlhouse:
The problem is that the majority of people do not own businesses and they do not confront these regulations in their life. They do encounter, for the most part, taxes. They can understand taxes.
WHat I find "humorous" is that the government creates deadlines for many of these regulations and reporting requirments, but they can never get their act together before the deadline to create the forms and processes for actually doing the reporting. They often come up with the actual rules months after the deadline, leaving the intended reporters completely in the dark.
If course, what this creates is essentially the cronyism that has some people in the know. THe only way you can even come close to compliance is to hire "experts". Hence the $7,000 bill.
September 14, 2015, 6:45 pmherdgadfly:
. . . the Republicans tend to focus narrowly on taxes and often tend to miss or downplay the regulatory issues . . .
WTF - not a single Republican voted for Obamacare! And the Attorneys General from GOP-controlled states tried twice to get the SCOTUS to do-in the illegal legislation. No Obamacare, no excess regulation.
September 14, 2015, 9:30 pmMondak:
I see economic growth. There is a broken window that your payroll company got to fix.
September 14, 2015, 11:11 pmvikingvista:
"Republicans tend to focus narrowly on taxes"
What decade are you living in? A focus on taxes would be a iimprovement. It seems all that Republicans care about these days is rounding up migrants, building a Great Wall of Mexico, waging war in godforsaken lands, or saving "the definition of marriage".Reduce taxes? They are too busy dreaming of waging war and imposing various forms of prohibition.
September 15, 2015, 5:06 amalanstorm:
"The problem is that the majority of people do not own businesses and they do not confront these regulations in their life."
Which is the statist's intent. Don't crack down on the people directly (they might see what's going on and rebel), use the fascist formula of nominal private ownership, with government dictating the direction.
September 15, 2015, 6:44 amMatthew Slyfield:
"No Obamacare, no excess regulation."
ROTFLMAO.
excessive regulation was around long before Obamacare.
September 15, 2015, 6:54 amano333:
But think of all the extra jobs the payroll company is creating!!!1!
I jest...I jest...
September 15, 2015, 9:55 amkidmugsy:
"the Republicans tend to focus narrowly on taxes and often tend to miss or downplay the regulatory issues": that sounds like the common managerialist flaw of focusing on what is easily measured or counted.
September 15, 2015, 12:39 pmmesocyclone:
This Republican reads many, many articles and assertions by Republicans to do something about over-regulation. Coyote, you consistently stereotype Republicans as what you believe we are, rather than what we really are.
September 15, 2015, 7:01 pmDaveK:
Hey! If you think Obamacare is expensive now, just wait until it's free!
September 15, 2015, 7:58 pmherdgadfly:
But taking control of 1/6th of the US economy resulted in a monstrous increase in regulation of anything and everything involving healthcare, death-care, doctor care and I-don't-care whatever else.
September 16, 2015, 9:09 pmMatthew Slyfield:
True, but excessive regulation still predates it. Think about that for a while.
September 16, 2015, 10:35 pmbittman:
Just think of the cost of all of those government employees who have to be paid for writing the regulations requiring the paperwork, having to review the paperwork, and having to audit the companies filing the paperwork. Of course, they will begin writing and implementing new regulations and paperwork about the time all of the people in private industry become familiar with the paperwork and reporting requirements!
September 17, 2015, 1:42 pmsizemoretom17@yahoo.com:
The best way to get a revolution going is to stop taking taxes out of the paychecks that employees receive.
September 19, 2015, 7:34 amGive them the full value that they have earned and then every month they would need to write a check to the various agencies that
skim off their income. let them deal with the Socialism that is creeping into their lives, which they do not see happening.
Because most people Demorats and republitards only see NET when they look at what they have to put in the bank each pay period.
If they were forced to write a check each month to the fed;.the state. social security. ETC, and what ever their state county city imposes for them to work in said county city. there would be a lynching somewhere
And every HR department would be laughing at the udder shock these clueless employees would then be forced to deal with
bannedforselfcensorship:
Rand Paul has a tax proposal, does not want war, is okay with gay marriage, kinda, and is not anti-immigrant.
Republican party has quite a big tent, but in general you are right: not much talk, even less action.
BTW, its also interesting to note that Democrats occasionally make noises about tax reform, but the same result.
I think the tax system serves the elite well, so they have no real wish to change it.
September 19, 2015, 12:28 pmbannedforselfcensorship:
I have an idea for how to fix this.
Congressmen serve 2 years in Congress, but they only meet every other year. For the off year, Congressmen are randomly assigned a small business in their district and are responsible for all compliance work for that year - personally responsible, signing off on it.
I bet you get a lot of reforms then.
September 19, 2015, 12:30 pmmlhouse:
I understand what you are saying and I wish voters would make those considerations before they cast their ballots. However, they don't.
I personally do not favor any form of term limit because that reduces the freedom that a citizen has in its most fundamental form.
September 19, 2015, 6:54 pmHRIT:
That was an incredible relief.
September 22, 2015, 4:48 pmmarkm:
That's why Congress made doing so illegal in most cases.
AFAIK, for the usual hourly or salaried employee, that happened in the middle of WWII, at the same time income tax withholding was established - and that was a plan to collect two years of taxes in one year. Income tax had always been paid the next year when the forms were filed. (Originally only 1% of the people had a high enough income to need to file, but that soon changed.) So in 1943, you not only had to pay your 1942 taxes, but your employer was required to take your estimated 1943 taxes out of your paychecks. Then it became impossible to end withholding because that would be a year without income tax receipts.
They got away with it because most men who hadn't been drafted were working massive amounts of overtime and even after taxes earning the biggest paychecks of their lives (with nothing to spend it on except war bonds), and because when someone _did_ figure it out, well, it was needed for the War.
September 23, 2015, 7:29 pm