Adventures in Babysitting

J.Robert Smith has a good article at American Thinker on Republicans taking back the tax issue, and that is certainly true,  but there were two things in particular that stood out to me…

First, the current US tax code consists of almost 74,000 pages.  (What the…)

Second, on one of those pages can be found this. (paragraphs appear here in reverse order from the IRS code for the sake of continuity)

Babysitting.  If you babysit for relatives or neighborhood children, whether on a regular basis or only periodically, the rules for childcare providers apply to you.

Childcare providers.  If you provide childcare, either in the child’s home or in your home or other place of business, the pay you receive must be included in your income. If you are not an employee, you are probably self-employed and must include payments for your services on Schedule C (Form 1040), Profit or Loss From Business, or Schedule C-EZ (Form 1040), Net Profit From Business. You generally are not an employee unless you are subject to the will and control of the person who employs you as to what you are to do and how you are to do it.

(What the ² … )

“Affordable” Care Strikes Again – Spouses and Children Hit Hardest

Last week I reported on new rules released by the unelected bureaucrats at the IRS.  In the process of defining 'Affordable,' for the purpose of enforcing the Affordable Care Act (also known as Obama-Care), families that cannot “afford the employer coverage that they are offered on the job will not be able to get financial assistance from the government to buy private health insurance on their own.”

This week, the unelected bureaucrats at the Department of Health and (in)Human Services announced that as a result of their defining the meaning of affordable, for the purpose of enforcing the Affordable Care Act (also known as Obama-Care), they may not be able to subsidize the difference in costs between some individual and family plans.  If neither the employer nor the employee can afford to cover the difference, spouses and children would go uninsured.

Obama-Care  forces coverage that many Americans neither need or want.  That exposure drives up the risk and the price.  As the price rises the government becomes even less able to keep the promises it could have never kept in the first place.  And since the cost has already exploded well beyond their capacity to pay for it, the unelected bureaucrats are already busy cutting corners to put on a good show.

The Democrats, through Obama care, are creating the very thing they insisted they were going to fix, except that it will now cost exponentially more and the uninsured will not be victims of their own circumstances, they will be priced out or pushed out of the insurance market by the very legislation they were promised would guarantee them coverage.

So now that we know you will not get to keep your coverage, it might be a good time to ask if you still think you'll keep your doctor, or hospital, or even your job, as employers are forced to cut other costs to comply with the health care costs forced upon them by the state?

You might also want to consider if your benevolent masters, the ones who are arbitrarily kicking women and children off their health insurance, will also cut drug therapies, procedures, or any number of other things you might need to ensure your quality of life, because they happen to be too expensive, and as far as the state is concerned, you're not really worth it.

You are reading  "“Affordable” Care Strikes Again – Spouses and Children Hit Hardest"   by  Steve Mac Donald originally posted at GraniteGrok.com (Home)

Steve has been recognized as the Americans For Prosperity Blogger of the month for December 2012

Will Jeanne Shaheen Send The IRS After the NHCAA?

The NHCAA is the New Hampshire Citizens Alliance for Action.  They are a 501 (c)(4), and the political-action arm of the New Hampshire Citizen Alliance (NHCA). The NHCA is a 501(c)(3) and the local chapter of USA Action which, if it was in a vat and you scooped some out, would provide you with a frothing cup of primordial progressive/socialist poison.

I point this out (the 501 (c)(4) part at least) because according to a letter signed by New Hampshire's own Senator Shaheen, sent to the Internal Revenue Service, several Democrat Senators have expressed a concern about whether 501(c)(4) groups are engaging in any campaign activity which (according to the Senators) is expressly prohibited by their 501 (c)(4) status.

So how might this affect the NHCAA?   Well, the NHCAA is a 501(c)(4) that began filing reports with the FEC in October of 2010, specifically to canvass for then incumbent Democrat Congressional candidate Carol Shea Porter.   In fact all they ever appear to have done is canvass for Carol Shea Porter.  And according to Shaheen, that is against the law.

From the Shaheen signed letter to the IRS...

"...The promotion of social welfare does not include direct or indirect participation or intervention in political campaigns on behalf of or in opposition to any candidate for political office."

So is creating a PAC, then spending over $30,000.00 in the waning days of a losing campaign, "canvassing for just one Democrat candidate, sound like it might be "direct or indirect participation in a political campaign on behalf of a candidate for political office?"

According to FEC records, not only did the NHCAA rent office space to support Carol Shea Porter, by the time they filed their end of year report with the FEC the NHCAA had spent over $30,000.00 on supporting one candidate for political office.

Over at Open Secrets, they report on some 15,000 plus spent on communication costs and "coordinated" support of Democrat Carol Shea Porter.

And if that is not enough, in a letter dated August 15, 2011, to the FEC, New Hampshire Citizens Alliance for Action, clearing up what they assume is a "Housekeeping measure," state that.

"With respect to expenditures you have identified in your second letter, these expenses were administrative charges ancillary to the distribution of political flyers in the ten days prior to and including election day, with the vast bulk of expenses serving as administrative charges in support of canvassing on election day itself, November 3rd, 2010..."

So here's the rub, and there is plenty more of this red-meat by the way, like how--for whatever reason, the NHCAA never needed to register with the New Hampshire Secretary of State in 2010;  If it is acceptable for this particular 501 (c)(4) to participate in what is obviously..

"...direct or indirect participation or intervention in political campaigns on behalf of or in opposition to any candidate for political office."

...then it must be acceptable for groups that do not advocate her political views. 

Or...we must assume that Senator Shaheen is prepared to invite the IRS to the offices of the 501 (c)(4) New Hampshire Citizen Alliance for Action, to investigate their having spent tens of thousands, in a very short time, advocating for a single Democrat candidate from her home state.

We'll be watching.

Carol...On Helping Small Business

Carol’s good work keeps on rolling in like the smell of low tide on a salty breeze.  Maybe you recall that five ream masterpiece of brevity appropriately mislabeled as health care reform?  Well it came fully equipped with a manifold of other disasters buried inside, one of which was that anyone with business income will have to issue a 1099 for every entity with whom they spend $600.00 or more in goods and services in a calendar year.  And you thought the Health care Castration Bill wasted paper?

This creates several problems for small business the biggest of which is the regulatory burden of having to deal with all that extra paperwork.   It will take more time and cost more money just to comply with the rules ‘deemed’ by Section 9006 of Carol-Care.  That amounts to millions  more dollars in lost productivity on left wing busy work that Carol and her ilk have now released from America’s employment engine and diverted into the ice-rimmed, bottomless, suck-hole of the bureaucracy.

So how does that play against Carol's rhetoric?  Not well.

We need a business-friendly environment, but we also need a family-friendly environment.  New Hampshire has attracted many high-tech companies that offer well-paying jobs.  These companies, along with thousands of small businesses, are the engines of our state economy.  We must continue to provide an attractive business climate, both in New Hampshire and across the nation.  We need to reinvigorate our middle-class.

So ‘business friendly environment’ and “attractive business climate” are fostered through cascading uncertainty, massive debt accumulation, the impending threat of federal taxation, and the ever increasing burden of over-regulation? Your brain blast is to continuously  pour sand into the “engines of our state economy? Well why wouldn't it be.  Liberals are job growth deniers and always have been.  So this is settled accounting.   It's how democrats "create jobs."  By strangling small business. 

Carol did get one thing right.  It has "invigorated the middle class"….into voting her and everyone like her out of office.



Cross posted at Granite Grok

From The 'You Can't Make This Stuff Up File...'

Starting in 2011 (Tax year 2010) the IRS plans to require paid tax preparers to take some kind of new competency test.  That's right, Tim Geithner wants to make sure that people who prepare taxes know how to do it.

 That's just priceless.