Back when the huge Health Care Reform bill was moving around, someone slipped in a nice little nugget that was added with the intent of helping the government track sales between businesses. There’s a good article about it on CNN here.
Section 9006 of the health care bill — just a few lines buried in the 2,409-page document — mandates that beginning in 2012 all companies will have to issue 1099 tax forms not just to contract workers but to any individual or corporation from which they buy more than $600 in goods or services in a tax year.
Got that? Any combined purchases over $600 and you have to send a 1099 to the company you bought from. Got a new computer? Send a 1099 to HP. How about a nice lens? 1099 to Canon. Airline tickets? Props? Furniture? Costumes or clothing? This isn’t just a high ticket item thing – I could spend $601 at the grocery store over 12 months and have to 1099 them as well. How ridiculous is this? How overburdening to small business owners who actually would like to work at their business.
Luckily, someone out there has the back of small businesses. Rep. Dan Lungren, R-Calif., introduced legislation entitled the “Small Business Paperwork Mandate Elimination Act” (HR 5141). I had emailed via his website to see how small business owners could help the effort to remove this gem, however, I was bounced because I’m not in his constituent area. Ok, fair enough. So I contacted my Congressman, Todd Aiken, R-MO to see what we could about it. Well, I just received an email yesterday with the following in it.
Thank you for your correspondence … As a member of the House Small Business Committee, the welfare of our nation’s job creators is one of my top priorities. I opposed H.R. 3590 because I believe it is bad for American businesses, bad for the American economy and bad for doctors and their patients. This provision is particularly burdensome to small businesses and I believe it must be repealed. I have cosponsored H.R. 5141, introduced by Congressman Dan Lungren, which will amend the Internal Revenue Code to repeal the requirement that businesses report all payments of $600 or more.
I am glad to see that my representative in Washington is assisting in this effort. I urge you to write your Congressman, if you are in the US, which you can do here. We’ve got enough things to do at tax time. Making us report on the people who sell things to us is just another headache.
