Senate Gets Cloture, Grassley Still Needs to be Stopped
For more what Chuck Grassley is trying to do, click here to read more.
Who is behind the Dodd Housing Bill Ebay Amendment? Sadly, It’s a Republican
Sadly, its one of our own that has come up with one of the most ludicrous amendments to what is already seen by many as one horrible package of legislation.
It’s none other than Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa that has developed the language that would essentially open the door to online merchants like Ebay, Amazon, Google Checkout, etc. reporting all of their transaction activity to the government.
First of all, it’s important to note that this provision was packaged in the Housing Bill, which has absolutely nothing to do with online merchants. The provision was buried amongst 600+ pages of legislation, making it more likely to be overlooked by tired Hill staffers. For those who haven’t read the language, here it is (source):
Payment Card and Third Party Network Information Reporting. The proposal requires information reporting on payment card and third party network transactions. Payment settlement entities, including merchant acquiring banks and third party settlement organizations, or third party payment facilitators acting on their behalf, will be required to report the annual gross amount of reportable transactions to the IRS and to the participating payee. Reportable transactions include any payment card transaction and any third party network transaction. Participating payees include persons who accept a payment card as payment and third party networks who accept payment from a third party settlement organization in settlement of transactions. A payment card means any card issued pursuant to an agreement or arrangement which provides for standards and mechanisms for settling the transactions. Use of an account number or other indicia associated with a payment card will be treated in the same manner as a payment card. A de minimis exception for transactions of $10,000 or less and 200 transactions or less applies to payments by third party settlement organizations. The proposal applies to returns for calendar years beginning after December 31, 2010. Back-up withholding provisions apply to amounts paid after December 31, 2011. This proposal is estimated to raise $9.802 billion over ten years.
It’s quite clear to see the many problems that could be created if this piece of legislation was enacted.
Of course, after this was exposed, Kate Szostak, a staffer on the Banking Committee quickly tried to kill any doubts and/or concerns people had with the legislation:
“This is not a controversial provision or a new one. Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee have supported it for months, and it has been included in the Administration’s budget proposal for years. This provision simply requires banks-not small businesses-to report sales transactions to the IRS each year and to merchants at the end of each day. It makes the tax system fair for everyone, without burdening small businesses and without putting consumers’ privacy rights at risk.”
With all due respect to Kate, this is indeed a very controversial provision that could greatly effect how business is done online.
For example, let’s say I sell 500 widgets on Ebay every month and at the end of each month, $20,000 or so is transferred into my bank account. Stop. That is basically what is going to be reported to the IRS and filed away under your EIN or SSN and it should be no surprise that they are going to be there at the end of the year waiting for you to pay taxes on it.
However, if you’re a business owner, there is much more to this equation than the IRS would be seeing. Nowhere in this reporting would Ebay or the IRS have any idea how much each of these widgets cost you. Sure, you might have had $20,000 transferred to your account, but what if you had to spend $19,500 on acquisition and shipping of the widgets?
This number has to first be deducted from the $20,000 before any accurate representation of income can be generated. When you tack on other things like operating costs, it’s even easier to see how the IRS is going to have skewed numbers.
I’m sure many of you are now asking, so what, you’ll report all of this on your tax forms and pay taxes based on that.
The reality is that even if this is the case, with the IRS having all of this data, they are going to be looking harder than ever for anyone that is cheating the system. Any discrepancy on either end could potentially throw up a red flag and lead to an audit. No matter what criteria they create, there is always going to be a discrepancy in numbers, simply because each small business operates in a different way, having different pricing structures, sales models, operating costs, exposure, etc.
With this legislation, I don’t see how the IRS would be able to operate without a major expansion, and that’s just to cover the oversight of this data. There are many other arguments that people have brought up over this legislation, including privacy concerns and other important logistics, but for some reason, some of our elected officials don’t want to bring this up for more debate and are hoping to end discussion of this in the next 48 hours.
So, that’s where we come in and help disseminate information exposing America’s #1 R.I.N.O., Senator Chuck Grassley.
Here are some other bloggers that are also covering this topic, and have made excellent posts.
http://blogs.courant.com/on_background/2008/06/credit-card-tracking-slipped-i.html
http://www.infowars.com/?p=2785
http://papundits.wordpress.com/2008/06/24/housing-bailout-bill-new-provision-report
http://fetchingjen.blogspot.com/
http://www.oregonconservative.com
http://www.conservativerecord.com
McCain campaign seeks your thoughts, not your money (right now at least)
I’m not sure if the only one who found this interesting, but check out the email below that the McCain campaign sent out to their supporters today:
We recently launched a brand-new JohnMcCain.com and want to invite you to visit our new website today. But first, we want to take a minute to say thank you for being a part of our online community. You are the engine that drives our online efforts, which have so far raised millions of dollars online, organized thousands of volunteers and spread John McCain’s message to your friends and family.
There is more work to be done and we’re excited to unveil a new website that will be the cornerstone of our online efforts. More importantly, we want to hear from you. After you’ve visited the new JohnMcCain.com please take a minute to complete a brief online survey to tell us what you think.
Working together, we’re confident the web will be an important tool to involve you in this campaign, to communicate our message, organize supporters and win in November. But we need your help - please visit the new JohnMcCain.com today, surf around and give us your feedback. Tell us what you like, what you don’t like and send us your ideas. More importantly, take a moment to forward this email to your friends and family with a personal invitation to visit our new website.
Thank you, as always, for your strong support for John McCain online. We look forward to hearing from you!
Sincerely,
The McCain 2008
Did anyone notice that nowhere in the email, or on the survey did they ask you for money? I can honestly say that of the hundreds of emails that I have received from various campaigns, this is one of the few that doesn’t have a fundraising ask in it.
Normally I would analyze this is being a wasted opportunity to raise some much needed money. However, this email does something that the McCain campaign hasn’t really been doing before, inviting people to be engaged with the campaigns website.
Now instead of asking for a cover charge to become involved with the campaign, all they are asking now is that you simply “join the conversation,” as David All would say.
I can honestly say that in terms of using email to engage supporters, this is probably the ‘best of McCain’ thus far.
If people open the email and take the survey, I’m certain that a vast majority of them will reach a new height in terms of their dedication to getting John McCain elected.
Furthermore, if this successful, this could be a good starting point for the McCain campaign to build an online model similar to Barack Obama, where you don’t ask for their money right away, but instead simply ask that they get involved. Once they’re in, asking them to invest $10, $20 or even $50 at a time becomes much easier, simply because they have already put so much time into the campaign.
Do people think the Presidency is the only seat up for grabs?
Despite the fact that the 2008 presidential primaries have been anything but uneventful, in terms of other campaigns across the country, it seems as if everyone else is off to an incredibly slow start.
Even though it’s already May, there are still many hot-races that haven’t even come close to moving into full swing.
While I find this extremely troubling for both parties, I find it to be most problematic for Republicans, simply because they are already heading into this election as the underdogs.
Awhile back, Time Magazine published what they thought were the top 10 Senate races in the 2008 election: Virginia, Colorado and New Hampshire. I completely agree with this assessment and if the GOP wants to at least have some voting muscle in the Senate, they need to win these races.
This isn’t new information, but for some reason it seems that these top three campaigns haven’t even moved into full gear yet, even though there is only a little more than 6 months until the November election.
To give you an idea of what I’m talking about, here is just a glimpse into some of the things (primarily problems) I’ve noticed amongst the ‘top 3’ campaigns, focusing primarily on the Republican side.
Virginia – Jim Gilmore:
Problem: It wasn’t until about two weeks ago that I actually started receiving frequent updates from the campaign letting me know what was happening. However, even though I signed up to be a volunteer on multiple occasions, I have yet to receive any communications from the campaign providing me with opportunities to get involved.
Bigger Problem: Someone from Mark Warner’s campaign got back to me quite quickly with a variety of things that I can do to get involved with the campaign.
Side note: this is almost the exact same problem I’ve had with the McCain campaign; however the McCain campaign at least sends updates for volunteer opportunities.
This was a race that was once considered ‘too close to call,’ however many are now saying it’s leaning favorably towards a Democratic win. I think this can be changed, but not at the pace they’re currently moving.
Colorado – Bob Schaffer
Problem: Despite the fact of knowing that this is going to be an extremely tough race for a Republican to win, it appears that this campaign has done very little (almost nothing) in terms of marketing themselves on the internet.
Even though their race will be expensive, they don’t seem to understand that one of the first places people go to get information on their candidate is the candidate’s website.
This is usually a good thing, unless you’re Bob Schaffer.
Please click here to see Bob Schaffer’s website.
Now, click here to see his opponent, Mark Udall’s website.
To Bob Schaffer, or anyone else on his campaign: set up a meeting with David All, Joe Mansour and Patrick Ruffini… fast. Marketing and web-overhaul, priority #1.
Just to give you an idea of how the two candidate’s sites perform against each other, check out this chart.
Side note, here is a great blog in Colorado evaluating many of the details of this race.
New Hampshire: John Sununu
Problem: Exactly the same problem that Bob Schaffer is having. Even though his site isn’t as bad, in comparison to his opponents, it’s lagging severely.
Please click here to view John Sununu’s site.
Now, click here to view his opponent, Jeanne Shaheen’s site.
If you looked at both of those sites, I’m sure that this graph doesn’t really surprise you.
While this is obviously pessimistic, I think that if they made some simple adjustments and paid attention to what was working for the left (particularly Barack Obama) and implemented that into their strategy, both the candidates and the party as a whole would be in a much better position heading into November.