NASE Steps Up on Tax Gap Proposal
May 12th, 2008 | By Dawn R. Rivers | Category: Politics & PolicyRobert Hughes, president of the National Association for the Self-Employed (NASE), was inspired to write the top two lawmakers on the Senate Finance Committee late last month to warn them that a proposal to require banks to report merchants’ credit card payments was a bad idea. There are procedural and administrative problems with the plan, plus costs that are likely to be massive and also likely to be passed on to microbusinesses — all for a scheme that will do little to improve compliance and close the tax gap. After all, credit card transactions have enough of a paper trail that they are an unlikely source of willful underreporting and other elements of the plan are an administrative nightmare waiting to happen. We’ll just hope that Senators Baucus and Grassley get wind of Mr. Hughes’ letter and are open to suggestion.
