IRS

It's a pillar of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) 2017 and it's about to appear in the Federal Register. And it makes the USA very unusual in recognising the realities of depreciation in a disposable world. And then they go and stuff it up.

The USA's Internal Revenue Service has, albeit belatedly, joined its Treasury sibling, FinCEN, in concluding that there really is no material difference between using virtual currencies and USD or other currencies. In a notice issued this week, it's made clear: if you price and are paid for your goods or services in bitcoin or any other virtual currency, you are liable for trading profits in exactly the same way as if you priced them, and were paid, in fiat currencies.

The pent-up energy in the US government is being released apace. And, of course, the Inland Revenue Service is required to find the money the government needs and, as the shutdown demonstrated, it really doesn't hold much in reserve. And so, within hours of getting back to work, the IRS has issued a warning notice about something employers must do by.., oh, yes, today.

A press release from the USA's Inland Revenue Service is headed "Many corporations will pay a blended federal income tax." For heaven's sake: what sounds like something special is nothing of the kind and is an example of buzzword-mania when simplicity would better serve the audience. It's time that government departments stopped trying to sound trendy and just said what they need to say.

Here's what the IRS needed to say.

The USA's fascination with finding names of laws that can be turned into snappy acronyms reached new levels in December 2015 when it past the FAST Act. The name, Fixing America's Surface Transportation (FAST) Act gives no hint as to what it does. It's a highly aggressive tactic against taxpayers with unsettled debt. The Act has crept up pretty much unnoticed but it is being implemented starting this month.

The creation of the new, PoTUS Trump-driven tax regime with effect from 1 January, only a week after the law was passed and that being a week everyone was off partying, is leading to a flurry of activity in government offices. The first important documents to come out of the Inland Revenue Service are "withholding tables" that relate to deduction of income tax at source.

"Updated 2018 Withholding Tables Now Available; Taxpayers Could See Pay cheque Changes by February," says the IRS in a statement.

New York state is one of a number of US states that now require taxpayers in the state to provide a driving licence or other state (not necessarily NY)-issued identification when taxpayers file returns electronically. Federal tax systems do not have a similar requirement.