Small businesses are up in arms about a provision in the health reform law that will require them to submit a 1099 form to every vendor that they buy goods from, if their total annual purchase from that vendor comes to $600 or more (as I noted here). They’re worried that compliance will mean a heavy addition to their already crushing load of paperwork.

Republicans in Congress agree, and have proposed repealing the provision. But any such move would only perpetuate massive tax evasion by vendors, according to a report released today by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. more

One characteristic of high-performing sales-and-use tax functions is that they frequently conduct internal audits — aka reverse audits or refund studies — to make sure that the taxes they’ve paid were in fact due (see my June blog on a recent Aberdeen Group study). To get a better idea of how reverse audits work, I interviewed Michael Moore, managing director at audit firm CBIZ MHM, who says that his firm has been seeing a lot of interest in this area among clients. more

International businesses took a hit yesterday when the House passed, and the President immediately signed, a bill to provide some $26 billion in funding to the states to cover teacher salaries and Medicaid shortfalls. Close to $10 billion of that will come from a bunch of international tax provisions mostly targeting corporate taxpayers. more

Five states — California, Kentucky, Minnesota, Nebraska, and North Dakota — as well as the District of Columbia have increased their gas tax rates in the past few months, according to a report from information services and software provider CCH, a Wolters Kluwer business. California’s tax nearly doubled in the past year, from 18 cents to 35.3 cents per gallon. more

Calls for a VAT for the United States have subsided somewhat in recent weeks, as the Bush tax cuts have taken center stage in the national debate on fiscal responsibility.

That’s a relief for business leaders. It’s fairly safe to say that most of them are terrified of the whole idea. More than three-quarters of U.S. execs oppose a VAT policy, more than 83 percent believe that it will significantly increase the cost of compliance, the vast majority say that their organization lacks the expertise to comply, and so on and so on, according to a new poll by Sabrix Thomson Reuters. more