Any telecommuting fpDevelopers watching this?

[Fairlight]

The honourable and venerable Walter Vaughan spoke thus:
> Seems the state of New York thinks that it has nexis[0] if you remotely 
> perform work  for a company located in NY. While at first glance this is 
> a reasonable request of the state, it's probably apply to independent 
> contractors soon.

1)  It's not a reasonable request of the state.  And if it is, then they 
    had -damned- well better start taxing all those people in India and
    elsewhere to which places are outsourcing.  I'm sure they'll have no
    problems actually collecting from overseas--right?

2)  When they say 100% of the income is taxable to NY, what if the same
    person works for both the place in NY and several other states?  That
    would imply to me that, say, Michigan and New York, given widespread
    adoption of something like this, would both lay claim to tax 100% of
    the income--even the part that didn't accrue as revenue from that 
    state--as well as the home state of the employee.  That's 300%
    taxation, and will never fly.

3)  Extrapolating that out to independent contractors, there's no way this
    will fly.  No way in hell.  100% taxation from 20 different states is
    not something -anyone- will think is reasonable when three of those
    states made them $200 each in a year in one-off tiny jobs.  Nobody with
    a brain would take the work.

And if this -does- get applied to independent contractors, even in NY,
you can be sure that -I'm- dropping every single NY-based client I have.
Won't be their fault, it'll be their state's fault.  And I strongly suspect
that NY companies will suddenly find it very hard to lure contractors into
working for them without some -serious- incentives--namely that they pay
100% of the tax offset for any other jurisdictions that feel they have
100% taxation rights (and you know damned well Kentucky won't give up its
income tax on my income just to suit New York's whims), as well as a hefty
surcharge for the hassle of even dealing with it at all.  They would have
to make it -so- worth my while, it's probably impossible.

In short, the NY government just shafted its own citizens, because it will
hurt their residents' business at the bottom line--due to increased costs
or lost productivity that can't be filled due to a lack of in-state
workers with the salient skills.

No independent will tolerate this.  And if they did, they'd be complete
idiots for doing so.  And who would contract someone -that- stupid?  Nobody
would want someone with that few brains in the first place.

This ruling is a bad joke.  The -only- thing that makes sense is that the
COMPANY might possibly have to pay tax on that money--not the employee,
who owuld be subject to at least two different jurisdictional taxes.
They're penalizing the wrong party.  They make it sound like NY is being
oh-so-gracious in "providing" the work.  Heh...wrong.  The contractors are
being oh-so-generous in solving that state's business' needs.  That case
could just as easily be made.  It goes both ways.  They took it the way
they felt would best suit their coffers.  That's okay though.  Usually
whenn people try interpreting things to their advantage, they get the shaft
in the end and learn the hard way not to do that.  

Thanks for the heads-up.  I can now wait to see if I have to drop all my NY
based clients.  Thankfully, losing that state wouldn't be horribly damaging
to me.  Mostly onesy-twosy clients there, except for one.

mark->
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