All In Good Fun

By Kleinheider Posted on July 23, 2008 at 7:04 am

Investigative reporter Phil Williams has more shenanigans from a weeklong training session for employees of the state’s Department of Revenue:

Then, there’s video that shows revenue staffers dancing at what appears to be a funeral.

“We apparently have a dead taxpayer and a grieving widow — and these people dancing around to a 50 Cent song,” Johnson observes.

“Go. Go. Go, money.
It’s your tax day.
We’re gonna party.
Like it your tax day.”

“Is this what the department of revenue thinks of us, the taxpayers?” Johnson asks. “We die and maybe they should audit our family and see if they can get more money?”

Commissioner Farr says, “I think most of this was done in fairly good fun.”

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Tags: Department of Revenue, Drew Johnson, Phil Williams, Reagan Farr  

Tennesseans Still Love Their Gazzaline

By Kleinheider Posted on June 9, 2008 at 4:25 pm

Cara Kumari on some interesting new revenue numbers from the state of Tennessee:

Collections from the gasoline and motor fuel tax increased by 6.38 percent. Remember, the state gas tax stays flat as the prices go up. That means, people aren’t shying away from the pump, we’re all using more gas.

UPDATE: According to the Department of Revenue, Tennessee collected $62,210,000 in gas taxes in May. By Christian Grantham’s math, that means Tennesseans consumed 290,700,934 gallons in April which is equivalent to 2% of our nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

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Tags: Department of Revenue, gas taxes, Road Warrior, Strategic Petroleum Reserve  

Some Expensive Emails

By Kleinheider Posted on May 27, 2008 at 7:35 am

Drew Johnson of the Tennessee Center For Policy Research is once again knee deep in a controversy over open records requests:

Revenue officials gave Mr. Johnson a choice. Department employees could go through the e-mails themselves for free, or the state’s Office for Information Resources could do it at a cost of $3,201 for each day of correspondence, they said.

“The issue here, of course is that if someone has an embarrassing term … on their computer, they’re not going to just turn it over. They would delete the e-mail,” said Mr. Johnson, who heads up the Nashville-based anti-tax group. “The only way to have an external person check e-mails to ensure that every e-mail is actually turned over is through an electronic master tape.”

Sophie Moery, a spokeswoman for the Revenue Department, said the Office for Information Resources sets the price. She said officials made sure to offer Mr. Johnson the option of getting information for free.

“We certainly would not want to leave him with the only option of an expensive search,” she said.

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Tags: Department of Revenue, Drew Johnson, email, GQ Drew, open records, Tennessee Center For Policy Research  

iTunes Tax Technically Corrected

By Kleinheider Posted on May 19, 2008 at 7:26 am

The Tennessee Journal reports that now that the technical corrections bill has passed the legislature we may never know if the somewhat tortured interpretation of Tennessee annotated code that the Department of Revenue has been using to collect tax on digital downloads of books, music and movies would have held up to a serious challenge:

Several other sections of the technical corrections bill were withdrawn, including one to force motels that don’t have restaurants to remit sales tax on continental breakfasts served to their guests.

One that stayed in the bill — which both the House and Senate passed Thursday — clarifies that digitally downloaded music, books, and videos are subject to the sales tax. Through complicated interpretations of law, the state used to treat such products for sales tax purposes as tangible personal property. A provision of the streamlined sales tax law that took effect Jan. 1 made the matter simpler, according to the department, though a private-letter ruling it issued in March, and then rescinded, declared the products not subject to the tax. The American Electronics Association last week disputed the department’s contention the downloads are taxable. Revenue Commissioner Reagan Farr said that, absent the bill, he expected a legal challenge from Microsoft.

SEE ALSO: Terry Frank

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Tags: Apple, Department of Revenue, Digital Downloads, Itunes, Microsoft, Reagan Farr, Technical Corrections Bill