I believe I mentioned in Monday’s Mr. Softee post that I’d toiled for four summers as a soft-serve technician for the Dairy Queen. The hours were horrid, the pay was insulting, but the Blizzards were free — or at least one per 8-hour shift was free. Now, a politician in Michigan wants to rid food-service employees throughout his state of the benefit of free lunches.
State Rep. Mark Meadows from East Lansing has introduced a bill that would charge tax on any free grub for employees of restaurants and food establishments.
If the bill passes, employees would start having to pay tax as early as Oct. 1.
A state representative who opposes the bill pointed out that the state spends millions subsidizing Hollywood studio films made in Michigan and thinks it’s hypocritical to look for a revenue source from the food-service industry:
The idea of taxing teens who work at Taco Bell to pay for Michael Moore’s fat-cat meals is no way to solve Michigan’s problems… All the problems in this state, and the Democrats think this is going to solve our problems?
No Free Lunch: ‘Taxing Teens at Taco Bell’ [MichiganCapitolConfidential.com]
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its obvious its nickeling and diming for tax revenue
i’d like to see them take paycuts first, before cutting anything else…..politicians want to cut security and education funding before their own pay is an insult to the the public
Leave film tax incentives alone people, fight about something else.
Tax incentives are the only reason I have even the prospect of a job.
Besides the fact that they’re apples and oranges. And who spends money getting Michael Moore to do anything anywhere near them? The man makes docs, if he’s getting ANY money from the state it’s probably in arts grants, which can and should be used for film just as often as they get used for any other artistic endeavor.
This guy is RIGHT in the fact that taxing these meals is stupid and yet he comes across in all the wrong ways.
One of the reasons people work in food service is for the free and/or cheap food. Ridiculous.
You actually have a waste issue too. At a McD’s I worked at one semester it wasn’t unusual for the manager to offer you the burger that was to expire in 5 minutes under the heat lamp when you were heading out on your break. It wasn’t an everyday thing, but it did happen often enough.
Even if they were to get such a crazy bill in place it would be easier to throw the food out or claim that it was “expired” trash than it would be to handle the paperwork.
This is a poorly written post. I was under the impression that you were talking about income tax for the value of the meals. The original article makes it clear that he wants to charge sales tax on the value of the food.
Boo Hoo, I have to pay 5 cents for a bean burrito!
It is, at least, federal income and as been for at least 50 years
sure, when they get paid a LIVING wage and not living on the generosity (or lack thereof) of customers.
We have this policy in Washington it’s stupid but it really doesn’t amount to much, i remember being charged like $.40 cents for meals and learned to not mention them anymore.
“to pay for Michael Moore’s fat-cat meals”
This was the point at which I realized that the representative has absolutely no clue what he’s talking about.
Wow.
People in the food-service industry work crap hours for crap money and have little to no benefits except for a free or reduced-price meal.
Please don’t take the one good benefit away from them.
Another asshole who takes pleasure of robbing from those who don’t make a lot of money. He is probably related to the douche-bags who want to tax everybody who has employer-provided healthcare.
How about we tax these idiots $1 for every $1 of the citizen’s money they get paid? How about the death penalty for jerks like this?