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If you went to college, your school likely had an official statement about plagiarism similar to this one from Oxford University: Plagiarism is presenting someone else’s work or ideas as your own, with or without their consent, by incorporating it into your work without full acknowledgement. All published and unpublished material, whether in manuscript, printed or electronic form, is covered under this definition.
Imagine you’ve been on an out-of-town business trip. Your employer paid for your airfare, but allowed you to keep the frequent flyer points generated by the trip. Some time later, you redeem the points (perhaps along with additional points generated by other business trips) for a free flight to a vacation destination. You might wonder, “Do I have taxable income, either when the points are credited to my account or when I redeem the points for personal travel?”
Under the US federal income tax, it is reasonably clear that there is taxable income in this story, although there is plenty of room to argue about the timing of the taxable event, or that the fair market value (of either the points or the later reward) should be included in income.
Despite the technical “taxability” of employees who benefit from frequent flyer programs, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced a “don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy” in 2002, which stated that “the IRS will not assert that any taxpayer has understated his federal tax liability by reason of the receipt or personal use of frequent flyer miles … attributable to the taxpayer’s business travel.”
Seemingly faced with problems of valuation, enforcement, and taxpayer understanding, the IRS simply declared that it had no intention of enforcing the law, rather than dealing with the issues that would have been created by a serious attempt to administer the taxation of frequent flyer benefits.
“Seemingly faced with problems of valuation, enforcement, and taxpayer understanding, the IRS simply declared that it had no intention of enforcing the law.”
Twelve years later, the 2002 announcement still accurately reflects the supine position of the IRS. Regardless of one’s views on the merits of either taxing or not taxing employee-retained frequent flyer benefits, from a rule-of-law perspective, it is troubling that this question has been resolved by a statutorily unauthorized de facto administrative exemption, rather than by a legislative enactment.
The IRS is far from alone among tax administrators in having performed poorly with respect to frequent flyer benefits, despite having had more than three decades to grapple with the problem since frequent-flyer schemes were introduced in the 1980s. The efforts of the Canada Revenue Agency and of the Australian Taxation Office have differed from those of the IRS, but today, all three countries retain the same bottom line: virtually no tax on frequent flyer benefits is collected anywhere, and respect for the rule-of-law (on the part of both taxpayers and the tax agencies themselves) has been eroded.
So what ought to be done? A tax policy purist would suggest that either the tax administrator or the legislature should develop workable rules for valuation, and for third-party information reporting of that value (by either employers or airlines). The development of workable rules would not be easy, but it could be done. If such rules were adopted, the tax administrator could and should enforce the taxation of frequent flyer benefits. It is unlikely, however, that either an agency or a legislature would take on the difficult and thankless task of developing and adopting the necessary rules. If neither the tax agency nor the legislature is willing to get serious about the taxation of frequent flyer benefits, the second-best approach would be for the legislature to solve the agency-as-scofflaw problem by turning the IRS’ de facto administrative exclusion into an explicit statutory exclusion.
Featured image credit: Airplane flight. Photo by Robert S. Donovan. CC BY-NC 2.0 via booleansplit Flickr.
Bill Fick is a personal favorite artist of mine, and a good guy and good friend to boot. Duke University’s Center for Documentary Studies sat down with him to talk about the monsters in his work. Bonus: watch Bill carve a big gooey linoleum-block head.
Artist Bill Fick says, “In the past four years I’ve been using the Murray Collection as a teaching tool and resource for my Art of the Comic Book and Zines class. It’s an amazing resource with over 75,000 comics! I really enjoyed making the mural and plan to make more in the future using some of my original stuff.” Can’t wait, Bill!
Our own social entrepreneur and founder, Kyle Zimmer, joined world leaders in Davos for the World Economic Forum last week. She presented an IdeasLab primer on the First Book Marketplace, in a session moderated by J. Gregory Dees, Professor, Practice of Social Entrepreneurship, Fuqua School of Business, Duke. Watch the presentation below and read more about Kyle’s inspiration for First Book after the jump.
Kyle’s mission is not to fight illiteracy but to end it. She began First Book in 1992 in Washington DC when she realized that children in low-income situations have little or no access to books or reading material. In fact, studies show that in middle-income neighborhoods the ratio of books to children is 13 to one, but in low-income neighborhoods, the ratio is 1 book for every 300 children.
According to esteemed researcher, Susan Neuman, Ph.D. University of Michigan, “Access to books and educational material is the single biggest barrier to literacy development in the United States and beyond. If we can solve the problem of access, we will be well on the road to realizing educational parity – a goal which has eluded this country for generations.”
The First Book Marketplace (FBMP) is designed to aggregate an untapped market to provide a steady stream of high-quality books at an affordable price for the first time ever to programs serving children in low-income situations, revolutionizing the way teachers and program leaders can educate these underserved children. At scale, the FBMP becomes self-sustainable and poised to deliver educational books and materials, including digital resources, globally.
Kyle didn’t rest after she found one way to deliver millions of books to children in need through the First Book National Book Bank; she created a true social innovation in the First Book Marketplace and she aims to deliver access to educational resources to the world.
We congratulate Kyle on her success at the World Economic Forum and on delivering nearly 70 million books to children in need.
We are excited to announce two new additions to the First Book family this fall – First Book-Central Michigan University and First Book-Duke University! First Book-Central Michigan University was established in September by students from several campus organizations including the Student Michigan Education Association, Alpha Sigma Alpha, and Kappa Delta Pi. The Board is off to a great start having already held their first fundraising event and making their first grant award.
First Book-Duke University was established in October by Arlene Melchiorre in Duke’s Office of Durham and Regional Affairs. Arlene is a long time friend of First Book and former chair of First Book-Syracuse University. At a recent event, cheers filled the auditorium at E.K. Powe Elementary School when the students learned they’d be going home with brand-new books from First Book.
Please join us in welcoming these new Boards!
If you would like to join or start a First Book Advisory Board in your community, please see the In Your Community section of the First Book Web site.
