IRS Proposes Easing Rules on Documenting Employees' Cell Phone Use
The Internal Revenue Service on Monday proposed several possible changes in its requirements that employers document workers' personal use of employer-provided cell phones, rules that have caused headaches and cost money for numerous colleges and universities in federal tax audits. The changes (see page 13 of the linked document) would allow colleges and other employers to set a certain dollar amount or time of personal cell phone use as "minimal" usage that would not require them to pay taxes, or set a "safe harbor" level that would treat a certain percentage of each employee's cell phone use as business usage, and require them to pay tax on the rest (say, 75 percent and 25 percent, respectively). The Association for Information Technology Professionals in Higher Education favors legislation that would drop cell phones from the list of employer-provided services that are taxable to employees, but its officials said the association, known as ACUTA, saw the IRS proposals as a positive development and would review them.
