Many many years ago, I was contacted by a coworker for an estimate of what it would take to modify our tax-calculation code to support a new law recently passed by the Texas legislature, which specified that the first $25 of Internet charges for Texas-residential subscribers was free of state taxes.
I asked “Well, that depends. What does ‘first’ mean? If they mean that on every bill we should reduce the taxable basis by $25, we can do that easily. If they mean that on every bill we should chronologically sort all the charges and then exclude those charges from taxation, that’s far more complicated, and if tax rates vary depending on the charge the result will be different. If they actually mean the first $25 for each subscriber rather than on each bill, that’s easier (but different from the first two options).”
The coworker said “Excellent question. I’ll ask the client.”
A week later, she forwarded me email from the client rep, saying “Excellent question. I’ve asked our lawyers.”
A month later she forwarded me email from the client rep forwarded from the lawyers saying “Excellent question. We’ve asked the State Legislature.”
Several months later, the consensus seemed to be that the State Legislature had never given any thought to what they meant by “first”.
My confidence in politicians’ taking care about what they mean is very low.
Many many years ago, I was contacted by a coworker for an estimate of what it would take to modify our tax-calculation code to support a new law recently passed by the Texas legislature, which specified that the first $25 of Internet charges for Texas-residential subscribers was free of state taxes.
I asked “Well, that depends. What does ‘first’ mean? If they mean that on every bill we should reduce the taxable basis by $25, we can do that easily. If they mean that on every bill we should chronologically sort all the charges and then exclude those charges from taxation, that’s far more complicated, and if tax rates vary depending on the charge the result will be different. If they actually mean the first $25 for each subscriber rather than on each bill, that’s easier (but different from the first two options).”
The coworker said “Excellent question. I’ll ask the client.”
A week later, she forwarded me email from the client rep, saying “Excellent question. I’ve asked our lawyers.”
A month later she forwarded me email from the client rep forwarded from the lawyers saying “Excellent question. We’ve asked the State Legislature.”
Several months later, the consensus seemed to be that the State Legislature had never given any thought to what they meant by “first”.
My confidence in politicians’ taking care about what they mean is very low.
Ouch.