The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is overriding the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which made a surprise announcement Tuesday that any distillery that switched to producing hand sanitizer this year during the pandemic will owe thousands of dollars in fees and could be charged twice if they do not cease production immediately.
HHS Chief of Staff Brian Harrison announced Thursday: “Small businesses who stepped up to fight COVID-19 should be applauded by their government, not taxed for doing so. I’m pleased to announce we have directed FDA to cease enforcement of these arbitrary, surprise user fees. Happy New Year, distilleries, and cheers to you for helping keep us safe!”
Trump Admin Reins In Bureaucracy That Tried To Bill Distillers For Making Hand Sanitizer
Unfortunately, we may be running out of time and the era of the full tyrant is approaching.
It should never of happened in the first place. Those faceless are never held accountable for their actions.
Of course no FDA bureaucrat will be fired, or even transitioned out of a leadership position, because after all the are only following the rules as written…
It took a leader, not a manager, to reverse this. And said leader was in the next agency up, apparently. Sheesh.
Look, it is the rules.
Just because there is a “crisis” does not mean that a law, or a tax, should be ignored. However, it is an abject failure on the part of the FDA and HHS to have allowed (and strongly encouraged) distillers to make sanitizers, when they were (or should have been) fully aware of tax implications.
The FDA did not do anything “wrong” in sending out a note requesting the payment of taxes. What they did wrong was not informing the distillers there would be a tax, or waiving it at the outset.
Whisky Rebellion 2.0 was averted.
Good Trump. This was bad optics for our goverment. You don’t punish people who try to help out in a crisis.
Cuomo, God-Emperor of all Shitbags and Assholes, taxed nurses who came to NYC to help. Not just those who got paid in NYC, but those who got paid out of state.
E.g., if a Nurse from Tennessee took a leave of absence from her job there to go to NYC and volunteer in a NYC hospital (which was happening by nurses all over the country during the NYC surge), Cuomo decided that nurse should be taxed on the money she was making from her Tennessee job during her duration in NYC if she was there more than a couple of weeks. If that nurse received non cash benefits, such as food or a place to stay, the cash value would be assessed and taxed too. So nurses were having to pay for the time they spent volunteering in NYC to help with COVID. Cuomo was asked to suspend this and he said “no, NY lost too much money to give this tax break.”
AGAIN, I offer FNY The Internationally Recognized Invitation To Participate In Fertility Rituals, with both hands, and review my favorite puzzle: hell, cold day, my working in FNY. Assemble in correct order.
And, I find myself feeling so much….let’s call it “enthusiasm” for FNY, I propose a new acronym:”TIRITPIFR”. (See first sentence, above)