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Health & Fitness

Another Suggestion from the 'Sensible Party'

Frequent flyer miles should be taxed.

Frequent flyer miles — no taxes.

Why aren't frequent flyer miles taxed? 

In my suggestion No. 2, I speculated that if the entertainment deduction was back to 100 percent and all the extra documentation done away with, there was actually are more taxes collected as money is spent, and more jobs created.

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Frequent flyer miles seem to work in just the opposite direction.

There are not taxes paid on the value of the miles, although they are worth a lot of money and the catch here is that you have to fly a lot to get enough miles to exchange them for free air fare, upgrades to first class, etc.... so this perk (which is not taxed) goes virtually to only folks who are flying on their company's dime. Individuals, unless they are rich enough that they probably don't need to fly commercial anyway, would never travel enough to pickup this freebie.

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And of course if you are flying first or business class to begin with, you earn more miles. Can you say top echelon corporate executives?

And how about politicians? Do they rack up the frequent flyer miles and then use the non-taxed bennies to take their family on vacation?

I hope that my true schizophrenic nature is not being exposed here :-)  On the one hand I would extend deductions for business entertaining, but I would tax frequent flyer miles — I really do think in the long run, it makes sense.

But hey, please tell where I may be right or wrong on this.

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