MICHELE NORRIS, host: One brief but significant update in a story we brought you yesterday. We reported on efforts by the IRS to enforce a 1989 law regarding company-issued cell phones.</s>MICHELE NORRIS, host: The law requires workers to count the value of their calls on those phones as personal income unless they keep records proving the phone was used only for work. Sounds complicated; and no wonder, the law has been basically been ignored.</s>ROBERT SIEGEL, host: Well now, the Obama administration wants it repealed. Today, the IRS said that the 1989 law is obsolete and will lead to widespread confusion and that you should suffer no tax consequences for personal calls on your company-issued phone.
The Obama administration is asking Congress to repeal a widely ignored tax on the personal use of company cell phones. Doug Shulman, commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, said the 1989 law had been rendered obsolete by the passage of time and technological advances.