Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Counting Tax Chickens Before They Hatch

›
What can a state legislature do when it needs money to fix its transportation infrastructure? There are all sorts of taxation choices, but V...
Monday, December 29, 2014

A Tax Policy Turn-Around?

›
Readers of MauledAgain know that I do not subscribe to the theory that tax cuts for the wealthy will trickle down and improve the economic c...
Friday, December 26, 2014

Enact Tax Laws But Break Them?

›
However this story turns out, it seems absurd that a member of Congress who pleads guilty to tax evasion would not immediately resign. Even...
Wednesday, December 24, 2014

Tossing Up Tax Issues

›
I’m torn between being pleased and being disgusted. The confusion was sparked by a report I heard several mornings ago on the local news sta...
Monday, December 22, 2014

Do Taxes Kill Jobs?

›
The governor-elect of Pennsylvania included in his campaign platform a promise to seek imposition of a severance tax on the energy companies...
Friday, December 19, 2014

Code Size Claim Shrinks But Not Enough

›
One of my favorite examples of tax misinformation is the persistent claim that the Internal Revenue Code is a gargantuan multi-million word ...
Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Tax Question: What Is “It” in “We don’t need it”?

›
Last weekend a news story revealed the results of a poll of New Jersey residents. Asked for a reaction to increased fuel taxes to pay for ...
Monday, December 15, 2014

It’s Not Just Tax Ignorance, Is It?

›
For as long as I can remember, I wanted to be an educator, and for many years, I have been one. People ask me why. My answer is simple. Some...
Friday, December 12, 2014

Why Do Those Who Dislike Government Spending Continue to Support Government Spenders?

›
There’s something not quite right in the collective psyche of the anti-government-spending crowd. Enraged by high taxes, they manage to put ...
Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Do-It-Yourself Tax Preparation? Better?

›
In recent years, in part because of economic conditions, an increasing number of people have turned to do-it-yourself projects. If the do-it...
Monday, December 08, 2014

How Best to Describe the Use Tax Collection Issue?

›
Readers of this blog know that I am not a fan of permitting states to impose on out-of-state retailers the burden of collecting use taxes th...
Friday, December 05, 2014

Being Nice to a Sibling Can Be Tax Costly

›
A recent Tax Court decision illustrates how tax law intrudes on what otherwise would appear to be the simplest of things. Imagine owning a r...
Wednesday, December 03, 2014

Apparently, It’s Rather Difficult to Understand Use Taxes

›
A little more than a week ago, in How Difficult Is It to Understand Use Taxes? , I reflected on recent Philadelphia Inquirer commentary sup...
Monday, December 01, 2014

The Making of Tax Law Too Often Stinks

›
If, as John Godfrey Saxe said in a quote often misattributed to Otto von Bismarck, “Laws, like sausages, cease to inspire respect in proport...
Friday, November 28, 2014

An Unanswered Tax Question for the Letter Writer

›
Over the past few years I have pointed to the existence of bad roads as a lesson in the foolishness of alleged short-term tax cut benefits b...