Monday, September 29, 2008

Funding the Bailout

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A report from BNA indicates that Peter DeFazio, a member of the House of Representatives from Oregon, suggested that the Congress should im...
Friday, September 26, 2008

Greed, Stupidity, and Fraud: Lessons from Tax Law

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In my last post, Where is the Money to Be Found , I examined one of the many issues raised by the proposed $700 billion bailout of the finan...
Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Where Is the Money To Be Found?

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I don't get it. Perhaps I just don't understand "modern" finance. This latest bailout perplexes me. As I understand the pr...
Monday, September 22, 2008

Introducing Mileage-Based Road Fees to the Pennsylvania Legislature

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On Friday, Dwight Evans, Chairman of the Pennsylvania House Appropriations Committee, wrote a letter to the editor of the Philadelphia Inqu...
Friday, September 19, 2008

Risk Premiums With a Greed Tax?

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Perhaps there should be a tax on greed. The tax would apply when a person's or entity's attempt to accumulate wealth, rather than ...
Wednesday, September 17, 2008

How Big is YOUR Tax Wall?

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If there's a bigger tax chart, I've not seen it. This one is huge. It's three and a half feet tall. It's almost six feet wid...
Monday, September 15, 2008

User Fee Philosophy Vindicated

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Last Thursday's news reaching the ears and eyes of those who advocate the imposition of tolls on I-80 to fund repairs and improvements t...
Friday, September 12, 2008

When Is a Tax Not a Tax?

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More specifically, when can someone collect a tax but refuse to turn some of the collected tax over to the taxing authority? Not surprisingl...
Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Perhaps a First, Certainly One For Me

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Anyone who writes tax or other legal books, articles, or similar items is delighted when his or her works are cited by another author. I wri...
Monday, September 08, 2008

What Is Hypertaxation?

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Last week, someone pointed out the following sentence in the Republican National Platform : In any fundamental restructuring of federal taxa...
Friday, September 05, 2008

Yet Again, the IRS Bails Out the Congress

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For quite some time, taxpayers who received incentive stock options and then exercised them have become aware that they can be subject to a ...
Wednesday, September 03, 2008

Opportunity to Restructure User Fee Philosophy?

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At the beginning of the year, in Another Sip of the Drink Tax , I criticized the Allegheny County drink tax, which is imposed to defray defi...
Monday, September 01, 2008

Proposed Tax Credit: Noble Concept, Practical Problems

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Back in March, I shared some thoughts on Barack Obama's proposal to "establish a new American Opportunity Tax Credit that is worth...
Friday, August 29, 2008

User Fees as Law Enforcement Device?

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I would not be surprised if someone takes this story and adds it to a collection of "stupid criminal" stories, such as the Countr...
Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Tax and Economics At the Movies

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There's a new movie hitting the theaters. It's not a romance, it's not a shoot-em-up, it's not a western (do they make those...
Monday, August 25, 2008

When Those Who Make Tax Law Don't Understand Tax Law

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The "property tax standard deduction" added to the Internal Revenue Code by the Congress in July, and initially discussed by me in...
Friday, August 22, 2008

Messing With Chocolate

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In my last post, in which I explored the scope of "sin" in the phrase "sin tax," I expressed disagreement with the class...
Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Sin Stocks, Sin Taxes

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No tax practitioner worth his or her professional license is unaware of the concept of sin taxes. For years, governments have found it moral...
Monday, August 18, 2008

Unintended Beneficiaries of New Tax Provision?

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In Why This New Tax Provision? , I questioned the necessity for the new, one-year-only additional standard deduction reflecting $500 or $1,0...