Wednesday, March 30, 2011

The Mileage-Based Road Fee Lives On

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The mileage-based road fee, also known as the vehicle-miles traveled user fee, continues to get attention. The latest entry in the discussio...
Monday, March 28, 2011

Some Tax Back-Peddling?

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My support for a user fee or tax on the companies drilling for, and extracting, Marcellus shale natural gas in Pennsylvania has been the sub...
Friday, March 25, 2011

When Resisting Tax Increases Brings Tax Increases, and Worse

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In The Logic and Illogic of Tax , I explained how critics charged that the budget cuts proposed by Pennsylvania’s governor will require loca...
Wednesday, March 23, 2011

An Artistic Tax Proposal It Is Not

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A bill introduced a few days ago by Representative John Lewis proposes a new tax break. According to the Library of Congress bill tracker , ...
Monday, March 21, 2011

Voter Polls on Taxes and Electoral Polls on Taxes

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Ten days ago, in The Logic and Illogic of Tax , I noted that although at least 60 percent of Pennsylvanians support a tax on Marcellus shale...
Friday, March 18, 2011

Texas Taxation as a Role Model for Pennsylvania?

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Last week, in The Logic and Illogic of Tax , I questioned the claim by the governor of Pennsylvania, Tom Corbett, that if he succeeds in pre...
Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Retirees, Social Security, and Filing Tax Returns?

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My post on Monday, Getting Specific with Tax-Related Deficit Reduction Ideas: Making Section 85 Fairer and Simpler , brought a helpful respo...
Monday, March 14, 2011

Getting Specific with Tax-Related Deficit Reduction Ideas: Making Section 85 Fairer and Simpler

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The Congressional Budget Office has released its Reducing the Deficit: Spending and Revenue Options , in which it sets forth dozens of ideas...
Friday, March 11, 2011

The Logic and Illogic of Tax

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On Tuesday, the new governor of Pennsylvania, Tom Corbett, revealed his budget plans. As reported in multiple sources, including this articl...
Wednesday, March 09, 2011

A Foolish Tax Idea Resurfaces

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Bad tax ideas can find their way into the tax law. It can happen for all sorts of reasons. What’s unusual is a successful effort to remove b...
Monday, March 07, 2011

Can Tax Law Fix This Problem?

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The problem is simple. As related in this Philadelphia Inquirer article , the prices of various commodities and other items are soaring. Mos...
Saturday, March 05, 2011

To Teach, Depend on, and Be Accountable to One's Self

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Last week came news, in What Harvey Dorfman did for the Phillies , of the death of Harvey Dorfman. Few people, even most baseball fans, knew...
Friday, March 04, 2011

Tax is Relative? Tax as Relative? Relatives in Tax

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This morning came news of the death of Cynthia Holcomb Hall , who served on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals since 1984, and had served as...

Another Way to Cut Taxes: Hamstring the IRS

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On the heels of the spending cuts, affecting chiefly the impoverished and the lower ranks of the middle class, paraded out last week by the ...
Wednesday, March 02, 2011

When Spending Exceeds Revenue, Hand Out Tax Credits? Really?

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So what’s a state to do when it faces a budget deficit, with revenues trailing expenditures? One choice is to raise taxes, but that approach...