Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Borrowing Money to Fund Tax Cuts

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One of the principal causes of the current economic crisis is the decision to cut federal income taxes while simultaneously increasing milit...
Monday, May 28, 2012

Inserting CRS Reports into the Tax Policy Discourse

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In last Wednesday’s post, The Failure of Tax Policy Deductions: Specific Evidence , I examined the conclusions and analysis of a Congression...
Friday, May 25, 2012

The Philadelphia Real Property Tax: Eternal Circles

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That old quip about death and taxes takes on an even sharper meaning when one considers the never-ending story of the Philadelphia real prop...
Wednesday, May 23, 2012

The Failure of Tax Policy Deductions: Specific Evidence

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Earlier this month, the Congressional Research Service released a study of section 179 first-year expensing and section 168(k) bonus deprec...
Monday, May 21, 2012

Don’t Rob Peter to Pay Paul: Collect Unpaid Taxes

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A little more than a week ago, in Robbing Peter to Pay Paul, Tax Style , I reacted to news that some state legislators are trying to divert ...
Friday, May 18, 2012

Putting Tax Money Where the Tax Mouth Is

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Certain taxpayers are in the habit of trying to obtain public funding for private sector enterprises through tax breaks. The gist of the arg...
Wednesday, May 16, 2012

The Failure of Tax Policy Credits: Specific Evidence

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Recently, Sarah J. Webber, of the University of Dayton School of Business Administration, released a paper written last year that explores t...
Monday, May 14, 2012

Tax Cheating and Tax Complexity

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Late last week I received a press release describing a new book, Tax Cheating: Illegal – But Is It Immoral? , written by Donald Morris, an a...
Friday, May 11, 2012

Robbing Peter to Pay Paul, Tax Style

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Philadelphia’s School District is in financial trouble. That’s not news. Tax revenues are down, spending cuts have not eliminated the budget...
Wednesday, May 09, 2012

Tax Credit = Reverse Tax

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Almost a year ago, Pennsylvania State Representative Jesse White announced plans to introduce legislation “that would provide a tax credit ...
Monday, May 07, 2012

Tax Incentives Gone Wild

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Two separate developments that appeared last week provide even more warnings about the dangers of relying on tax incentives to accomplish go...
Friday, May 04, 2012

Using the Tax System to Steal Identities

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They are persistent, that much must be conceded. I’m referring to people whose intelligence and cleverness could accomplish much to benefit ...
Wednesday, May 02, 2012

Obstacles to Property Tax Reform

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Consider the situation in which two homeowners find themselves. Each lives in the same real property tax jurisdiction. Each owns a home wort...
Monday, April 30, 2012

A Questionable Health Tax Proposal

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Earlier this month, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies released the third in a series of reports on the state of public h...
Friday, April 27, 2012

The Disadvantages of Tax Incentives

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A recent case provides good insight into the disadvantages of using the tax law in an effort to encourage or discourage particular economic ...
Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Trust and Taxes

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Perhaps there is another element in the raging debate about taxes. Perhaps the disagreement has less to do with how much a government collec...
Monday, April 23, 2012

If the IRS Can’t Get It Right, Is It Any Wonder Taxpayers Struggle?

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A recent discussion on the ABA-TAX listserve ultimately revealed a rather disturbing error in an IRS audit guide. The issue involves the co...
Friday, April 20, 2012

Another Bad Tax Return Clutter Idea

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It’s bad enough that federal income tax returns are bloated with multiple forms, and that most forms are crammed with dozens of lines of inf...
Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Are State Tax Incentives Worth It?

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The Pew Center on the States has released a report on the effectiveness of state tax incentives. The report, titled “Evidence Counts: Eval...
Monday, April 16, 2012

Taxes and Safety

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An unfortunate fatal fire in Philadelphia has focused attention on the double whammy of absentee property owners who are derelict both in me...