Monday, July 30, 2012

The Importance of Tax Record Keeping

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It is not difficult to find professionals who advise, whether in person, on web sites, or otherwise, that tax records should be retained for...
Friday, July 27, 2012

Federal Ready Return: Index

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Several readers requested an index to the series of posts on the federal Ready Return proposal. Here it is. Federal Ready Return, Part One:...

The Limits of Taxation

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In the current atmosphere of anti-taxation sentiment, opposition to tax increases, and efforts to curtail government, it was surprising but ...
Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Federal Ready Return, Part Fourteen: Conclusion

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The nation is not ready for federal Ready Return. Nor will it ever be, until and unless the federal income tax law is overhauled. Ready Retu...
Monday, July 23, 2012

Federal Ready Return, Part Thirteen: IRS Authority

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Ready Return is something that the IRS has authority to implement. Section 2004 of the Internal Revenue Service Restructuring and Reform Act...
Friday, July 20, 2012

Federal Ready Return, Part Twelve: Taxpayer Acceptance

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Ready Return will not work if taxpayers do not accept it. All indications are that Ready Return will fall flat. As I pointed out in First ...
Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Federal Ready Return, Part Eleven: Conflict of Interest

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Ready Return creates a conflict of interest, not, as some claim, because it gives the IRS the dual roles of tax return preparer and tax coll...
Monday, July 16, 2012

Federal Ready Return, Part Ten: IRS Capacity

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Ready Return would impose significant demands on IRS resources. Imposing Ready Return on an IRS saddled with computer system problems is unw...
Friday, July 13, 2012

Federal Ready Return, Part Nine: Economic Impact

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Ready Return proponents claim that it will save people several billion dollars in taxpayer return preparation fees. If that’s true, that put...
Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Federal Ready Return, Part Eight: Burden on Business

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In order for Ready Return to work, even putting aside all of its other flaws, the IRS would need W-2 and 1099 2 forms to be submitted earlie...
Monday, July 09, 2012

Federal Ready Return, Part Seven: Taxpayer Acquiescence

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Another danger of the Ready Return method is that it can induce taxpayers to accept IRS positions to which they would object if raised durin...
Friday, July 06, 2012

Federal Ready Return, Part Six: Security Risks

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Ready Return poses serious security risks for taxpayers, particularly if the system is set up in a manner that requires taxpayers to access ...
Wednesday, July 04, 2012

Federal Ready Return, Part Five: Efficiency

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Advocates of Ready Return claim that it saves people time. After I shared my opinions about Ready Return on public radio , as described in F...
Monday, July 02, 2012

Federal Ready Return, Part Four: The Persistence of the Tax Gap

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The IRS claims that this system would eliminate the tax gap, estimated between an $300 and $400 billion annually. See Daniel Horowitz, The I...
Friday, June 29, 2012

Federal Ready Return, Part Three: Income Tax Return Accuracy

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Though Ready Return advocates praise their proposal as a generator of increased tax return accuracy, the reality is quite different. To assu...
Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Federal Ready Return, Part Two: The Value of Self-Compliance

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Federal Ready Return will erode the value of the self-compliance principle of the federal income tax system. There is a very good reason th...
Monday, June 25, 2012

Federal Ready Return, Part One: Introduction

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For quite some time, I have been an outspoken critic of the Ready Return concept, which was adopted in California but which has not taken of...
Friday, June 22, 2012

Some Tax Things Cannot Be Forced

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A recent Nebraska case, Bock v. Dalbey addressed the interesting question of whether a spouse can be forced to file a joint return. The cou...
Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Taxes as an Element in Damages

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It is not uncommon for taxes to be an element in the computation of damages. For example, someone who must purchase goods from an alternati...
Monday, June 18, 2012

Doing the Math: Ignoring the Long-Term While Focusing on the Short-Term

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In The Valuation Effect of Real Estate Taxes ,while criticizing a purported proof of how real estate tax changes affect values, I remarked, ...
Friday, June 15, 2012

The Valuation Effect of Real Estate Taxes

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A real estate broker has presented a Real Estate Taxation Mathematics 101 that demonstrates how seriously financial illiteracy is harming t...
Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Can the Philadelphia Real Property Tax System Be Saved?

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The litany of posts that I have written about the Philadelphia real property tax is long. It began with An Unconstitutional Tax Assessment ...
Monday, June 11, 2012

Practical Impacts of Supreme Court Tax Decision

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The facts are simple. For many years, when the city of Indianapolis wanted to build or reconstruct sewers, it divided the cost equally among...
Friday, June 08, 2012

User Fees: Differential Rates Based on Residency

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A practice that has been occasionally used by tolling authorities has become widespread in recent years. According to a recent USA Today sto...
Wednesday, June 06, 2012

The Revenue Diversion Problem

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Readers of MauledAgain know that I take a dim view of governments diverting user fee revenue to purposes unrelated to the reason for imposin...
Monday, June 04, 2012

A Tax Problem, A Solution, So Why No Repair?

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The saga of the troubles afflicting the Philadelphia real property tax continues ceaselessly. First addressed by me in An Unconstitutional T...