Friday, March 29, 2013

Taxing Damages

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The tax treatment of damages depends on what the damages represent. In the basic federal income tax course, students learn that the first st...
Wednesday, March 27, 2013

How Privatization Works: It Fails the Taxpayers and Benefits the Private Sector

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Every time a person blinks, another privatization proposal pops up. The private sector, which considers itself infinitely superior to the pu...
Monday, March 25, 2013

Tax Meets the Chicken and the Egg

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When I teach the basic federal income tax course, I make certain that the students understand, early on, that tax law is much more than play...
Friday, March 22, 2013

So How Does This Tax Plan Add Up?

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The answer is simple. It doesn’t. The tax plan in question is the latest Paul Ryan budget . The Ryan plan maintains aggregate revenue. Howev...
Wednesday, March 20, 2013

The Aggravation of Tax Paperwork

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Usually, when people mention the aggravation of managing paperwork for income tax purposes, they are referring to the annual ritual of colle...
Monday, March 18, 2013

So Why Are Law Students Becoming Less Literate?

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Thanks to a post on the Legal Skills Prof Blog , my attention was directed to an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education by Michele Go...
Friday, March 15, 2013

Tax Depreciation: Do the Math

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When I teach the depreciation deduction in the basic federal income tax course, I try to balance conceptual notions with computational aspec...
Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Financial Literacy and Economic Inequality

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My two most recent posts on financial literacy, specifically A School Tax Question: So Whose Job Is It to Teach Financial Literacy? and Add...
Monday, March 11, 2013

Who Are Your Tax Policy Friends?

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There is wealth distribution video making the rounds of the web and email. It compares what people think wealth distribution should be, wha...
Friday, March 08, 2013

Selecting a Tax Return Preparer

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A few days ago, a Philadelphia Inquirer article suggested that taxpayers hire a professional tax return preparer and then offered advice on...
Wednesday, March 06, 2013

Additional Thoughts on Financial Literacy . . . and Taxes

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In response to Monday’s posting on School Tax Question: So Whose Job Is It to Teach Financial Literacy? , a reader sent me several links to ...
Monday, March 04, 2013

A School Tax Question: So Whose Job Is It to Teach Financial Literacy?

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The other day I received a press release from TVP Communications, bringing to my attention a report titled “Money Matters on Campus.” Accor...
Friday, March 01, 2013

Spending Cut Advocate Advances Spending Proposal

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Trying to eliminate the deficit by cutting spending doesn’t work, for the simple reason that all of the spending that has contributed to the...
Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Special Low Tax Rates Hurt the Economy and Thus the Nation

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The debate between those who want to tax capital gains and dividends as all other income is taxed and those who want to bless the recipient...
Monday, February 25, 2013

Tax Law Provision Enforceable Even if Unwise

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Some taxpayers who are not trained in the law think that if a law does not make sense or is unwise they can ignore it. That simply isn’t the...
Friday, February 22, 2013

How Tax Falsehoods Get Fertilized

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On Wednesday, in Tax Commercial’s False Facts Perpetuates Falsehood , I lamented the ease with which the false claim that the Internal Reven...
Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Tax Commercial’s False Facts Perpetuates Falsehood

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A goodly portion of the citizens of the United States claim that they live in the greatest nation on earth, the greatest nation in history, ...
Monday, February 18, 2013

A New Chapter in the Philadelphia Property Tax Story

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According to this story , Philadelphia property owners now have, or will shortly have, the assessments placed on their properties under the ...
Friday, February 15, 2013

Alarm Bells Ringing for Philadelphia Property Tax Reform

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The Philadelphia real property tax system is a mess. For years, it has been beset with inconsistent valuations, miserable administration, ev...