Friday, January 31, 2014

The People’s Court Meets Tax Record Keeping

›
The People’s Court, with Judge Milian, has been the subject of two previous MauledAgain posts, The (Tax) Fraud Epidemic , and TV Judge Gets ...
Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Julian Block Revisits the Intersection of Tax and Relationships, and More

›
Julian Block has a problem. He’s not the only one afflicted with it. It hovers over me, and many others. The problem? When we write things, ...
Monday, January 27, 2014

Shutdown Consequence: Tax Filing Season Delay

›
Recently I’ve been asked, by people expecting federal income tax refunds, why it is taking so long for the tax filing season to get started....
Friday, January 24, 2014

How Not to Compute a Casualty Loss Deduction

›
A recent Tax Court case, Elder-Douglas v. Comr. , T.C. Summ. Op. 2014-7, illustrates how not to compute a casualty loss deduction. The taxpa...
Wednesday, January 22, 2014

When Tax and User Fee Increases are Cheaper

›
In previous posts, I have pointed out that the cost of failing to raise taxes or user fees can exceed the increase thereby avoided. In Liqui...
Monday, January 20, 2014

Intentional Misleading Tax References

›
Last week, a tax colleague at another law school pointed out the use of the term “IRS Code” in a Wall Street Journal story . This misleading...
Friday, January 17, 2014

Who’s to Blame for Tax Code Complexity?

›
Last week, before the Senate vote on the extension of unemployment benefits, Pennsylvania’s Senator Pat Toomey, released a statement explain...
Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Tax Ignorance? Or Perhaps Tax Mendacity?

›
It’s inescapable. It’s the monster that will not die. I have complained about tax ignorance many times, including Tax Ignorance , Is Tax Ign...
Monday, January 13, 2014

Zoned Out on Taxes

›
Two and a half-years ago, in Tax Complexity: Why? , I explained that in the seven years between the first and second editions of Tax Managem...
Friday, January 10, 2014

Job Creation Requires Necessity, Not Tax Breaks

›
I continue to be amazed by the number of people who insist that the solution to the job creation challenge is to reduce taxes. More than th...
Wednesday, January 08, 2014

Will the Property Tax Reward Program Take Hold?

›
Last Friday, in Earn Property Tax Rebates by Shopping? , I pointed out that when visiting a friend, I had noticed a sign that promised prope...
Monday, January 06, 2014

Bad Tax Advice

›
A recent posting on a tax listserv grabbed my attention. A tax attorney’s client told him that she was going through a divorce, and had no m...
Friday, January 03, 2014

Earn Property Tax Rebates by Shopping?

›
I learned something the other day. I was visiting a friend and noticed several billboards encouraging people to shop in the township. The si...
Wednesday, January 01, 2014

Should Bicycles Be Taxed?

›
Whether bicycles should be taxed is a question raised by a headline earlier this week in a Philadelphia Inquirer report . The headline, “As ...
Monday, December 30, 2013

Contracting a Tax Outcome

›
When a taxpayer signs a contract, the terms of that contract quite often dictate the tax consequence. This point was highlighted in a recent...
Friday, December 27, 2013

How to Lose a Charitable Contribution Deduction

›
According to this story , an anonymous individual put a $3,500 diamond ring into a Salvation Army red kettle. This generosity follows a dona...
Wednesday, December 25, 2013

Fixing a Tax Law Problem, For Once and For All

›
When a snag in the tax law generates results for taxpayers that are undesirable in terms of policy, fairness, or computation, ought not any ...
Monday, December 23, 2013

Picking on Just One Tax Deduction

›
The Reason Foundation has released a report, Unmasking the Mortgage Interest Deduction: Who Benefits and by How Much? in which the authors ...
Friday, December 20, 2013

Tax Re-Visits Judge Judy

›
Almost two years ago, In Judge Judy and Tax Law , I reacted to how a tax question entered into the discussion on the Judge Judy television s...
Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Tax Breaks and Tax Promises

›
Last month, in Why This Tax Break? , I described legislation pending in Philadelphia City Council that gives a multi-million-dollar tax brea...
Monday, December 16, 2013

Let’s Not Extend The Practice of Tax Extenders

›
Though I don’t always agree with the folks at the Institute for Policy Innovation , occasionally I do. A recent essay by Bartlett D. Clelan...
Friday, December 13, 2013

Can Tax Law Save Capitalism from Itself?

›
Advocates of minimizing or reducing taxation and government regulation claim that the economy prospers when the marketplace is left alone to...
Wednesday, December 11, 2013

The Tax Angle to Having Lots of Children

›
An article in Sunday’s Philadelphia Inquirer asked whether the premise of the movie Delivery Man , that a man could father 533 children, “c...
Monday, December 09, 2013

In the Tax World, Forms Matter, and So Does Timeliness

›
A recent Tax Court decision, Katz v. Comr. , T.C. Summ. Op. 2013-98, demonstrates the importance of filing forms in a timely manner. In this...
Friday, December 06, 2013

Tax Policy Converts

›
Two separate experiences have caused me to think that the tide may be turning. Both experiences involve attitude changes by those who advoca...
Wednesday, December 04, 2013

Noticing a Tax

›
Two weeks ago, in If They Use It, Should They Pay? , and its follow-up, The See-Saw World of Legislating Infrastructure Funding , I describe...
Monday, December 02, 2013

One Word – “May” – May Make a Tax Difference

›
A recent Tax Court case, Tucker v. Comr. , demonstrates how one word, in this instance, the word “may,” may make a tax difference. The taxpa...