Friday, February 28, 2014

The Decline in a City’s Middle Class

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According to this story , a study sponsored by the Pew Charitable Trusts has determined that the percentage of people in Philadelphia who be...
Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Making Taxes Fun

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This one is clever. A reader wrote to Harry Gross, finance columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News, complaining about the complexity of th...
Monday, February 24, 2014

Why Does Deep Inequality Matter?

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It is important to understand that objections to income and wealth inequality, such as those I’ve shared in Getting to the Root of the Probl...
Friday, February 21, 2014

Another Weakness of the Anti-Tax Silliness

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As snow and ice storms have been battering the Midwest, the Mid-Atlantic, the Southeast, and New England, states, counties, cities, towns, a...
Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Some Ultra Rich Reveal Their Hands: Intentional or Accidental?

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The growing awareness among Americans that the at least a significant number of the ultra rich hold them in disdain, delight in the diminuti...
Monday, February 17, 2014

Working Hard?

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On Wednesday, in Absurdity Breeds More Absurdity , I noted one defender of Sam Zell’s silly claim that the top one percent works harder by r...
Friday, February 14, 2014

Income and Wealth Inequality: A Threat, Not a Distraction

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In recent posts, I have been exploring the defensive positions taken by those who consider excessive income and wealth inequality not only a...
Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Absurdity Breeds More Absurdity

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In my last post, Getting to the Root of the Problem , I criticized Sam Zell for, among other things, his absurd claim that the ultra rich wo...
Monday, February 10, 2014

Getting to the Root of the Problem

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According to numerous reports, including this one , billionaire Sam Zell has rushed to the defense of Tom Perkins, the venture capitalist wh...
Friday, February 07, 2014

Goodbye Children, Goodbye Dependency Exemption Deduction. Goodbye Child Tax Credit

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A recent case, Richardson v. Comr. , T.C. Summ. Op. 2014-9, reaches an unsurprising result but nonetheless is disturbing. What’s disturbing ...
Wednesday, February 05, 2014

Sometimes It’s the Procedure that Causes Tax Complexity

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Most of the time, when someone complains about tax being complicated, the reason is on account of what lawyers call the substantive law. In ...
Monday, February 03, 2014

The Growing Realization That Taxes Are Not Evil

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About two months ago, in in If They Use It, Should They Pay? , and its follow-ups, The See-Saw World of Legislating Infrastructure Funding ...
Friday, January 31, 2014

The People’s Court Meets Tax Record Keeping

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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?

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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?

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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

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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

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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?

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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

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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?

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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?

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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

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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

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