Monday, March 31, 2014

One Way the Rich Get Richer: Makers and Takers

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The cultural debate over makers and takers has focused on arguments by one side trying to prove that welfare recipients are mooching off the...
Friday, March 28, 2014

Pennsylvania’s Ban on Graduated Income Taxes: Credits and Exemptions

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According to this report at least one candidate for the Democratic nomination for governor is in favor of making changes to the Pennsylvani...
Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Tax Law Complexity Contributes to Federal Budget Ignorance

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Almost three years ago, in Americans Still Don’t Grasp Federal Budget Realities , following up on The Grand Delusion: Balancing the Federal ...
Monday, March 24, 2014

Philadelphia’s BRT Encounters a Provision That Bars Solving the Problem that the Provision Created

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Last Monday, in Sometimes, They Cannot Win , I commented on the strange outcome of the proposal to increase the salaries of some members of ...
Friday, March 21, 2014

Worried About the Wrong Tax Collector

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A recent story about an architect taking selfies to prove that he is not in New York for more than 182 days. He is doing this, according to...
Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Are the Rich Less Altruistic or More Altruistic Than the Poor?

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Last week, I received an email from Queendom , which is a outfit that provides tests and surveys for a variety of purposes and users. Accord...
Monday, March 17, 2014

Sometimes, They Cannot Win

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On Wednesday, in Is a Tax Appeal Delayed a Tax Appeal Denied? , I discussed how an attempt to reduce city expenditures by reducing the pay o...
Friday, March 14, 2014

Cigarettes, E-Cigarettes, and Taxes

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I don’t smoke, so there are limits to what I understand about cigarettes and e-cigarettes. I do know that cigarettes are subject to special ...
Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Is a Tax Appeal Delayed a Tax Appeal Denied?

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A tax appeal delayed is not a tax appeal denied if the taxpayer making the appeal is not required to pay the disputed tax until the disagree...
Monday, March 10, 2014

Are the Rich Different When It Comes to Discussing Money?

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The topic of the email caught my eye. It simply stated, “Money is the last social taboo for the rich, reveals deVere study.” Curious, I look...
Friday, March 07, 2014

Cracking the Tax Protest Movement

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Few people delight in paying taxes, though some people pay them with the same sort of acceptance that people project when stopping for a red...
Wednesday, March 05, 2014

Tax Fun and Tax Hilarity

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Last Wednesday, in Making Taxes Fun , I reacted to a quip by Harry Gross in which he asked and answered a question, “Fairest [tax] of all? ...
Monday, March 03, 2014

Find Some Money, Pay Some Tax

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Every now and then we read of someone finding something valuable. This time, it’s a California couple who found a stash of gold coins on the...
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....