Wednesday, November 30, 2016

Gambling With Tax Revenue

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As soda taxes gained voter approval in four cities earlier this month, Philadelphia continues to encounter challenges in its attempt to imp...
Monday, November 28, 2016

A 180-Degree Tax Turnaround

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Five months ago, in A Not So Hidden Tax Increase? , I commented on the decision by New Jersey’s Governor Chris Christie to explore the termi...
Friday, November 25, 2016

Tax Meets Constitutional Law Ignorance

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Several days ago I received an email containing a press release from a publicity specialist on behalf of DeVere Group , which describes itse...
Thursday, November 24, 2016

Thankfully Repetitive

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It has been said that love is something that can be shared without diminishing what remains to be shared again. The same can be said about e...
Wednesday, November 23, 2016

Write the Check to the Charity; It’s Easier

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A few days ago, someone posted a question to the Reddit Tax Forum .It’s the sort of question that can find its way onto an income tax exam b...
Monday, November 21, 2016

When Tax Isn’t About Numbers: What is a Bank?

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Law students, not unlike people generally, think that tax “is all about numbers,” or, worse, “involves lots of math.” As I try to explain to...
Friday, November 18, 2016

Deferring Death as a Tax Planning Tool

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In Four Post-Election Tax Moves To Make Today , Phil DeMuth offers three unsurprising suggestions, though the deferral of income and acceler...
Wednesday, November 16, 2016

Is a Tax Provision in a State Constitution Eternal?

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Last week, a reader directed me to this report explaining that voters in Missouri approved an amendment to the state constitution prohibiti...
Monday, November 14, 2016

Thinking About Chocolate and Taxes

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Seven years ago, in Tax Credit for Chocolate? , I facetiously suggested that the “growth, manufacture, sale, purchase, and consumption of ch...
Friday, November 11, 2016

Analyzing Gasoline Tax Increase Impacts

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New Jersey raised its gasoline tax and some people are quite unhappy. An article published last week reported that a Pennsylvania resident ...
Wednesday, November 09, 2016

Is A Tax More Effective Than Licensing?

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Apparently there is a problem in Seattle. Eighty percent of dog owners fail to register their pets. The situation probably isn’t much differ...
Monday, November 07, 2016

An Entity That Doesn’t Exist Can’t Petition the Tax Court

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A recent United States Tax Court case, Urgent Care Nurses Registry, Inc. v. Comr. , T.C. Memo 2016-198, takes the tax world into a twilight ...
Friday, November 04, 2016

When Tax Is Bizarre: Milk Becomes Soda

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Philadelphia revenue officials are in the process of generating rules and regulations specifying in detail how the city’s new soda tax will ...
Wednesday, November 02, 2016

Do “Love Offerings” and “Love Gifts” Constitute Gross Income?

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One of the many areas of tax law in which facts matter as much as, if not more than, the statute and regulations is the determination of whe...
Monday, October 31, 2016

Beyond Scary: Tax-Based Halloween Costumes

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From the outset, I have made it a point to work Halloween into MauledAgain, usually looking for the silly or goofy but occasionally taking a...
Friday, October 28, 2016

The Tax Downside of a Criminal Conviction

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Most people know that being convicted of a crime brings all sorts of bad news. Convictions generate consequences ranging from prison terms a...
Wednesday, October 26, 2016

The Things Tax Lawyers Must Ponder

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When I taught the basic federal income tax course, I tried to help students understand that the practice of tax law is not simply a matter o...
Monday, October 24, 2016

An Ever-Expanding Tax To-Do List

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Last week I started a project that has been on the to-do list for longer than it should have been. The tile floor in the laundry room, at le...
Friday, October 21, 2016

Trickle-Down Advocate Now Hesitates to Oppose Tax Increases

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The state of Kansas continues to provide excellent insights into the failings of trickle-down economic theory. The theory, long discredited ...
Wednesday, October 19, 2016

Tax Ignorance in the Comics

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It comes from every direction. Tax ignorance, that is. Readers of this blog know that dislike ignorance of any kind, and tax ignorance is pa...
Monday, October 17, 2016

Tax Reciprocity Meets Tax Break Giveaways

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Several months ago, in A Not So Hidden Tax Increase? , I commented on the decision by New Jersey’s Governor Chris Christie to explore the te...
Friday, October 14, 2016

A Tax Ballot Question for the Indecisive

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Jokes abound about those who cannot make up their minds. “I used to be indecisive. Now, I’m not sure.” So, too, do complaints. More than a f...
Wednesday, October 12, 2016

A Double Tax on Streaming Video?

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According to this story , officials in several dozen California cities are thinking of imposing a tax on video streaming platforms such as N...