Friday, April 28, 2017

St. Louis Voters Say “No” to Proposed Tax Increase to Fund Private-Sector Proposal

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A few months ago, in If You Want a Professional Sports Team, Pay For It Yourselves; Don’t Grab Tax Dollars , I criticized a major league soc...
Wednesday, April 26, 2017

Pretending a Tax Payment Is For Something Else

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There’s a man in Montana who is unhappy that the county treasurer has not cashed the check he wrote in November to pay his property tax bill...
Monday, April 24, 2017

Tax Dollars to Finance the Wealthy? Not Necessary and Not Appropriate

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Seventeen months ago, in Taking and Giving Back , I wrote: It’s a familiar story. A private sector business asks for special tax breaks and ...
Friday, April 21, 2017

A Well-Intentioned But Pragmatically Unwise Tax Filing Suggestion

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When a reader sent me an email directing my attention to this commentary I knew immediately that it was a foolish proposition that begged f...
Wednesday, April 19, 2017

What Is It With Minnesota Professors and Taxes?

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Six years ago, in Why Teaching Isn’t Just a Matter of What One Knows or Understands , and in a follow-up post four years later, Still Puzzle...
Monday, April 17, 2017

Proving Some Tax Evidence Is Not The Same as Proving All

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Sometimes it’s not enough to produce some evidence to support a taxpayer’s claim for an exclusion, deduction, or credit. Sometimes it’s not ...
Friday, April 14, 2017

Why Are Users So Reluctant to Pay Taxes for What They Use?

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At the beginning of the month, in And Now It’s California Facing the Road Funding Tax Issues , I described the California proposal to raise ...
Wednesday, April 12, 2017

Who Is It That Is Making You Do This?

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Last week, CNN reprinted a report from Motley Fool with the attention grabbing headline, “4 things the IRS doesn't want you to know....
Monday, April 10, 2017

If Users Don’t Pay, Who Should?

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As readers of this blog know, I am a strong supporter of mileage-based road fees. I have written about the mileage-based road fee many times...
Friday, April 07, 2017

So Would YOU Do Any of These Things to Avoid Paying Taxes?

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Last month, in So What Would YOU Do to Avoid Taxes? , I shared and commented on a new Survey from Wallet Hub , which revealed what people wo...
Wednesday, April 05, 2017

The Tax Value of a Name

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Names matter. We encounter names everywhere. Though occasionally a name strikes us as unusual, or noteworthy, usually we take names for gran...
Monday, April 03, 2017

And Now It’s California Facing the Road Funding Tax Issues

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It’s the time of the year when states examine highways and bridges, evaluate the damage caused by winter weather, usage, and deterioration c...
Friday, March 31, 2017

Kansas As a Role Model for Tax Policy?

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There is no question that supply-side-based tax policy, and its related “trickle down” theory, do not work. They cause far more problems tha...
Wednesday, March 29, 2017

Tax Deduction for Donating Clothing

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A recent United States Tax Court case, Gaines v. Comr. , T.C. Summ. Op. 2017-15, provides some insight into claiming a charitable contributi...
Monday, March 27, 2017

When Tax Revenues Continue to Be Less Than Required

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The Philadelphia soda tax remains controversial, and hasn’t started off very well. The controversy has accompanied it since its proposal, as...
Friday, March 24, 2017

What Sort of Tax or Fee Will Hawaii Use to Fix Its Highways?

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Hawaii has a problem. According to this report , its State Highway Fund is $100 million short of what is needed to keep its highways in func...
Wednesday, March 22, 2017

Tax Return Preparation as a Side Job

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Though from time to time I find material for this blog when I watch television court shows, there are far more shows and episodes than I’ve ...
Monday, March 20, 2017

Commas and (Tax) Statutes

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One of the key ingredients of tax law practice is the ability to parse statutes. As I tell my students, sometimes the answer is in the statu...
Friday, March 17, 2017

So What Would YOU Do to Avoid Taxes?

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A few days ago, a new survey from WalletHub was released, revealing some interesting responses from Americans with respect to taxes and a f...
Wednesday, March 15, 2017

If At First You Don’t Succeed With a Tax Rule, . . .

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A recent case, Jackson v. Comr. , T.C. Summ. Op. 2017-11, provides an example of when persistence is not worth the effort. Deciding when to ...
Monday, March 13, 2017

Here’s Your Tax Refund, Oops, Wait, No, It’s Not There

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The word glitch has become an everyday word in twenty-first century America. Essentially, it means a defect or malfunction in a machine or ...
Friday, March 10, 2017

Horrors! Say It Isn’t So!

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Yet again, while in the shower and listening to the local Philadelphia news station, I heard another story that caught my attention. Though ...
Wednesday, March 08, 2017

Tax Fears: Whom to Believe?

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Earlier this week, while showering, I heard a radio advertisement for a tax debt relief business. The advertisement noted that there are way...
Monday, March 06, 2017

The Imperfections of the Philadelphia Soda Tax

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No tax is perfect. By definition, a tax takes money or property from people, theoretically, at least, in return for goods or services. Becau...
Friday, March 03, 2017

A Tax Based on Skin Color, Gender, and Sexual Orientation?

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An unidentified author at Wesplain has proposed an “equality tax” designed to “level the economic playing field.” According to the author, ...