Monday, July 31, 2017

Earrings, Jet Skiing, and Casualty Loss Deductions

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A reader asked me two questions about the tax consequences of an unfortunate event that befell Atlanta Falcons’ wide receiver Julio Jones. A...
Friday, July 28, 2017

Getting Tax Facts Correct: Is It Really That Difficult?

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George Will tried to prove a point about the federal income tax system . The point he tried to prove is a simple one, and one with which alm...
Wednesday, July 26, 2017

Preparing Someone’s Tax Return Without Permission

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Five years ago, I wasn’t seeing as many television court shows as I do now, in part because I was teaching full-time. So I’ve certainly seen...
Monday, July 24, 2017

Should Tax Increases Reflect Populist Sentiment?

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True, polls aren’t necessarily accurate barometers, but a new poll from Bloomberg indicates more Americans favor an increase in the federal...
Friday, July 21, 2017

Gross Income from Dating?

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A reader has added another television court show episode to the list of those on which I cannot help but comment. The list is getting longer...
Wednesday, July 19, 2017

When “Taxpayer” Means “Taxpayer”

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A recent Tax Court decision, Gregory v. Comr. , 149 T.C. No. 2 (2017), provides an excellent, though long, primer on statutory interpretatio...
Monday, July 17, 2017

Does a Ban on Chocolate Milk Presage a Chocolate Milk Tax?

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Readers of MauledAgain know that I consider chocolate to be medicinal, and in many respects, essential. Of course, like any food item, it ou...
Friday, July 14, 2017

When A (Tax or User Fee) Problem Becomes Personal

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According to a recent news report , Setti Warren, mayor of Newton, Massachusetts, was slightly injured when he was thrown from his bike afte...
Wednesday, July 12, 2017

Be Careful When Paying Another Person’s Tax Preparation Fee

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There is such a flood of television court shows that there is no way I get to see all of them. Fortunately, a reader passed along a link to ...
Monday, July 10, 2017

“I’ll Pay You (Back) When I Get My Tax Refund.”

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Those television court shows would be a steady source of material for MauledAgain if I watched them on a regular basis. But even though I ge...
Friday, July 07, 2017

When “Cut Spending” Doesn’t Mean “Cut Spending”

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One of the arguments used by the anti-tax crowd is a simple one. Taxes should be cut, they argue, and can be cut, because there exists gover...
Wednesday, July 05, 2017

Tax Consequences of Savings Incentive Payments

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A reader sent me a link to an article describing a San Francisco program designed to encourage people to save money by paying them cash if ...
Monday, July 03, 2017

Deducting Taxes: It’s Not the Subsidy

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Several days ago, Tom Giovanetti, of the Institute for Policy Innovation , shared his rationale for supporting the repeal of the federal inc...
Friday, June 30, 2017

Tax Planning of the Bizarre Kind

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Every political entity, whether federal, state, county, township, city, village, or other subdivision, that has jurisdiction over highways, ...
Wednesday, June 28, 2017

Yet Another Reason the IRS is Not Ready for ReadyReturn

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For more than a few years, I have tried to persuade advocates of federal and state ReadyReturn programs that one of the major impediments to...
Monday, June 26, 2017

Another One of Those Non-Arithmetic Tax Questions: What Is a Sport?

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When someone claims that tax law isn’t “really law” because it’s “just numbers,” I have a list of tax issues that don’t require computations...
Friday, June 23, 2017

Learning from The Tax Experiences of Others

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On more than a few occasions I have discussed the failure of supply-side, trickle-down economic theory as it played out in Kansas. In posts ...
Wednesday, June 21, 2017

Is the Soda Tax an Ice Tax?

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Readers of this blog know that I am not a supporter of the soda tax, for all sorts of reasons, particularly because it doesn’t tax most item...
Monday, June 19, 2017

How Much of a Victory for Philadelphia is Its Soda Tax Win in Commonwealth Court?

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For almost ten years I have been commenting on the Philadelphia soda tax, from when it was a proposal, through its enactment, and during its...