Friday, September 29, 2017

Age Is Not “Just a Number,” But Sometimes It Is the Wrong Number

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About a month ago, in For Tax Purposes, Age Is Not “Just a Number” , I described the outcome in a case involving a taxpayer’s failure to pro...
Wednesday, September 27, 2017

The Tax Fake That Will Not Die

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Supply-side economics is a fake. Trickle-down economic theory demonstrates its untruth when it meets practical reality. Tax cuts for the wea...
Monday, September 25, 2017

Internal Revenue Code Sections and Subsections

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My eyebrows were raised by a recent post from the online magazine of the National Society of Accountants . What I read distressed me. The...
Friday, September 22, 2017

One of the Reasons Tax Law Is Complicated

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The supply of television court shows seems endless. So, too, is the stream of television court shows that touch on tax issues. There’s no qu...
Wednesday, September 20, 2017

Reverse Tax Logic

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According to this report , the chair of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity suggested that “when burdens like poll ta...
Monday, September 18, 2017

Is Anti-Tax Sentiment Weakening?

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For almost two decades, Americans have been told, time and again, that they oppose tax and fee increases. Enormous sums of money have been p...
Friday, September 15, 2017

A Tax Challenge: Simplicity Versus Fairness

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Taxpayers complain about the complexity of tax laws and tax forms, to say nothing of the inconvenience of keeping records and digging up inf...
Wednesday, September 13, 2017

Mileage-Based Road Fees: A Positive Trend?

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Unquestionably, I am a fan of mileage-based road fees. Those fees are a sensible and efficient method of funding highway repairs and mainten...
Monday, September 11, 2017

When Tax Scammers Sue Each Other

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Readers know that I watch television court shows in search of good tax stories. They know this because they’ve seen a long parade of comment...
Friday, September 08, 2017

When It Comes to the Mileage-Based Road Fee, Try It, You’ll Like It

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It has been almost 13 years since I first wrote about the mileage-based road fee. At the time, it was an idea, one that addressed the ever-g...
Wednesday, September 06, 2017

The Tax Consequences of a Child’s Beauty Pageant Activities

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When a child wins money in a beauty pageant, should the gross income be reported by the child or the child’s parents? When expenses are paid...
Monday, September 04, 2017

Taxing What Doesn’t Exist

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As I mentioned a bit more than a year ago, in Taxation of Androids and Robots, and Similar Pressing Issues , I often use “tax consequences o...
Friday, September 01, 2017

Federal Income Tax Statutes Supersede Treasury Regulations

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From time to time, when teaching the basic federal income tax course, a student would approach and explain that he or she was confused becau...
Wednesday, August 30, 2017

Another City Cuts Soda Tax Revenue Estimates

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Though advocates of soda taxes view them as pots of revenue gold offering funding for a long list of programs, those advocates justify the t...
Monday, August 28, 2017

Revoking Targeted Tax Breaks When Recipient Fails to Deliver

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Readers of this blog know that I do not support targeted tax breaks. These are special tax law enactments that benefit a particular recipien...
Friday, August 25, 2017

For Tax Purposes, Age Is Not “Just a Number”

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It was not until I was well into adulthood that I encountered adults who did not know how old they were. I’m not referring to people with am...
Wednesday, August 23, 2017

Does Refusal to Provide a Receipt Suggest Tax Fraud Underway?

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Once again, a television court show has come through with a tax angle to the case. The list gets longer. It started with Judge Judy and Tax ...
Monday, August 21, 2017

Court Cannot Address Tax Issue When Issue Doesn’t Exist

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Several days ago, in Taxing a Tax , I discussed litigation commenced in Cook County, Illinois, by an individual who alleged that McDonald’s ...
Friday, August 18, 2017

A Good Guess In a Tax-or-Fee Prediction

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The email arrived a few days ago from a reader with the simple subject line, “you were right.” For a moment, before opening the email, I sca...
Wednesday, August 16, 2017

Taxing a Tax

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Cook County, Illinois, enacted a one-cent-per-ounce tax on sugary drinks. The county also imposes a sales tax, which together with the state...
Monday, August 14, 2017

Taxes, Passwords, and the Consumption of Hours

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I’ve been using computers, in one way or another, since 1972. I have owned a personal computer of one sort or another since 1983. I have bee...