If you don’t think last Tuesday’s Great Oregon Wealth Shift will have an impact on other states, read this article by John Hall, executive director of the Florida Center for Fiscal and Economic Policy: Many of Florida’s legislators have begun to sound off about the state budget being developed for the fiscal year that will start [...]
Tags: State Taxes · Tax Policy
You can file this Bloomberg.com story under airline bailout: Airline baggage fees are not taxable, the Internal Revenue Service said, a victory for carriers trying to protect a growing revenue stream. The agency, in a letter this month to an airline, pointed to the IRS code specifying that “charges for transportation of baggage” were not taxable. The letter [...]
Tags: IRS procedure · News
The San Francisco Chronicle reports that “a woman who stalled on paying a $55,000 bill she racked up at a Novato hotel over two years falsely claimed she was an undercover Internal Revenue Service agent who was having trouble getting paid”: About four years ago, Sherry Vertoch told John Marshall, one of the hotel’s owners, that [...]
Tags: News · Tax Crimes
Last night President Obama did something I have not seen a President do before in a State of the Union address. He reprimanded the Supreme Court, a co-equal branch of the federal government, for handing down a decision (Citizens United) with which he personally disagrees: Last week, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests — including [...]
Tags: Politics · Supreme Court
While President Franklin D. Roosevelt was new dealin’ the American people back to the Stone Age he was claiming that he was exempt from all new tax increases he signed into law. Eugene Volokh writes in Barack Obama as FDR – Are Presidents Constitutionally Exempt from Tax Increases they Sign? A fascinating post from Prof. Sarah B. Lawsky, on [...]
Tags: Legislative Watch
President Obama gave his first State of the Union address tonight. Here are the parts of the speech in which he addressed tax policy followed by my humble observations. (Read the entire speech) 1. The Bank Tax What the President said (emphasis added): To recover the rest [of the TARP funds], I have proposed a fee on the biggest banks. [...]
Tags: Legislative Watch · Politics · Tax Policy
“He was a great patriot, a humanitarian, a loyal friend – provided, of course, that he really is dead.” - Voltaire – WebCPA reports that a California man has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the U.S. after he was accused of filing at least 250 tax returns of deceased individuals (emphasis added): Haroon Amin [...]
Tags: News · Tax Crimes
