Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner recently told the Senate Finance Comittee that removing small business owners’ option to be taxed as a corporation or an individual is an essential part of tax reform: Congress has to revisit this basic question about whether it makes sense for us as a country to allow certain businesses [...]
Tags: S Corporations · Tax Policy · The Economy
Columbia economist Jeffrey Sachs this morning on MNBC’s Morning Joe repeatedly uttered this tired liberal refrain: Tax the rich. Former-conservative Joe Scarborough tepidly challenged him by declaring “we can’t tax our way out of this,” to which the brilliant scholar replied: Oh, yes we can.¹ I’ll say it again: It takes deep thinking and a lot of hard work to reduce the [...]
Tags: Politics of Taxes · The Economy
Bloomberg.com reports that the IRS will announce that breast pumps and other medical equipment that help women lactate are deductible See advance copy of IRS Announcement 2011-14, 2011-9 I.R.B. ___ (Feb. 28, 2011): Breast pumps and associated supplies will be considered medical equipment eligible for the same tax breaks as contact-lens solution, bandages and prescription [...]
Tags: Deductible Expenses
Jack Townsend reports that the IRS has announced a new special voluntary disclosure program: For now, I will just link to the announcement here and provide only the bullet points I see with no (or very limited) editorial comment: 1. The deal is available through 8/31/11. (Note, however, taxpayers must “file” the required amended income tax [...]
Tags: International Taxation · voluntary disclosure
One of my favorite tax bloggers is Jack Townsend of Federal Tax Crimes. Today he has an excellent post titled Can I Just Pay and Make the Investigation / Prosecution Go Away? (emphasis is mine): Criminal tax practitioners often are asked early in the representation (and often more than once) whether, if the client under [...]
Tags: Tax Crimes
Paul Caron reports that the Fifth Circuit has now joined the Fourth and the Ninth in holding that the an overstatement of basis is not the same as an omission of income and, therefore, the extended statute of limitations on assessments (6 years instead of 3 years) that applies to income understatements does not apply to [...]
Tags: Court Cases · Statutes of Limitation
William Baldwin of Forbes gives us some new ridiculous taxes: Herewith, to give you a break from your Form 1040, is a catalog of the country’s looniest taxes. Hat tips to William Barrett, Norml, Ray Squitieri, Stephen Von Worley, Thomson Reuters One Source Tax & Accounting and TurboTax. Arkansas: Body Piercing Tax The state spells [...]
Tags: Tax Humor
