You don't run across many tax-related doppelgangers, but I definitely think this is one. IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman and actor John Francis Daley are my candidates for the popular separated-at-birth comparison. Or at the very least, as I noted on Twitter on Wednesday, "waiting for Bones. is it just me or does actor who plays...
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Life can be funny. And sad. And infuriating. And just downright wrong.
All of those apply to the financial situation of American International Group Inc., better known by its initials AIG. We're all too familiar with the recent $150 billion federal bailout of the insurance giant.
After the money was forked over, the fun revelations started coming.
We soon learned, but not soon enough, that the deal was structured to protect AIG's loan interest tax ...
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Four different news items coming along during the past two days have coalesced into a strange thought. All three stories involve the financial relationship between government and business. The first story broke on Wednesday. In a press release, the Department of Justice announced the indictment of Raoul Weil, a senior executive of an international Swiss bank, for allegedly conspiring with other persons to assist approximately 20,000 taxpayers con ...
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For tax practitioners, tax is a rational subject. So, too, is tax law. Occasionally afflicted by illogical provisions, it nonetheless contains a variety of rules, marked by definitions, computations, and limitations, that can be applied, in most instances, by that most rational thing, the computer. Where objectivity fails, it involves issues such as valuation and purpose, raising questions that can be resolved through objective analysis of fact...
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Last week, in Wealth Redistribution, Socialism, and the Tax Law, I wrote: The notion that believing in taking from the haves and giving to the have nots makes a person a socialist means that almost every President elected since 1913, and almost every member of Congress elected since that time, is or was a socialist. How do I develop that reading of the GetLiberty assertion? The federal income tax usually takes something from the haves and redistr...
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During the past week, the outpouring of "it's socialism" as a response to the proposal to revoke the tax cuts enacted for those with high-level incomes has continued unabated. For example, over at GetLiberty, the assertion is put forth that "Barack Obama is a socialist who believes in taking from the haves and giving to the have nots." It's unclear whether this assertion claims that Obama is a socialist BECAUSE he "believes in taking from the ha ...
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When it comes to tax fraud, federal prisons apparently are branch offices.
The IRS estimates that around $375 million is lost each year to refund fraud. And part of that total comes from behind bars.
Between 7.5 percent to 15 percent of all refund tax fraud is being committed by prison inmates. And, says the IRS, the problem is growing, with prisoners devising elaborate schemes to receive refunds by fraudulently reporting earnings or claiming fal...
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"The only thing that hurts more than paying an income tax is not having to pay an income tax." -- Lord Thomas Robert Dewar
Yes, that Dewar. The Scottish whiskey distiller. The man whose namesake beverage is probably imbibed in large quantities around April 15.
But his observation is sobering. And worth considering as the presidential campaign heads into the home stretch. During these last nine days, the perennial political specter of taxes will be...
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I accidentally looked at a third quarter statement for one of my retirement accounts last week. Its value had dropped just 11 percent. If you'd told me a year ago that I'd be OK with a loss in value of "just 11 percent" on any investment, I'd have called you crazy.But crazy is what the...
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In Children, Toys, Greed, Profits, Gambling, and Lessons from History , I noted that some experts have warned us that if the world's economic problems are not solved quickly, the world will enter a "dangerously deep recession." I then wondered if we tightened up that phrase, would we get Depression? Well, the experts assure us that there is little chance of a depression. But, instead, they are beginning to express concern about another d-word. A ...
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