My favorite IRS employee has started a blog. Paul Caron reports: National Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson has started a blog: Welcome to the National Taxpayer Advocateâs blog about taxpayer rights and taxpayer burden. For starters, let me explain that I use the term âtaxpayer rightsâ here to mean not only statutory rights but also the [...]
Paul Caron reports that nearly 280,000 current and former federal workers are delinquent in their tax obligations: Over 279,000 federal workers and retirees owed more than $3.4 billion in back income taxes in 2010 (up from $3.3 billion in 2009, $3.0 billion in 2008, and $2.7 billion in 2007). The cabinet departments with the largest percentages of [...]
John Kerry, the Democratic nominee for President in 2004, paid a lower rate of taxes than Mitt Romney paid in 2010. Of course, we didn’t hear much about Mr. Kerry’s low tax rate from the mainstream press even though, unlike Romney, he thinks the rich are undertaxed. It almost seems unfair to point out that unlike Mr. Romney, who [...]
In a 2007 blog post appearing in The American Stephen Moore reported that the top one percent of American income earners pay 37% of the federal income tax: The latest data show that a big portion of the federal income tax burden is shoulÂdered by a small group of the very richest Americans. The wealthiest 1 percent of the population earn 19 [...]
The AP reports that the IRS has continued to allocate more of its resources to the examination of the tax returns of the super rich: One in eight people earning at least $1 million annually was audited by the Internal Revenue Service last year, making them far likelier to be examined than those making below $200,000, [...]
No shortage of tax news this first week of 2012! Here are some headlines that caught my attention this week in my new weekly “Tax Relief Mashup“
U.S. Charges 3 Swiss Bank Employees With Aiding Tax Evasion
3 Swiss Bank employees were indicted this week for helping United States taxpayers to hide more than $1.2 billion from the IRS.
Janice Dickinson in Hot Water with the IRS… Again!
Dickinson allegedly owes the
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The economy added 200,000 jobs in December and President Obama is taking credit for it. The only problem is what he’s taking credit for happens to be tax cuts. Here’s an excerpt of Obama’s speech from the White House website (emphasis added): This morning we learned that American businesses added another 212,000 jobs last month … . And [...]
It has been an interesting week in tax news this final week of 2011. The last week of the year is always a big one in the tax relief industry since we have just days to take action to lower our 2011 tax bill. Here are  some of the top headlines that caught my attention this week:
IRS sues Yankees’ Hal Steinbrenner over tax refund New York Yankees
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Reuters reports that the U.S. has sued New York Yankees co-owner Hal Steinbrenner and his wife seeking more than $670,00 in taxes, saying that amount was erroneously refunded to the baseball team based on a late refund claim for the 2001 tax year: The suit filed by the Internal Revenue Service in U.S. District Court in [...]
Washington Redskins wide receiver Santana Moss has had an up and down week. On Sunday, Moss caught two passes for 40 yards with a touchdown in the Washington Redskins’ 23-10 win over the New York Giants. On a down note, the Detroit News reported that the elite receiver owesthe IRS $258,017 in back taxes. According the source, the IRS filed a tax lean in November against Mossâs $5.2
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Here we go again. The indefatigable David Cay Johnston has twisted the results of a study that says that America, with it’s low tax rates, has the lowest rate of tax evasion in the civilized world into one that says America, because of it’s low tax rates, has the most tax evasion in the civilized world. Here’s Johnston’s [...]
Alec Baldwin is a compassionate liberal who regularly accuses Republicans of being hateful, selfish and greedy. Apparently, Mr. Baldwin thinks this makes it okay for him to call his 13 year old daughter a rude, thoughtless little pig and treat lowly flight attendants like trash. Yahoo! Buzz Log has the latest: The brouhaha surrounding Alec Baldwin, who claims [...]
“Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.” St Matthew, 5.44 Did you know that the Matthew of the New Testament was a tax collector? I didn’t either until I heard it on Jeopardy last night. Here’s a [...]
Two years ago we addressed the IRS’s flawed refund procedure in False Refund Schemes and Backwards IRS Return Processing Rules. Today, Jay Weaver of the Miami Herald gives a distressing update in Scammers Steal IRS Refunds with Ease: âWe are seeing defendants once involved in other types of crimes [such as drug trafficking] getting involved in identity-theft schemes, [...]
Taxpayers and their advisors have good reason to want to categorize losses as theft losses rather than investment losses. Theft losses are treated as ordinary losses and are deductible in full in the year incurred. Investment losses are treated as capital losses and are limited to the amount of capital gains plus $3,000. It is, therefore, not surprising [...]
WebCPA reports that a group of millionaires visited the halls of Congress in an effort to convince lawmakers to raise tax rates on incomes of $1 million a year or more: The group, known as the âPatriotic Millionaires,â made the visit as the November 23 deadline approaches for a congressional âsupercommitteeâ to come up with a [...]
Fox News reports that a Florida public school administrator called the sheriff after a pair of consenting 12-year-olds shared a kiss on the playground: Lee County Sheriffâs deputies were dispatched to Orange River Elementary School after two female students were debating over who liked a 12-year-old boy more. At that point, one of the girls walked over and [...]
IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman has come out for tax simplification: Most taxpayers want simplicity. They want to pay what they owe, understand what tax benefits they are entitled to, and not get tripped up by the system. However, todayâs Tax Code is anything but simple. It is so complex that it makes it hard for [...]
Sharon D. Kukhahn, 62, of Tacoma, Wash., was sentenced Wednesday in a federal court in Tacoma, Washington to seven years in jail, three years of supervised release, and $856,681 in restitution after being convicted of conspiracy, four counts of tax evasion and corrupt interference with Internal Revenue law. WebCPA has the story: Kukhahn was convicted [...]
Better hope not says David Logan of the Tax Foundation: To tackle its economic crisis, Italy is reportedly considering a wealth taxâa tax levied on individuals with a net worth above a certain threshold. This type of tax is already levied on individuals in half a dozen countries in Europeâmost notably, France. The tax is generally [...]