The Not-So-Inside Skinny On The IRS Scandal

May 14, 2013

The president claims ignorance, but the buck for the blossoming IRS scandal surely does not stop in Cincinnati.

A Regulatory Leap Too Far

February 14, 2013

Regulating tax preparers may be worthwhile, but the IRS needs authority first. That power did not magically appear after 100 years.

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The Optional Mandate

September 21, 2012

Not a mandate, not a tax, the Affordable Care Act’s requirement that everyone have health insurance is just a political fiction.

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A Tax Trap For Same-Sex Couples Will Snare Others Too

March 21, 2012

The Tax Court’s tortured reading of the law will penalize gay couples with hefty mortgages. Others will be hit too.

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The IRS Goes Back To Playing Politics

March 15, 2012

A long-ago public servant resisted when Nixon used the IRS against his opponents. We need someone like Donald Alexander today.

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IRS Fixes A Tax Court Slip-Up

October 25, 2010

Tax laws are seldom models of clarity. Sometimes they are more garbled than a software manual that has been computer-translated from Malay to English. Occasionally, however, the law is pretty clear, but the interpretation gets twisted. Every professional tax adviser runs across this situation. A client may find an article on the Internet that says he can avoid taxes by putting all his assets in a trust, establishing a new …

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Calling For Common Sense On Cell Phone Taxes

October 11, 2010

We have more than 20 employees here at Palisades Hudson, each of whom has a telephone on his or her desk and a life outside the office. If someone makes a personal phone call to check on the kids or to find out what to bring home for dinner, I don’t care. Neither does the Internal Revenue Service. Even though an employee may personally benefit from using that company-provided phone, …

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How Everyone Came To Have A Second Mortgage

August 24, 2010

A quarter-century ago, only someone in desperate need of cash would take a second mortgage. Then Congress changed the tax rules, and today, millions of Americans have “home equity” lines. Banks are losing $30 billion a year on these products, and untold thousands of families stand to lose their homes to foreclosure. Is this another example of a law’s unexpected consequences? Nope. This outgrowth of the Tax Reform Act of …

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Dialing For Dollars At The Treasury

June 16, 2009

The financial crisis must be over and the economy must be fixed, because apparently things are getting pretty slow at the Treasury Department. There is time now to consider how to tax employer-provided cell phones, an issue that sat on the back burner for 20 years. Since 1989, the Internal Revenue Code has required companies and workers to document every call made on an employer-furnished phone. Employers are supposed to …

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