pul.se results for topic:taxes

taxgirl

Kelly — 2010-09-10 16:26:51 GMT

Yesterday, I was scrolling through CNN and I saw a headline about the “Homebuyer Tax Surprise.” A similar finance site touted the headline “Nearly 1 Million Homeowners Shocked at Payback.” No, no, they’re not. They’re not shocked. They’re not surprised. Or at least they shouldn’t be. They knew exactly what they were getting into. They [...]

AccountingWEB.com - News

2010-09-10 15:50:16 GMT

Enrolled agents (EA) must take 72 hours of continuing education every three years specifically designed to enhance their professional proficiency in federal tax matters. With travel time and time away from the office, the requirement can become difficult.

AccountingWEB.com - News

2010-09-10 16:03:17 GMT

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will implement fundamental health care reforms and require most of the 32 million uninsured individuals to obtain health care coverage or pay penalties. The act contains more than $400 billion in revenue raisers and new taxes on employers and individuals.

AccountingWEB.com - News

2010-09-10 16:08:17 GMT

More than half of small businesses are optimistic about the U.S. economy, and 25 percent plan to hire new employees, according to the SurePayroll Scorecard, which tracks small business hiring trends.

Don't Mess With Taxes

skbell1 — 2010-09-10 15:46:03 GMT

This coming tax filing season, we're going to enter a new phase of the first-time homebuyer tax credit. Why should the next round of this tax boondoggle break be any different that from the confusing claim process? OK, maybe it won't be full-fledged chaos when the IRS starts processing 2010 tax returns upon which repayments...

Tax-News.Com Live Tax Headlines

2010-09-10 14:44:33 GMT

Tax-News.com: The Canadian Minister for Finance, Jim Flaherty, has highlighted a Budget 2010 measure that will strengthen the ability of Canadian businesses, particularly high-technology firms, to attract foreign venture capital.

main page collection

2010-09-09 23:00:00 GMT

(Sept. 9) -- Meet the Muslim imam who may have managed to convince Christian pastor Terry Jones to cancel his widely condemned plans to burn copies of the Quran in Gainesville, Fla., on Sept. 11.

AccountingWEB.com - News

2010-09-10 13:34:32 GMT

By Maynard Brusman

Are you appreciated by company managers? Do you have the opportunity to do your best work? Are you clear about what is expected of you at work? Does your manager provide employees focus? People at work who are fully engaged can answer these questions with a clear yes and sense of gratitude.

Most of us start a job motivated to perform our best, but sometimes working for an ineffective manager can negatively affect your motivation. Positive leaders help people tap into their intrinsic motivation to improve performance.

AccountingWEB.com - News

2010-09-10 13:57:46 GMT

The Platt Group, publishers of INSIDE Public Accounting (IPA), recently has released its inauguralBeyond the IPA Top 100, a ranking of the nation's top 200 accounting firms.

Roth & Company, P.C.

Joe Kristan (jkristan@rothcpa.com) — 2010-09-10 14:22:58 GMT

Jim Maule poses good questions about the proposal to allow full deduction of fixed assets purchased between now and the...

Roth & Company, P.C.

Joe Kristan (jkristan@rothcpa.com) — 2010-09-10 14:29:05 GMT

So Romanian legislators have backed off from taxing witches out of fear of being cursed? Crimony, where are our witches...

Roth & Company, P.C.

Joe Kristan (jkristan@rothcpa.com) — 2010-09-10 14:35:56 GMT

For some folks who got through life without ever achieving the joys of home ownership, the first-time homebuyer credit gave...

Tax-News.Com Live Tax Headlines

2010-09-10 13:40:07 GMT

Roth & Company, P.C.

Joe Kristan (jkristan@rothcpa.com) — 2010-09-10 14:13:05 GMT

"Iowa Has More Registered Voters than Citizens of Voting Age" Woodland Cemetery, where everybody is of voting age by now....

Roth & Company, P.C.

Joe Kristan (jkristan@rothcpa.com) — 2010-09-10 14:20:22 GMT

...but TaxGrrrl tells you what to do about them....

Tax-News.Com Live Tax Headlines

2010-09-10 13:08:27 GMT

Tax-News.com: The Gulf Cooperation Council countries have in a recent meeting failed to agree on various issues holding back the establishment of a unified customs union, discussions for which have been ongoing since 2003, and are now expected to continue for at least an additional two years.

taxgirl

Kelly — 2010-09-10 12:39:13 GMT

So you’re really fired up about those new 1099 reporting requirements for 2012, right? The ones that are going to cause all of those headaches for you and your small business? You’ve bellyached about it on twitter. You’ve railed against it on a number of blogs. You’ve griped about it on Facebook. You’ve passed along [...]

Tax-News.Com Live Tax Headlines

2010-09-10 12:36:24 GMT

Tax-News.com: The Jersey government has announced its intention to introduce a regime to exempt some funds business from corporate income tax in the forthcoming December budget.

Tax-News.Com Live Tax Headlines

2010-09-10 12:36:23 GMT

Tax-News.com: UK telecoms giant Vodafone has expressed continuing confidence that it is not liable for Indian capital gains tax from its purchase of the Indian mobile phone network Hutchison Essar in 2007 despite a setback in the Mumbai High Court.

MauledAgain

James Edward Maule (noreply@blogger.com) — 2010-09-10 09:01:00 GMT

Not much is worse than a failed attempt at a resolving a problem being offered as a solution to the very problem it failed to resolve. True, one ought not give up after one unsuccessfully try, but is there not some limit to the pursuit of futility? Professional baseball tends not to give up on a prospect who goes zero for four in his first minor league game, but how likely is a franchise to keep in its system a player who is zero for eighty?

Such is the life of one of the business world’s favorite tax breaks. Entrepreneurs salivate at the idea of getting a deduction for making an investment. The idea of getting a tax break for swapping cash for equipment of equal value is the sort of thing that makes lower-income taxpayers roil, because they don’t have the opportunity to get, in effect, cash flow from the government in the form of lower taxes by swapping cash for equipment of equal value.

In a speech on Wednesday, The President proposed that “all American businesses should be allowed to write off all the investment they do in 2011.” And explained that “This will help small businesses upgrade their plants and equipment, and will encourage large corporations to get off the sidelines and start putting their profits to work. . .” More specifically, the Administration is proposing that taxpayers be permitted to take a deduction for 100 percent of the cost of “qualified investments” acquired in between September 8, 2010 and December 31, 2011. Technically, section 168(k), which provided for a deduction equal to 50 percent of the cost of “qualified investments” made during 2008 and 2009, and which expired of its own terms at the end of 2009, would be revived, though with 100 substituted for 50 and the effective dates altered as described.

The Administration fact sheet asserts that this proposal “would provide tax incentives for business to invest in the United States when our economy needs it most, which should both help create jobs now and expand the capital stock to support future growth.” Is this in fact the case?

The previous incarnation of section 168(k) “bonus depreciation” as well as continual expansion of section 179 expensing have been consistently hailed as solutions to the nation’s economic woes of the moment. Yet no evidence exists that these tax giveaways have had the claimed effect. Why is it, for example, that during 2008 and 2009, while businesses basked in the benefit of 50-percent bonus depreciation, the economy got worse, not better? Where are all the jobs whose creation was promised when the proposal for the 2008 and 2009 tax break was being trumpeted as the answer? Where is the economic recovery that supposedly was an inescapable consequence of enacting those tax breaks? Similar questions can be asked about the long parade of tax breaks for business investments during the past 50 years. Though the economy doesn’t benefit, though economic fundamentals do not improve, though joblessness doesn’t abate, something fuels the repetitive re-enactment of this bundle of tax breaks. Could it be that it’s good for business? Could it be that what’s good for business isn’t necessarily good for those in need, especially if the funds generated by the tax break go the same way as the excess cash that businesses have been accumulating during the past year and a half, namely, somewhere other than the economy?

In early 2009, when the House Ways and Means Committee included expansion and extension of, among other things, bonus depreciation and first-year expensing, I wrote, in Just Because It Didn’t Work the First 50 Times Doesn’t Mean It Will Work Next Time:

Does it make sense to increase deductions for acquisitions of equipment? How does that restore confidence in the economy, which is essential to putting the nation back on track? How does a tax provision that encourages businesses to use their limited funds to buy machinery put people in this country back to work? Nothing in the provision requires that the property be built in the United States, and it's almost certain that such a requirement would violate at least a few trade agreements and treaties. What's the point of enacting tax breaks that create jobs in other nations? Dollar-for-dollar, a tax break for creating jobs directly is worth much more than a tax break for purchasing equipment.

With the nation's economy in rampant turmoil, does it make sense to turn to the same shop-worn provisions that came with promises of outstanding national economic performance that failed to materialize behind the façade of debt-driven unaffordable consumption? Advocates of these provisions argue that they give businesses an incentive to create jobs, but if that were the case, why hasn't unemployment dropped while previous increases and expansions of bonus depreciation and first-year expensing were being increased?

What Congress is proposing to do is more of the same. It didn't work last time around. Why would it work now? Sometimes persistence is a virtue. Other times it is foolishness.

The answer is simple. The things that need to be done are neither palatable nor easy to explain. Dishing out more tax breaks that are easy to explain and promise relief with no sacrifice sell better when election day rolls around. The depreciation provisions, including bonus depreciation and first-year expensing, have contributed to the current economic mess by allowing taxpayers to compute taxable income as though their economic position declined when in fact it remained the same or improved. Packaged into tax shelters, LILO deals, tax-exempt leasing arrangements, and other devices that contribute to the tax gap, these provisions ought not be considered remedies for the very economic diseases that they have caused and aggravated.

If Congress were running professional baseball, we’d probably see a fair number of zero-for-eighty ball players being brought up to the major leagues. One cannot fault the Congress for having tried bonus depreciation and expanded first-year expensing. One can fault the Congress for continuing to trot out the same failures after it has become clear that these ploys aren’t making the economy better and aren’t providing benefits to the general public.

Back in 2009, I concluded Just Because It Didn’t Work the First 50 Times Doesn’t Mean It Will Work Next Time with this prediction:

If, indeed, it is time for change, Congress should be given that message and understand it. Change does not mean doing something over and over when it hasn't worked and shows no signs of working. Just as consumers need to abandon the bad habit of spending beyond one's means and borrowing beyond one's ability to repay, Congress needs to break its bad habit of using the tax code as a vote generator. The likelihood of Congress embracing genuine change and doing more than giving lip service to the concept remains, unfortunately, very low. Its recalcitrance may prove to be one of the most difficult obstacles to the incoming Administration's success in solving the mess in which we find ourselves.

That the Administration has joined up with the pro-fake-writeoff crowd in Congress is not only disappointing but alarming. Except, perhaps, to the companies and people in other nations that make money selling equipment to American businesses.

Tax-News.Com Live Tax Headlines

2010-09-10 12:04:41 GMT

Tax-News.com: European businesses operating in China have bemoaned the 'dramatic consequences for the financial position of numerous companies' resulting from regulations and guidelines as well as new tax refund rates which took effect in China at short notice, and in some cases retroactively.

main page collection

2010-09-09 22:41:00 GMT

(Sept. 9) -- In an interview last year, President Barack Obama said that "the last thing you want to do is to raise taxes in the middle of a recession" because it would "put businesses in a further hole." You don't hear this often, but I completely agree with the president. Raising taxes in the middle of a recession, particularly on job creators, is a horrible idea.

Tax-News.Com Live Tax Headlines

2010-09-10 11:32:57 GMT

Tax-News.com: Singapore's Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong, in interviews, has said that he believes that the signing of a free trade agreement between Singapore and Taiwan would quickly lead to similar agreements between Taiwan and other countries within the Association of South-east Asian Nations.

Tax-News.Com Live Tax Headlines

2010-09-10 11:32:56 GMT

Tax-News.com: Swiss finance minister Hans-Rudolf Merz and his Kazakh counterpart, Bolat Zhamishev, have signed a protocol to amend the double taxation agreement in the area of taxes on income and capital in Astana.

Tax-News.Com Live Tax Headlines

2010-09-10 11:32:55 GMT

Tax-News.com: The United States Internal Revenue Service is taking important first steps to identify taxpayers who must repay tax credits for homes they purchased under the First-Time Homebuyer Credit programme, but needs to improve its capabilities, according to an audit report released by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.

Tax-News.Com Live Tax Headlines

2010-09-10 11:32:55 GMT

Tax-News.com: In its annual report on the application of the social security finance laws in France, the French Court of Auditors recommends that the government reduce social tax breaks by around EUR15bn in order to support its ultimate goal of returning the social security budget to balance.

Tax-News.Com Live Tax Headlines

2010-09-10 11:32:54 GMT

Tax-News.com: Newly-released figures show that Guernsey’s finance industry is in good health, according to Peter Niven, Chief Executive of Guernsey Finance – the promotional agency for the Island’s finance industry.

main page collection

2010-09-10 10:26:00 GMT

Tax-News.Com Live Tax Headlines

2010-09-10 11:00:58 GMT

Tax-News.com: The European Council has adopted a decision amending decision 2010/320/EU on the strengthening of budgetary surveillance and the reduction of the government deficit in Greece.

Tax-News.Com Live Tax Headlines

2010-09-10 11:00:58 GMT

Tax-News.com: Germany has categorically rejected the latest push for the introduction of an EU tax by European Commission President José Manuel Barroso.

TaxProf Blog

Paul Caron — 2010-09-10 09:35:00 GMT

BNA has made available yesterday's Congressional Research Service report, Certain Temporary Tax Provisions Scheduled to Expire in 2009 (“Extenders”) (RL32367), by James M. Bickley. Here is the Summary: Numerous temporary tax provisions expired on December 31, 2009. Often referred to as “extenders,” these provisions were originally enacted with expiration dates...

TaxProf Blog

Paul Caron — 2010-09-10 09:55:00 GMT

NPR All Things Considered Series: Taxing Questions: Bush Tax Cuts And Beyond: Series Overview As Clock Ticks, Lawmakers Revisit Bush Tax Cuts A Closer Look at Past Tax Overhaul Attempts Mixed Reaction to Obama's Business Tax-Break Plan The Politics of a Tax Hike Renew the Tax Cuts: Good Politics, Bad...

TaxProf Blog

Paul Caron — 2010-09-10 10:00:00 GMT

Wendy C. Gerzog (Baltimore) has published The Price of an FLP Annual Exclusion, 128 Tax Notes 1071 (Sept. 6, 2010): In Price [v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 2010-2], the Tax Court explored once again whether gifts of interests in a family limited partnership qualify for the annual exclusion. All Tax Analysts...

Tax-News.Com Live Tax Headlines

2010-09-10 09:59:13 GMT

Tax-News.com: New Zealand’s independent Savings Working Group, which was established by the government last month to consider how the country’s savings performance can be improved, has received from the Treasury a discussion paper on relevant issues and trends, including the impact of the tax system.

TaxProf Blog

Paul Caron — 2010-09-10 09:00:00 GMT

Ruth Mason (UConn) has posted Federalism and the Taxing Power, 99 Cal. L. Rev. ___ (2011), on SSRN. Here is the abstract: As many scholars and courts have recognized, the federal government uses its virtually limitless Spending Power to enlist states in achieving federal goals, thus enlarging its powers far...

THE WANDERING TAX PRO

Robert D Flach (noreply@blogger.com) — 2010-09-10 06:00:00 GMT

It has been a while since I “hosted” a trivia contest here at TWTP. Here is one that combines my love of classic tv and musical theatre.

The winner will receive, via email attachment, my “Documenting 2010 Deductions”

It is a three-parter –

(1) Who was the original Alice Kramden, to Jackie Gleason’s Ralph, when “the Honeymooners” first appeared as a regular series of skits on the DuMont Network's "Cavalcade of Stars"?

(2) Why did this actress not appear in the actual series, where she was replaced by Audrey Meadows?

(3) What was the subsequent Broadway role, which she repeated in the movie version, for which this actress is best known?

No fair "GOOGLING" now!

Send your answers via email to rdftaxpro@yahoo.com. Put “TWTP Trivia Contest” in the subject line.

TTFN

PS – Here is a bonus Broadway connection – Who played Trixie on “Cavalcade of Stars” before Joyce Randolph took over the role?

TaxProf Blog

Paul Caron — 2010-09-10 08:00:00 GMT

Columbia Dean (and Tax Prof) David Schizer has posted Subsidizing the Press. Here is the abstract: Information is the lifeblood of a free society, and the professional press is a crucial source of information. For many years, the positive externalities from investigative and beat reporting were cross-subsidized by robust advertising...

TaxProf Blog

Paul Caron — 2010-09-10 02:01:34 GMT

Don't Mess With Taxes

skbell1 — 2010-09-09 22:34:21 GMT

A couple of weeks ago, I blogged about an investment adviser's characterization of the Federal Reserve's near-zero interest rate policy as essentially an invisible tax. As the economy continues to plod along, unmoved by a 0.25 percent interest rate, savers are starting to get more agitated. The reason, notes the New York Times, is the...

taxgirl

Kelly — 2010-09-09 21:07:17 GMT

This has to be my favorite tax story of the week (even better than my vodka story, coming later today). The Telegraph (UK) is confirming reports that Romania’s Senate has voted down a proposal to tax witches and fortune tellers because… wait for it… they were scared of being cursed. Yeah, I’m not making that [...]

Start Making Sense

Daniel Shaviro (noreply@blogger.com) — 2010-09-09 17:43:00 GMT

My book in progress concerning U.S. international taxation, tentatively called "Fixing the U.S. International Tax Rules," is starting to come out pretty assertive regarding how I feel I am changing and advancing the prevailing analysis. This can be risky, because people don't want to hear such claims and may be inclined to resist them, but I feel it's justified.

In Decoding the U.S. Corporate Tax, by contrast, I made no such claim, nor could I have. "Decoding" tried to explain and critically evaluate a rich preexisting literature, but without adding as much that was intellectually new, beyond a sense of the broader context and several dollops of intellectual arbitrage.

Two differences: the underlying academic literature in corporate taxation is much richer than that in international taxation, and I hadn't thought as deeply about the corporate tax issues. That book's motivation was largely pedagogic, indeed born of my frustration when teaching corporate issues in tax policy classes and finding that there was no suitable reading accessibly addressing the issues that I considered most interesting and important. This time, by contrast, more is accessible but the field (in my view) remains intellectually in a far more primitive state.

TaxProf Blog

Paul Caron — 2010-09-09 19:28:46 GMT

Usha Rodrigues (Georgia) responds to Brian Galle (Boston College), Keep Charity Charitable, 88 Texas L. Rev. 1213 (2010), in The Power of Warm Glow, 88 Texas L. Rev. See Also 149 (2010). Here is the abstract: In this Response, Professor Rodrigues states that while she largely agrees Professor Galle's argument...

Don't Mess With Taxes

skbell1 — 2010-09-09 18:53:31 GMT

This isn't going to help with the anti-incumbent attitude across the county. The Washington Post reports that Capitol Hill employees owed $9.3 million in back taxes last year. Even worse for the Washington workers, and their bosses, is that IRS data show tax debt among Hill employees has risen at a faster rate than the...

TaxProf Blog

Paul Caron — 2010-09-09 19:00:00 GMT

Associated Press, Abracadabra! Romania Witches Win Tax Fight For Now: Abracadabra, we'll turn all of you into toads! That's what Romanian senators may have been fearing when they rejected a proposal to tax witches and fortune tellers. Lawmakers Alin Popoviciu and Cristi Dugulescu of the ruling Democratic Liberal Party drafted...

IRS Tax Problem Solver Blog - IRS Help

Darrin Mish — 2010-09-09 18:25:06 GMT

In an IRS auction, six prime Dallas Cowboys tickets together with the rights to purchase future tickets were sold to a ticket broker based in Dallas for $241,000. The auction was held to pay off debts by Lending.com amounting to $4.5 million. According to records, the taxpayer debtor was Lending.com, a mortgage lender which was a proxy company for its chief executive, Douglas Van Arsedale. According to the IRS, the tickets did not belong to Van Arsedale, but he ‘was using them.’

IRS Auction of Cowboys Tickets Nets $241,000 is a post from: IRS Tax Problem Solver Blog - IRS Help

TaxProf Blog

Paul Caron — 2010-09-09 18:00:00 GMT

Wall Street Journal editorial, Tax Contradictions: Obama Says the Economy Needs a Tax Cut—And a Tax Increase: After 20 months and more than $1 trillion down the Keynesian drain, President Obama is discovering the virtue of tax cuts. Pass the smelling salts, we just fainted. Yesterday the President proposed a...

TaxProf Blog

Paul Caron — 2010-09-09 17:30:00 GMT

New York Law Journal, Law Firm's Role in BDO Tax Fraud Case Presents Conflict, Judge Finds: A federal judge has told attorneys with Sonnenschein, Nath & Rosenthal there is no way the firm can represent both an alleged tax fraud conspirator and a cooperating witness for the government. Southern District...

TaxProf Blog

Paul Caron — 2010-09-09 17:35:00 GMT

The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration today released A Comprehensive Strategy Is Being Developed to Identify Individuals With First-Time Homebuyer Credit Repayment Requirements (2010-41-086): Approximately 1.8 million taxpayers claimed a total of almost $12.5 billion in First-Time Homebuyer Credits in Calendar Year 2009. More than 950,000 taxpayers will be...

TaxProf Blog

Paul Caron — 2010-09-09 17:00:00 GMT

Andrea Monroe (Temple) has posted Too Big to Fail: The Problem of Partnership Allocations on SSRN. Here is the abstract: The partnership taxation rules of subchapter K are uniquely flawed. Designed to be flexible, subchapter K must accommodate a diverse and growing array of business organizations, from the most simple...

AccountingWEB.com - News

2010-09-09 16:49:40 GMT

The worldwide economic crisis has put a spotlight on corporate risk, but a large percentage of companies around the globe do not have strong risk oversight protocols, according to a joint research report by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants.