Don't Mess With Taxes

Good to see the editorial board at the Washington Post agrees with me that Rep. Charles Rangel should step down as chair of the House Ways and Means Committee. Read more →

That's one possibility that was discussed at a public hearing yesterday on the IRS proposal to develop regulations for tax preparers. "The data seem to encourage some kind of testing regime to ensure competency," said Karen Hawkins, director of the IRS Office of Professional Responsibility, which oversees tax preparers. The data Hawkins referred to is a Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration report that found in a 2008 sampling of returns completed by paid preparers, 61 percent of those filings were prepared incorrectly. Hawkins and other IRS officials at the hearing, including Commissioner Doug Shulman, also were curious about how... Read more →

For as long as I can remember (and no, I'm not going into specifics on that amount of time), Schedules A and B were inseparable. Back before software, when you ordered the document from the IRS, the two schedules arrived on one page. Heck, even with today's new technology, the downloaded document from the IRS still combines the two. The URL still acknowledges they're together with the "f1040sab" designation. The front (above) of the 8½ x 11 sheet displays Schedule A, where an itemizing taxpayer elaborates on all eligible expenses before transferring the final amount to Form 1040. Flip the... Read more →

Former Pittsburgh Steelers star Mel Blount apparently was not ready for some IRS bills. The NFL Hall of Famer reportedly owes Uncle Sam more than $631,000. The bill comes from allegedly unpaid income taxes between 1994 and 2006. If you're a tax but not a football fan, check out TaxProf Blog's list of other celebrities with tax troubles. There you'll find the names of former athletes from other pro leagues, as well as entertainers, including George Clooney's cousin and a sequel Terminator. Read more →

Potential new taxes have gotten a lot of coverage of late, particularly as a way to pay for health care reform. So far we've had sin taxes, a surtax on the wealthy, a tax on "Cadillac" medical insurance plans and taxation of employer-provided benefits yelled about debated discussed. Now comes a Wall Street tax. According to the Capitol Hill newspaper The Hill, the country's largest labor union and some Democrats are pushing a new tax that would hit big investment firms. This tax isn't tied specifically to health care, but its supporters say it would raise between $50 billion and... Read more →