On top of everything else, the Texas floods have produced rafts of floating fire ants. Click image to see KVUE News Twitter video of this monstrosity! There are new stories every day about folks working to reclaim a semblance of normal after the massive destruction of Hurricanes Florence and Michael. Here in Central Texas, hundreds of homes and businesses were (and some still are) under water. Our governor is considering whether to ask Uncle Sam for federal disaster relief to help affected folks get back on their feet. If the Lone Star State does ask and get federal disaster relief,... Read more →
Federal Budget Spending
New York magazine's Nov. 13-26, 2017, cover featured Cardi B. Click to see full image. (Photograph by Hassan Hajjaj) Things have been going great for Bronx-born rapper Cardi B. She was the musical guest on last night's Saturday Night Live, hosted by "Black Panther" star Chadwick Boseman. It seems a New York magazine cover last November got it right when it proclaimed she was made to be this famous. On her way to membership in music and pop culture's top echelon, Cardi B's career has covered an astoundingly wide spectrum. After losing her job as a teenage employee at an... Read more →
Before departing D.C. last week for their version of spring break, Representatives and Senators, some grudgingly, approved a $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill to keep the federal government operating through September. Donald J. Trump signed the bill, which is massive by both dollar and legislative length (the bill ran 2,232 pages long) measurements, but not before injecting some reality show drama into the mix by threatening a veto. Both the $1.3 trillion outlay and 2,232 pages are huge, but since I have to pick one as this week's By the Numbers figure, I'm going with the dollar amount. Now, about... Read more →
Same old, same old. That's the message the Internal Revenue Service got today when the Trump Administration released its fiscal year 2019 budget. The IRS' base budget amount is about the same as prior years and some old tax enforcement ideas are proposed again. Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney discussing the Trump Administration budget last year. For release of the 2019 fiscal year budget, Mulvaney decided to stay off camera "because it's really boring." You can decide if he was right by listening to his remarks yourself via C-SPAN. It's no secret that the Internal Revenue Service... Read more →
It's going to be a mixed Thanksgiving in Internal Revenue Service households. The agency definitely won't be thankful for the Senate funding bill released on Nov. 20. That Financial Services & General Government Appropriations measure proposes the IRS get $11.1 billion in fiscal year 2018. That's $149 million less than it received for the 2017 fiscal year. However, the IRS can be grateful that the funding is close to the $11.235 billion that then IRS Commissioner John Koskinen said the agency needs to maintain its current performance levels. And it's $111 million more than what Donald J. Trump's budget recommended... Read more →
Michael Horowitz, Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Justice and Chair of the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency, welcomes one and all to Oversight.gov, a new website that consolidates public reports from federal Inspectors General. Whenever talk turns to tax reform, there also are discussions on cutting federal spending. After all, if some of us get more favorable tax treatment, the money to make up for that lost revenue must come from somewhere. Conventional wisdom and political rhetoric tends to focus on Uncle Sam's inefficiencies, both perceived and real. If a federal agency or department... Read more →
Many professional tax preparers say that giving the Internal Revenue Service added regulatory ability over their jobs isn't warranted. The tax agency and Trump Administration disagree. (Photo by Sebastiaan ter Burg via Flickr CC) The Trump Administration has continued the current trend of cutting the Internal Revenue Service's annual operating funds, but a provision in the new White House's fiscal year 2018 budget also could solve a new IRS problem. On June 1, the Internal Revenue Service got the bad news from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia that the tax agency can't collect fees from... Read more →
Mick Mulvaney, the Trump Administration's Office of Management and Budget Director, met the press this morning to discuss the 45th president's fiscal year 2018 budget proposal. (Screenshot of C-SPAN broadcast; click image to watch the full event) It's official. The amount of money going to the Internal Revenue Service under Donald J. Trump's first federal budget gets cut yet again. The White House today released its fiscal year 2018 budget. As expected from the Administration's so-called skinny budget made public in March, the fully fleshed out $4.1 trillion plan proposes cuts to long-time safety net programs for lower income Americans... Read more →
Federal tax reform is still a ways off, but the prospect of an Internal Revenue Code rewrite already has prompted Oklahoma to change one of its tax laws. Republican Gov. Mary Fallin on May 12 signed legislation that will decouple the Sooner State's standard deduction from the current federal standard deduction. The reason for the change? If the Trump Administration's proposal to double the federal standard deduction eventually becomes part of the tax law of the land, Oklahoma stands to lose a lot of tax revenue. Federal, state tax ties: Oklahoma's tax system, like that of many states with income... Read more →
The Internal Revenue Service collected more than $3.3 trillion during the 2016 fiscal year. That tax tidbit is part of the agency's 2016 Data Book, which details IRS activities from Oct. 1, 2015 through Sept. 30, 2016. After taking a dive in 2009, IRS collection of taxes has increased each of the last five fiscal years even though it's been forced to so with smaller budgets. Bringing in tax dollars and making sure that you, I and all the other U.S. taxpayers comply with the nation's tax laws are two of the IRS' major jobs. But for the last few... Read more →
Let me make this very clear from the get-go. I never, ever, ever recommend that anyone cheat on his or her taxes. But if you're inclined to be a bit aggressive with your Form 1040 strategies, your odds of catching a tax examiner's eye are decreasing. The Internal Revenue Service's audit rate has been dropping for years and that trend likely will continue, due in part to more agency funding cuts in the latest federal budget proposal. Fewer audits yet again: Recently released IRS data shows that in 2016 the number of individual audits dropped for the fifth straight year.... Read more →
Uncle Sam runs out of money on Oct. 1, but a group of Democratic Senators is hopeful that lawmakers will eventually get their funding act together. They even are enlisting the help of U.S. Treasury Jack Lew in providing sufficient money for the Internal Revenue Service to do its job in the coming fiscal year. In a letter to the Treasury chief, Sens. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, Patrick Leahy of Vermont, Dianne Feinstein of California, Ben Cardin of Maryland and Sherrod Brown of Ohio denounce "shortsighted budget cuts" as the reason the IRS has struggled to meet "its objective to... Read more →
I was feeling a bit overwhelmed recently, looking at what was on my to-do list and the time left to do it. Then I saw Congress' schedule and thought, I'm in good shape. The House and Senate are facing a series of deadlines that have much more serious consequences than me getting a story or blog post in at the last minute (please don't tell my editors I said that!). There are four major dates on the remaining 2015 Congressional calendar: October 1 -- The end of 2015 appropriations and the return of sequestration. October 29 -- Expiration of the... Read more →
Capitol Hill is in the throes of contentious budget negotiations. The process is complicated not only by the differing political priorities of Democrats and Republicans, but also the somewhat competing stances of GOP members, some of whom have higher political aspirations. Both sides of the Hill agreed on their fiscal plans in late March. Now they must reconcile the two. With the GOP in control of both chambers, the House and Senate fiscal year 2016 budgets actually are pretty similar. Both want to fast-track a measure that would repeal Obamacare, as well as add more money for defense projects. Balanced... Read more →
U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew was on the hot seat today, spending three full hours being grilled by Ways and Means Committee members about the Administration's fiscal year 2016 budget. As is the case in most Capitol Hill hearings, members were more interested in making their own political statements than in asking questions and getting answers. That's why some of the budget time was spent on the upcoming Supreme Court decision on premium tax credit help for folks who bought health insurance on the federal exchange. But we did get some actual budget talk, too. Tea Party troubles reviewed: One... Read more →
It's a dual Groundhog Day this year. There's the traditional meteorological news, which, by the way, is bad. Punxsutawney Phil says we're looking at more winter. An apparently sleepy Punxsutawney Phil prepares to make his weather prediction. The final word: Phil saw his shadow, so we're in for six more weeks of winter. Full story and video at Weather Underground. This year, we also get the federal fiscal replay on official Groundhog Day. This is the one where the president issues his annual budget and the members of the opposing political party declare it dead on arrival. Political process replay:... Read more →
Well, well, well. I'm going to pull my crystal ball (yes, that's it pictured there) out of storage and dust it off. It seems like I've got a bit of my predictive mojo back. That hasn't been the case very much in recent years, at least not where the U.S. Congress is involved. Remember the estate tax? Nobody, including me, thought those fools lawmakers would let it expire at the end of 2009. But they did. And they took us over the fiscal cliff, albeit only for a couple of days. Still, logical people, who are most folks who don't... Read more →
Congress obviously didn't read the 2014 Taxpayer Attitude Survey before passing the $1.1 trillion fiscal year spending bill this weekend. The latest annual look by the Taxpayer Oversight Board at what we think of our tax system found that the majority of taxpayers support more funding for Internal Revenue Service services and enforcement. Sixty-one percent say the IRS should receive extra funding to assist more taxpayers, up two points from 2013. Another 56 percent say the IRS should receive extra funding to enforce tax laws, up one point from 2013. The House on Dec. 11 and Senate late Dec. 13... Read more →
Sen. Tom Coburn, the Republican who's served Oklahomans in Congress' upper chamber since 2005 and for six years in the House before that, is retiring as soon as this lame duck session wraps. Many see Coburn as an obstructionist, especially when it comes to considering budget bills, and are happy to see him go. Others, however, think he's done a fine job crusading against irresponsible government spending. In fact, Coburn will be remembered for the issuance of his so-called Wastebooks, reports on ways his Capitol Hill colleagues waste U.S. taxpayer money. As his parting gift to U.S. taxpayers and his... Read more →
It looks like Rep. Paul Ryan is shelving national political ambitions for a while to take over the House Ways and Means committee. Ryan will assume the chairmanship of the powerful tax-writing panel on Jan. 3, 2015 when the 114th Congress convenes. He takes the gavel from W&M Chairman Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.), who is retiring at the end of the current congressional session. Ryan, Republican Representative for the first district of Wisconsin since 1999, announced his desire for the top tax post on Nov. 4. Click image to see interview clip via Bloomberg Politics (@bpolitics) on Twitter "It is... Read more →