Hooray for Hollywood! Filmmaking's elite gather Sunday, March 4, for presentation of the 90th Oscars. The gold-plated statuettes will be given to winners in 24 categories, but many more Academy Awards attendees will take home goodies. Yes, it's swag bag time! This has been a tax issue for a dozen years. Back in 2006, the Internal Revenue Service and the entertainment industry finally got together to make sure everyone knew the tax rules and provide me with one of my best headlines ever: IRS makes call on booty. So what exactly is the deal with so-called gift bags given out... Read more →
Pop Culture
Will you be watching the Academy Awards this Sunday, March 4? You might want to since, depending on where you live, you helped pay for some of the Oscar-nominated movies. New Yorkers have the most at stake, both financially and in connection with the gold statuettes. New York budgets $420 million for its film-tax-credit program. The Empire State's film production tax credit offers reimbursement of up to 40 percent on most production costs depending on what part of the state a movie is shot. It also reward TV programs, like the Big Apple-based "The Tonight Show" with Jimmy Fallon, that... Read more →
Elmer Irey headed the Internal Revenue Bureau's Intelligence Unit in the 1930s. It was under Irey's direction that evidence was gathered leading to the conviction of Al Capone for failure to pay his income tax. Read more about Irey and Capone at The Mob Museum. I'm a big sports fan. But sometimes I need a break. So in my channel flipping today to find something other than the Olympics, soccer/futbol, NHL hockey and part 1 of NASCAR's 83-step Daytona 500 qualifying process, I ran across one of my favorite movies, "The Untouchables." I'm talking the 2007 version, with Kevin Costner... Read more →
Rovio Entertainment, creators of Angry Birds, and the National Football League have teamed up to create a Super Bowl themed video game. But unlike the bird above, the Philadelphia Eagles are far from angry today after winning the NFL championship last night in Super Bowl LII. It was not a super Sunday for either the New England Patriots or Nevada's casinos. When all the numbers are tallied, it looks like the Silver State's sports books might lose only their third Super Bowl in 28 years thanks to the Philadelphia Eagles' 41-33 upset of the New England Patriots in Super Bowl... Read more →
Throwing a Super Bowl Party? Gunaxin has some tips to help you make it the best party ever, regardless of which team wins. Are you hosting a Super Bowl party tomorrow? If your NFL championship game is typical — and I'm talking expense-wise, not your exemplar hosting abilities! — then you'll probably spend more than 200 bucks. That's what 1,000 folks recently surveyed by LendEDU, an online marketplace for student loan refinancing, said they planned to spend. The precise amount, according the results of the online inquiry conducted by Pollfish, was $207.16. That amount is this week's By the Numbers... Read more →
Thirty days hath September, April, June, and November. All the rest have 31, Except for February, Which has 28 to put to use doing your taxes. OK, I took some liberties with the traditional poem. But it is true that despite its reduced days, February still provides plenty of time to make some key tax moves. Here, since it is a short month, are three. Collect your tax statements: Most of the tax statements that you need to fill out your Form 1040 should be arriving by early this month. They were supposed to be to you or at least... Read more →
It's Sunday afternoon in America, meaning millions (still) are watching National Football League games Millions more also are betting on them. Unless, that is, they were participants in Ron & Mike's Football Pool. It's one of the largest football survivor pools in the country and it was shut down last week after federal agents seized documentation and the money the pool organizers collected, according to an article by Darren Rovell, senior writer for ESPN. In case you're not a gambler, survivor pools require a bettor to pick one team that is going to win each week of the football season... Read more →
Pong via Giphy Who knew 45 years ago today when Atari released Pong that the two-dimensional video version of table tennis would herald in a fascination and fixation with video games? Who also knew that those games would become a major battle front in the taxing of digital entertainment? We've come a long way, baby, to borrow a phrase from Pong's era. Old and new gaming options: Since Pong's Nov. 29, 1972, debut and consumer acceptance that made it the first commercially successful video game, the world has become populated with video game addicts of all ages. The variety of... Read more →
AT&T Stadium, originally known as Cowboys Stadium when it opened its doors in 2009 and forever known as Jerry's World regardless of which company buys naming rights, is home to America's Team. It also hosts college football's Cotton Bowl game, as well as a variety of other sports and entertainment activities. NFL team owner Jerry Jones footed most of the billion-dollar stadium's cost, but Arlington voters approved an increase of the city's sales, hotel occupancy and car rental taxes to help pay for the facility. Arlington also provided millions in bonds to help Jones cover any cost overruns. (Photo by... Read more →
It's International Podcast Day! Why are you reading (although thank you for stopping by)? You should be listening. That's why on this day celebrating the internet's audio offerings, this Shout Out Saturday goes to seven of my favorite financial podcasts. 1. Money Girl Laura Adams is the Money Girl of the title, offering her self-described "quick and dirty tips for a richer life." This one caught my ear because Adams' typically short and sweet 'casts often include comments about my favorite financial subject, taxes. Even better, her tips typically are pretty actionable, so as soon as you're through listening, you... Read more →
The arrival of a new NFL season each year also means the arrival of fantasy sports. More states are looking to regulate and, of course, tax daily fantasy sports operations. How's your National Football League team doing this season? For most fans, the answer is probably pretty good. A quick glance at NFL.com's standings after week three shows a preponderance of 2-1 teams, along with a handful that are undefeated. For many fans, however, the more important, and potentially lucrative, question is how is your fantasy football team doing? Quick confession here. I watch NFL games (until my teams start... Read more →
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell could be the target of Patriots fans' ire tonight in the league's season opener in Foxborough, Massachusetts. He's also the subject of some prop bets being placed on the game. With Houston and much of southeast Texas still struggling with Hurricane Harvey recovery and Florida looking like it will take a direct hit from Hurricane Irma, I am definitely ready for a little bit of professional football diversion. That's why my TV will be toggling tonight between the 2017 season-opening NFL game on NBC and The Weather Channel. I'll be watching the football game just for... Read more →
Colorfully coiffed "Girls Trip" friends Jada Pinkett Smith, Tiffany Haddish, Regina Hall and Queen Latifah partying in New Orleans. I've been a film fanatic from an early age. It started when I was a back-seat viewer on the family's regular summer night trips to the drive-in. Movies were a much needed break from real life in terrible times, like when Mom took my little brother and me to see "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" to get us away from the news of JFK's assassination. And the annual airing of "The Wizard of Oz" was must-see TV in our house, especially... Read more →
Marvel's reluctant superhero Jessica Jones, portrayed by Kristyn Ritter on the eponymous Netflix series, is back this month in The Defenders. She's why I subscribe. But will I, and millions of others, keep watching if streaming services are taxed? It's the weekend, so that means binge watching. Especially with The Defenders — gotta get me some more Jessica Jones! — now out on Netflix. I'm not alone in subscribing to a streaming service or two. It's a relatively cheap entertainment option, especially when you consider that the 10 or so bucks a month are still less than one night's price... Read more →
Tom Hiddleston as Loki, left, and Chris Hemsworth as Thor prepare to take down some bad guys in "Thor: Ragnarok." That movie, coming to a theater near you in November, was one of the many Marvel Studios productions that got the lion's share of attention at Comic-Con 2017. (Click image for full Marvel Studios trailer at YouTube) Comic-Con, the geek event of the year, just wrapped up in San Diego. Not surprisingly, Marvel Studios and its stars were the big draws at the 2017 event. I'm not a big fan of comic books and their spin-off products, but I did... Read more →
Some type of marijuana use is legal in more than half of the United States. State and local coffers get associated pot taxes, but that could stop if the feds start cracking down on what is still an illegal drug in Uncle Sam's eyes. (Photo courtesy GreenerCulture.com) U.S. Attorney General (for now) Jeff Sessions apparently really wants federal law enforcement to once again target marijuana. But a return to a tougher prosecution by Uncle Sam could produce some serious push-back from states where pot is legal if they show tax revenue results like Colorado. Since Colorado became the first the... Read more →
Happy World Emoji Day! It's held on July 17 each year as a way to promote the use of emojis — like we need to do that! — and, according to Emojipedia (really!), spread the enjoyment that the colorful icons bring. The enjoyment goal got me thinking of how emojis might make one of our worst tax tasks more pleasant. I'm talking, of course, about our annual filing of returns. Most of us already use tax software. Surely it wouldn't be that difficult to incorporate the option of adding emojis to the lines we fill electronically complete. Dressing up your... Read more →
Undefeated boxing champ Floyd Mayweather Jr. is trying to avoid a knockout from the Internal Revenue Service. Mayweather still owes the federal tax collector a reported $22.s million for his 2015 taxes. That year, Mayweather reportedly earned as much as $230 million for besting Manny Pacquiao in the heavily promoted Fight of the Century. Floyd Mayweather's official weigh-in before his 2015 fight with Manny Pacquiao in Las Vegas. Money earned on that match is at the center of an unpaid tax bill battle Mayweather's waging with the IRS. (Photo courtesy Pixabay via Wikimedia Commons) Rich, but tax cash poor: Mayweather... Read more →
Happy Birthday, America! July 4 is special to all of us Americans, the day we declared our independence from Great Britain. Taxes, as everyone knows thanks to James Otis' famous announcement that "Taxation without representation is tyranny," were among the reasons we sought to govern ourselves. And taxes, even after we gained control, continue to play a key part in our lives, politics and popular culture. James Cagney, before he became the prototypical movie gangster, was as song-and-dance man. He showed off those talents in "Yankee Doodle Dandy," the biopic of a man who not only gave us great musicals,... Read more →
Walt Disney attorneys contend that the values of its properties are as inflated as these Disney World balloons and have gone to court to get new assessments. (Photo by Davidlohr Bueso via Flickr) Walt Disney's namesake recreational areas have built their vacation reputations on being the happiest places on Earth. But the company's tax lawyers are in decidedly bad moods after getting what they say are excessive tax year 2016 property value assessments of their Sunshine State parks. So Disney is taking the Orange Country, Florida, property appraiser to court. Dozens Disney tax suits: Disney Parks and Resorts have filed... Read more →