When it comes to the estate tax, most people wish they could avoid it like the plague, or even as much as death itself. The estate tax, or the death tax as it is often referred, has long been a controversial topic on Capitol Hill, with lawmakers on both sides arguing for or against it to varying degrees. While most republicans ... Read More
Tax Opinion
Worst Ways to Spend Your Tax Refund
If you're looking forward to getting a fat tax refund check this year, you need to think carefully about how you plan to spend it. While there are plenty of smart things you could do with the extra cash, like paying down liability or making some much-needed home improvements, it's all too easy to let the money slip through your ... Read More
Report: Health Care Law Fraud Likely Without IRS Changes
The official rollout of Obamacare is still a few weeks away but problems are already plaguing the new health care law. Reports of Americans losing their existing insurance coverage and technical issues with the federal health insurance marketplace website have been making headlines and now it appears that more trouble may be on ... Read More
Top 5 Tax Apps for iPhone and Android to Track Tax Documents
When tax time rolls around, having all of your documents ready to go can eliminate some of the stress of filing. Keeping up with receipts throughout the year can be a hassle but a handful of apps are making it easier for taxpayers to stay organized. Instead of wading through stacks of paper or maintaining a complicated file ... Read More
The Case for Keeping the Charitable Tax Deduction Unchanged
Just last week in the media we are hearing that the White House and non-profits are in an intense debate over the future of the charitable tax deduction, which about 40 million taxpayers claim each year, according to reports from the IRS. And so the story goes that Obama wants to limit or reduce the deduction high-income ... Read More
The Fiscal Cliff Situation Investors, business owners, politicians, and the media are concerned about the so called "fiscal cliff" that is coming if lawmakers fail to act before 2013 (Fiscal Cliff tax changes). The "fiscal cliff" phrase is used to describe automatic Federal spending cuts and tax increases politicians agreed ... Read More
Is Tax Policy Responsible for Spike in US Renunciations?
One thing that is changing over the last few years is that more Americans are giving up their US citizenship. This trend coincides with not only relatively recent legislation that discourages expatriation and foreign bank accounts, but also proposed legislation that makes expatriation more expensive and tax compliance mandatory ... Read More
Potential Tax Changes Obama Plans to Implement in Second Term
President Obama plans to make a few major changes to the tax code in his second term as President of the United States. The basis of Obama's plan is to keep fighting to keep taxes for middle-class families low, simplify the tax code, and to have millionaires and billionaires pay their "fair share" in order to reduce our ... Read More
Tax Revenue from Legalizing Marijuana Could Be Up to $100 Billion
Uruguay is one country that is very close to legalizing marijuana. Political leaders in Uruguay believe the legalization of marijuana will result in less violence, tax savings, and new revenue. The idea of legalizing marijuana though in the United States has been growing in support since the 1970s. Last year Gallup showed half ... Read More
General Republican Viewpoints on Taxes
Taxes: they’re among the most debated areas of governmental policy—and the most debated economic policy—because they literally affect everyone. While specific policies ebb and flow over time, particularly as they pertain to different types of taxes, party doctrine on fiscal matters has remained broadly consistent over a period ... Read More
General Democratic Viewpoints on Taxes
Taxes impact everyone, every day, and are thus among the most discussed governmental policy matters in the United States, from K Street to Main Street. Given the importance of—and interest in—fiscal policy, the major American political parties spend a great deal of time laying out and explaining their positions to the public. ... Read More
Carried Interest and the Debate Over Tax Rates
The subject of tax rates on what is known as “carried interest” has been the subject of vigorous debate for a number of years but the news during the Republican presidential nominating season earlier this year that a substantial percentage of Mitt Romney’s earnings came from carried interest brought new attention to the ... Read More
