Who will fix California's tax weaknesses?

In a May 20, 2010 article in the San Francisco Chronicle - " Candidates' plans to solve $19 billion deficit ," none of the th...

Forbes article on Our Tax Expenditure Problem

YES!! Bruce Bartlett's column in Forbes this week is entitled " Spending Through The Tax Code " and points out that spending ...

Taxes in the Cloud

Many modern business transactions have moved or are moving to more of a services model and location becomes less important. These transactio...

Charitable Contribution Subsidies Alter School Funding

Monday's (May 24) San Jose Mercury News included an article - " Flush with $2.2 million success, Cupertino parents share secrets ...

Maine Tax Reform Shows Opportunities and Challenges of Reform

On June 8, 2010, voters in Maine will get to vote on whether they approve a tax reform law enacted in 2009. The gist of the 2009 legislation...

The American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act of 2010

The House Ways & Means Committee has returned to and modified H.R. 4213 , The American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act of 2010 . As d...

Rhode Island - Possible Income Tax Reform

An article in The Providence Journal of May 20, 2010 (" R.I. legislators revamping personal income tax system " by Peoples and Dow...

Book Review - The Cracked Bell

Something new here - book reviews. At San Jose State, I've been directing the Campus Reading Program since 2005. We select a book of wid...

Tax Oddity - Complicated Washington Sales Tax Exemption

I previously wrote about Washington expanding its sales tax to cover candy and bottled water. While exemptions might serve a public policy p...

Spending cuts should include those in the tax system

Governor Schwarznegger's efforts to cut spending to address the California budget shortfall will avoid tax increases (see AP story in ...

Why this blog? Third Anniversary!

I started this 21st Century Taxation blog on May 14, 2007 (first post is here ). I'm amazed that I've been posting ideas, critique...

While You Were Filing ...

The tax law " suffered "** some significant changes during this past filing season. The HIRE Act and 2 health care bills contain ...

State of California - Broken State

The Mercury News' Election 2010 Guide in today's paper (5/12/10) has a great picture of the "state" of California - here ...

Small Business Council State Tax Rankings Report

On April 27, 2010, the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council released a report, "Business Tax Index 2010: Best to Worst State ...

Tax Administration and the Internet

We do a lot of things with the Internet - search and find lots of information, order goods and services, pay bills, transfer funds, apply f...

Tax Oddity - Casualty Loss Deduction Related to Drunk Driving

Here is one to add to my list of "tax oddities" - a taxpayer was allowed a casualty loss stemming from a car accident where he w...

Incentivize clean energy?

There are a few bills in Congress that would provide some type of tax benefit for some form of clean energy production or development. Why? ...

Survey Indicates Majority Not Willing to Reduce Deficits with Higher Taxes

A Rasmussen survey of 1,000 adults conducted at the end of April found that to address the deficit: 18% are willing to pay higher taxes 69%...