People who pay no income tax - persepctives

The Tax Policy Center has an interesting and informative post - "Why Do People Pay No Federal Income Tax ?" (7/27/11). It notes th...

Need to further lower CA sales tax rate - Mercury News op-ed

I'm pleased to have an opportunity today to share my perspective on the need to fix the California sales tax by lowering the high rate a...

IRS Guidance Issues - Tax Analysts Forum

As I've discussed previously here, the IRS has been issuing a fair amount of unofficial guidance, such as FAQs on its website or informa...

What Tax Reform Should Really be Focused On

I have a second guest post on the FranchiseHelp website. It addresses some of the reasons why federal tax reform is needed. I hope you'l...

Creating More Sales Tax Collectors - More "Amazon" Laws

In 2011, 5 more states joined the existing three that had enacted so-called "Amazon" nexus laws to try to get more Internet vendor...

Debt Free America Act

Congressman Fattah (D-PA) has once again introduced the Debt Free America Act ( H.R. 1125 ) (in the 111 th Congress, it was H.R. 4646 ). T...

Subsidyscope.org by Pew Now Has Tax Expenditure Database

Yesterday (July 13, 2011), the Pew Charitable Trusts announced something new in its efforts to bring more attention to four types of subsidi...

Colorado's Efforts Towards Greater Transparency

Recently, Colorado enacted SB 11-184 which includes a requirement for a specific tax expenditure report. This legislation provides that by ...

Federal Return Preparer Competency Examination

I submitted comments today per the IRS request for them on various aspects of the return preparer examination they are designing that will b...

Senator Rockefeller Tax Proposal

On June 30, 2011, Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) offered a tax proposal primarily designed to address the deficit by increasing taxes on t...

Amazon Cancels California Associates Contracts

As promised and expected by most, Amazon has cancelled its contracts with California -based Associates. I set up an account for my daughter,...

Mortgage Interest Deduction is a Subsidy in Need of Reform

The Pew Charitable Trusts released a study, The Costs and Benefits of Housing Tax Subsidies (6/30/11). It lays out mostly what has been kno...

July 1 tax rate reductions

Today, the California sales tax rate drops 1 percentage point to a state rate of 7.25% ( BOE Notice ). The federal unemployment tax ( FUTA ...