New York Times Tax Reform Suggestions

A December 29, 2012 editorial in the New York Times, part of a series of suggestions for President Obama for his second term, makes the fol...

Trailing Nexus - Constitutional?

Let's take a break from the drama of whether we go off the fiscal cliff to look at an interesting state tax issue - trailing nexus.  Tra...

Tax reform via more obscure provisions

While recent newspaper stories tend to be focused on reducing the mortgage interest deduction, state taxes and charitable contributions, the...

Tax rates and economic growth

Recently there has been some drama around a Congressional Research Service (CRS) report issued in September 2012 that reported that a reduct...

Cutting back the state tax deduction

As lawmakers look at how to pay for keeping any of the lower tax rates that were temporarily set in place back in 2001 and 2003, they are lo...

Fiscal Cliff Infographic

The folks at nerdwallet have taken information from the CBO and Tax Policy Center and created their own Fiscal Cliff Infographic.  It's...

A Canadian's proposal to avoiding the ‘fiscal cliff’

Professor Jonathan Rhys Kesselman of Simon Fraser University in Vancouver has an article in The Globe and Mail today (12/6/12) on suggestio...

Tax Reform Possibilities of California's New Super Majority

  California's requirement for any tax increase to have a 2/3 vote of the state legislature makes tax reform difficult in California. Th...

Tax system modernization recommendation in Colorado

Recently, TBD Colorado , a non-partisan, community group issued a report (11/14/12) with various recommendations to help improve the state...

Tax reform and base broadening

As I've noted in these posts in recent months, both political parties have mentioned base broadening as part of tax reform including how...

Addressing the Fiscal Cliff - Maybe in December?

Here is the House schedule for the week of November 26.  Note the absence of anything involving the big issue on hand - the "fiscal cli...

The Fiscal Cliff and the States

A report by the Pew Center on the States on 11/15/12 notes that the fiscal cliff the federal government is facing also affects the states. T...

Time to move the 1040 pie charts to the web

The first pie charts included in the 1991 Form 1040 instruction booklets.  Click here for a larger format. In 1990, Congress decided it woul...

President Obama - Tax Plans

While I think it is likely that President Obama will reshape his tax reform plans in his second term, take a look at this table I created a ...

Challenges of lower tax rates for individuals

An October 11, 2012 letter from the Joint Committee on Taxation to Senator Baucus indicates that even significant tax law changes will not p...

How states can improve sales and use tax collection

Line 95 is the use tax line on the California personal income tax form. Line 22 is from the Michigan form. Which do you think better explain...

NYT questions value of mortgage interest deduction

The New York Times ran an article on 10/25/12 - " Who Really Benefits From Interest Deductions " by Lisa Prevost. It points out a...

Some CEOs call for tax reform that includes raising revenues

Federal Debt information from OMB (dollars in millions) The Wall Street Journal reports today (10/25/12) that over 80 CEOs are calling for...

Vermont Study on its Sales Tax

In July, I blogged about the formation of a Study Committee in Vermont on the Sales and Use Tax ( 7/3/12 post ). Well, I had the opportunity...

"Ditch the Tax Code" - problems and possible solutions

I had the opportunity to participate in a HuffPost Live discussion on Friday (Oct 19) - it was a lively conversation. I think host Josh Zepp...

US Supreme Court Denies Cert in a Nexus Case

As I predicted, the U.S. Supreme Court has denied cert in the request from Scholastic Books to hear its appeal of a finding of sales tax ne...

Tax Questions for Presidential (and VP) Candidates

http://www.debates.org/ We are hearing a lot about tax reforms from candidates, but not much on specifics that are really needed.  For examp...

What if North Dakota Had Won at the US Supreme Court 20 Years Ago?

If Justice White had been able to convince four of his fellow justices to rule for North Dakota in the Quill case, I think we'd have a d...

Sales Tax Oddities - Food

A recent ruling in Florida is a reminder of the lack of logic and transparency in some of the special rules and exemptions common in sales t...

Romney's "Bucket" Idea

In a Fox News interview before the first presidential debate, Governor Romney referred to a "$17,000 bucket" as part of his tax re...

Should IRS help allieviate the "fiscal cliff"?

The first two items are the key parts of the "fiscal cliff" and others are also budget problems. A 10/1/12 Wall Street Journal bl...