Who Pays Taxes in California?

In April 2012, the California Budget Project released a report - Who Pays Taxes In California? It is a reminder that while we sometimes he...

Tax expenditure reform and income groups

The Hamilton Project has a nice chart showing the use of various tax expenditures (favorable tax rules) for different income groups. It is ...

Questions along the "Path to Prosperity"

Last month, the House of Representatives passed a budget resolution ( H.R. Con. Res. 112 , 112th Congress (3/29/12)) that included a ge...

Broadening Participation in Retirement Plans

The world has changed yet tax systems have not caught up. For example, years ago, many employees could expect to have a defined benefit typ...

Sales tax simplicity, equity and economic efficiency

The Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts publishes an interesting and informative monthly Tax Policy News. The March 2012 issue includes an ...

H.R. 9, small businesses and complexity

On April 12, 2012, the National Small Business Association released results of a survey on taxation. Per NSBA's press release, " wh...

Internet Taxation Issues Outline

I have updated a detailed outline I first wrote back in the late 1990s and updated in 2006. Since 2006 it has been published by BloombergBNA...

Overlooked Tax Deductions

I received an email from Turbo Tax about one of their several "tax tip" " infographics" they provide. This one is called...

Filing season idea - recalculate for tax reform

With all of the talk about tax reform - although usually without details, but having your 2011 tax return information, why not recalculate i...

Buffett Rule, Upper Income Taxpayers and Errors and Omissions

The White House has released more information about the "Buffett rule" which calls for individuals making over $1 million to have ...

State tax challenges of taxing digital items and possible federal assistance

Letter Ruling 2012-06 from the Hawaii Department of Taxation is a reminder of challenges of applying sales tax to software and other digita...

Tax oddities and challenges of compliance

An article in BloombergBusinessweek - "Yoga Gets Off the Mat to Fight New York's Tax Man" by Caroline Winter (4/4/12), is a r...

Tax gap, tax-cheating software tools and what to do

Zappers are a device that allows some sales to just not get reported. They are also known as “automated sales suppression devices." An ...

National Taxpayer Advocate Trying to Move IRS Into the 21st Century

On April 4, 2012, the National Taxpayer Advocate, Nina Olson, posted news about a new project from her office to help the IRS move into the ...

Reforms desired by businesses

Recently, the Kogod Tax Center at American University and Bloomberg BNA released the results of a survey where advisers of both small busine...