Taxes

As Franklin D. Roosevelt took the oath of office on March 4, 1933, the United States was struggling through the darkest days of the Great Depression. A quarter of the nation’s workers were unemployed, the banking system was nearing collapse, and economic activity had dropped to roughly a third of its 1929 level. The FDR

Today’s Social Security column addresses questions about how timing of the record holder’s retirement benefit can affect their spouse’s benefit drawn on their record, survivor benefits and the earnings test and informing SSA of a divorce. Larry Kotlikoff is a Professor of Economics at Boston University and the founder and president of Economic Security Planning,

Throughout the global pandemic, a number of medical diagnostic testing businesses worked hard to provide COVID-19 testing services, investing significant resources in a short time to scale up their operations to support the demand for testing. As the UK and other countries engaged with the challenge faced by COVID-19 and the reality that people had

There was some rain on the parade of celebration of the student loan debt forgiveness. The Tax Foundation, perhaps with a touch of schadenfreude, announced that the forgiveness, not federally taxable due to recent legislation, might be taxable in as many as thirteen states. They have taken a closer look and backpedaled quite a bit.

Understanding how the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) will affect the Internal Revenue Service’s operations requires wading through a swamp of misinformation, disinformation, and no information. But to cut through much of the political muck, here are the facts we know and some key questions about how the IRS will spend the substantial new funding provided

When it comes to inventory taxes, five issues are readily identified. First, they are complex. Second, businesses that pay inventory taxes hate them. Third, inventory taxes are unfair because they are nonneutral, and businesses that must maintain large inventories, such as manufacturers and retailers, are penalized by paying more in tax than businesses maintaining smaller

The IRS gets a piece of most lawsuit recoveries, but how taxes play out on this one might surprise you. A Los Angeles jury found LA County liable for negligence and invasion of privacy, awarding Kobe Bryant’s widow $16 million and $15 million to Chris Chester, whose wife and daughter Peyton were also killed. The

Today’s Social Security column addresses questions about whether the earnings test can a spouse’s benefit, changing benefit payment dates and a foreign pension’s potential effect on benefits. Larry Kotlikoff is a Professor of Economics at Boston University and the founder and president of Economic Security Planning, Inc. See more Ask Larry answers here. Have Social

Professor Jeremy Bearer-Friend of the George Washington University Law School highlights key areas of the IRS’s tax enforcement where racial bias can occur. This transcript has been edited for length and clarity. David D. Stewart: Welcome to the podcast. I’m David Stewart, editor in chief of Tax Notes Today International. This week: colorblind tax enforcement.

Guessers of the unguessable are right half the time. Larry Summers was lucky to predict inflation based on an argument about stimulus raising prices that’s unsupported by the facts. Now he’s using his “clairvoyance” to goad the Fed to overreact and kill the economy. A year and a half ago, Larry Summers predicted in a

The New York Times NYT reported that Chicago businessman Barre Seid donated his entire business, tax free, to the Marble Freedom Trust, a tax-exempt advocacy organization run by conservative activist Leonard Leo. A few months later, the Trust sold the stock for more than $1.6 billion. And now it can use the tax savings to

Chances are you’ve heard about the child tax credit. Aside from the name, most Americans don’t know how it works, who qualifies, and how it helps you save money. Understanding these tax credit basics can help you make smarter financial moves and, hopefully, get ahead financially. What Is The Child Tax Credit? The Child Tax

When I covered the trial of Kent Hovind, a Young Earth Creationist Independent Baptist Minister, back in 2015, a name that kept popping up was Glen Stoll. Stoll was the trustee on several properties. Ultimately the trusts were considered to be alter egos of Hovind. Even the holdout juror who effectively freed Kent Hovind found

Given the pandemic, did you file your 2019 or 2020 tax returns late? It happened to millions of individuals and businesses. And now, on the same day that the Biden Administration announced wide student debt relief, the IRS has issued Notice 2022-36 to provide sweeping penalty relief to most people and businesses who file certain

It’s not always true, but in many ways, you can save far more by contributing to a Roth 401(k) rather than to a traditional Roth IRA. They’re similar in many ways, but the differences may give you the edge you want. “A Roth 401(k) is better than a Roth IRA because an individual can contribute

The old adage is, “You can’t spend pre-tax investment returns.” After-tax returns are what count. The tax rules on investments are in effect all year, but few people take advantage of that. Too many people don’t start thinking about investment taxes until near the end of the year, or even after the year is over.

On the 2020 Form 1040 the IRS inserted a question just below your name and other contact information. The question read: “At any time in 2020, did you receive, sell, send, exchange, or otherwise acquire any financial interest in any virtual currency?” The recently released draft of the 2022 form 1040 features an update to

I recently reviewed Only The Rich Can Play by David Wessel. It was a journalistic sort of work that tried to make a case against Opportunity Zones, but, in my view, did not make it so well. Now there is some scholarship – Opportunity Zones: A Program in Search of a Purpose by Ofer Eldar

The United States, unlike its peer countries, does not have a carbon tax. The long-running question is whether the country needs one. Some carbon tax advocates were hoping to see such a measure in the Biden administration’s recently enacted Inflation Reduction Act, but the new law leaves that question unanswered. Rather than implementing a carbon

Has remote work become a permanent feature of the labor market? A recent New York Federal Reserve report gives a qualified “yes,” but ultimately raises more issues than it answers. Not all employers are fans of remote work. Earlier this year, Elon Musk e-mailed Tesla employees to stop “phoning it in,” ordering them to “spend