Taxes

Scrambling for a politically acceptable way to raise revenue to pay for a scaled-down social spending and climate bill, Senate Democrats are considering a plan to expand the Net Investment Income Tax (NIIT). Predictably, critics allege the plan would hurt small, family business. But a new Tax Policy Center analysis finds that in 2023 the

Nicholas Mowbray of Baker & Hostetler LLP discusses the recently enacted Superfund excise taxes on chemicals and hazardous substances and some compliance concerns and uncertainty surrounding them. This transcript has been edited for length and clarity. David Stewart: Welcome to the podcast. I’m David Stewart, editor in chief of Tax Notes Today International. This week:

Can we talk ourselves into a recession? We did so in 2008. We’re doing so again now. Loose lips sink big economies, even ours, which is currently going great guns. Recessions can happen if everyone believes they will happen. The Great Recession is a case in point. The list of culprits fingered by the Financial

It may be every politician’s favorite fantasy—weaponizing the IRS. Last week the New York Times reported that two high-ranking former FBI officials who had been fired by then President Trump were both subjected to a rare type of IRS audit. Subsequent headlines from major media outlets implied that former FBI Director James Comey and former

Whether you love him or hate him, UK’s dethroned Prime Minister was sure different. He will be pilloried for a while yet, probably much more pilloried than praised. But anyone who has faced off with America’s powerful IRS might admire him just a little bit. After all, despite being a Brit, he came up against

Today’s Social Security column addresses questions about when delayed retirement benefits are applied to benefit payments, when it may be best to take survivor benefits and when it’s possible to receive spousal benefits. Larry Kotlikoff is a Professor of Economics at Boston University and the founder and president of Economic Security Planning, Inc. See more

Judge Juan Vasquez in TCM 2022-55 has given us an opinion that has the elements of a really good novel. It is an innocent spouse case. The innocent spouse aspect is rather interesting, but the story of what created the deficiency is even more intriguing. Everybody’s name is, of course, now public record, but it

Americans don’t save enough, either individually or collectively. Yet by looking at the wrong data, many journalists and even top economists are claiming we’re saving too much and, consequently, working too little. This is hogwash. It’s time to talk turkey about U.S. saving and for journalists and professionals to either do their homework or hold

Californians know that the state’s tax agency, the Franchise Tax Board or FTB, seems tougher than the IRS. Even if you live somewhere else, you might have heard of the Golden State’s aggressive tax rules and fearsome tax collector. If you owe the IRS and the FTB, it is usually a lot easier to resolve

Depending on your income in 2021, you may be feeling the pain of paying your taxes. Perhaps, you hurt when you look at your paychecks and see all the state and federal taxes being withheld. Some of you may feel a bit more pain based on the state where you live, how you earn your

Rep. Bill Foster (D-Ill.) has spent more than a decade in Congress and is the only current lawmaker to hold a PhD in physics. “One of the reasons I feel occasionally useful in Congress is actually having some background in business and technology, I have some idea of where the puck is going,’’ says the

Looking for a case study of our hyper-partisan politics? No need to search any further than your local gas pump. The ongoing debate in Washington and in many state capitols over a gas tax holiday has become a classic example of our toxic partisan politics. When Democrats propose one, Republicans reflexively oppose it. And when

La Posada Tax Clinic Director Robert Wunderle discusses the importance of low-income taxpayer clinics to the tax system and how his clinic serves the Twin Falls, Idaho, community. 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.

Reports say there’s been a big uptick in interest in leaving America with the overruling of Roe v. Wade, gun violence, political turmoil and more. One popular post advises how to move out of the US and the best places to escape. There are numerous choices, including moving to Canada. But if you go, is

Sometimes you read something in Tax Notes that causes you to stop and do a double take. The people who write for the publication are not immune from this phenomenon. The latest occurrence came as I read Elodie Lamer’s recent article on Hungary’s refusal to support the EU’s pillar 2 directive. An interesting nugget was

While the IRS has indicated that the backlog of unprocessed paper-filed returns is going down, it remains clear that a huge volume of mail remains unprocessed. Unfortunately both the end of the regular 2021 filing season and the clearing of the backlog of unprocessed returns is creating more mail for both taxpayers and the IRS.

Happy Independence Day! While we’re celebrating America’s birthday this weekend, let’s take a look at the taxes that “make government go” and a select handful of some of the most common frivolous tax arguments used by tax protestors to attempt to avoid paying federal income tax. The federal income tax was created by the Sixteenth

An opinion by Tax Court Judge Thomas Wells in the combined cases of Jessica Walters and her parents David and Jean Walters is unusual among hobby loss cases (Section 183). At stake was over $110,000 in tax and penalties for the years 2011 and 2012. The issue was whether the “green construction” activities of the

President Biden is seeking a three-month suspension of the federal gasoline tax. The idea is that a temporary tax holiday would ease the financial hardship on U.S. motorists. Before anyone starts celebrating, let’s do a reality check. It’s no secret that gas prices have skyrocketed. Nationally, the average retail price is hovering around $5 per

In a win for the nation’s taxpayers, the office of the National Taxpayer Advocate Service (TAS) has resumed taking some cases about paper-filed original and amended returns (Forms 1040 and 104-X, respectively). Due to the huge backlog of paper-filed returns that began accumulating during the 2020 filing season, when IRS offices were closed during the