Blog Profile / ATaxingMatter
| URL : | http://ataxingmatter.blogs.com/tax/ | |
|---|---|---|
| Filed Under: | Business & Finance / Taxes | |
| Posts on Regator: | 429 | |
| Posts / Week: | 3.7 | |
| Archived Since: | March 8, 2011 | |
Blog Post Archive
The 'ignorance is bliss'/'ride'em cowboy' mentality of today's GOP
Today's GOP is dominated by the Tea Party types that are a cross between an ostrich with its head stuck in the sand-- the "ignorance is bliss" philosophy-- and a 1860s cowboy as depicted in the 1960s western-mania TV shows--...
Does Apple's Cook Cook the (U.S. tax) Books?
Apple's CEO was apparently all smiling and charming in his testimony on Apple's international tax gimmicks. Not surprisingly, he claimed that Apple pays tax on all its US profits and doesn't shift US profits offshore. See, e.g., Michael Shear, Torches...
Rand Paul demands an apology for Congress looking at quasi-sovereign MNEs' tax-avoidance gimmicks
Did you hear about Rand Paul demanding an apology on behalf of Apple for the Senate investigation of the way that major muntilnational enterprises use whatever gimmick their very highly paid tax advisers and accountants can think of to ensure...
Another reason for NOT cutting Social Security benefits--seniors poorer than you think
As everybody knows, a constant refrain of the far-right GOP establishment is a desire to cut taxes for the wealthy while cutting benefits for the poor. The ideological right talks about benefits for the poor as "welfare" but never talks...
Citizen for Tax Justice's Bob McIntyre on Apple's offshore profit-hoarding
Bob McIntyre is the Director of Citizens for Tax Justice, a liberal-leaning group that has produced a lot of very good studies on tax developments over the years. He appeared yesterday on to discuss the news story about Apple's ability...
The IRS tale--Times letter writers seem to get it (or at least, most of them anyway)
As I've noted in several posts on A Taxing Matter (see links, below), the media and right-wing "hearing" frenzy continues over the purported IRS "scandal" from "targeting" conservative groups for extra scrutiny in determining whether to approve application for 501(c)(4)...
How Apple avoids US taxes with shell games
Tomorrow's Congressional hearing on the ability of major multinationals to shift profits offshore to avoid US tax (and everywhere-else tax) may finally get the attention of the American public onto a tax issue worth thinking about. As today's New York...
Useful information on 501(c)(4)s and 527s and the IRS's scrutiny dilemma
A fellow tax professor at Loyola University, Ellen Aprill, has put together a useful powerpoint on the way political activity comes into play in deciding whether an organization is eligible for 501(c)(4) status or should instead be treated as a...
The GOP and media frenzy over IRS scrutiny of tax exempts continues
Since I last wrote about this issue, the acting commissioner of the IRS Steve Miller has been forced to resign, and another IRS official has also been fired. Heads are rolling because the tax-exempt office used what seemed a likely....
Remember When the IRS Targeted Liberals?
Salon's Alex Seitz-Wald has a story that provides additional context on the difficulty the IRS has in determining appropriate filters for political activity. See "When the IRS targeted liberals: Under George W. Bush, it went after the NAACP, Greenpeace, and...
IRS sharkfest continues: Media rampages; Obama scolds; Holder investigates
While the information about the applications of tea party and other groups for tax-exempt 501(c)(4) "social welfare" status has been causing a feeding frenzy in the press, the Obama Administration continues to pander to the right by agreeing Monday that...
More on the IRS's "targeting of conservative groups"
In my earlier posting on Orrin Hatch's disappointing 'keynote' speech at the concluding ABA Tax Section luncheon, I mentioned his concluding attack on the IRS for "targeting conservative groups." TaxProf has provided considerable converage of the media sharkfest over the...
Orrin Hatch on tax reform at the ABA--a predictable right-wing rant
Orrin Hatch was the keynote speaker for the ABA Tax Section luncheon today in DC. Having never heard the man in person, I was surprised at the bumbling nature of his speech. He came across as an old man reciting...
Moving in the right direction: US, UK, Aussies to share tax info
One of the (many) ways by which rich, sophisticated taxpayers who are also ultra-greedy have managed to avoid paying their fair share of taxes is to move money offshore through trusts and "companies" set up in various no-tax/lo-tax, hi-sun jurisdictions...
Senate did the right thing--will the House?
Most are aware that online businesses have an unfair tax advantage. Under the 1992 Quill Supreme Court decision, states cannot currently require online retailers without physical presence in the state to collect applicable sales taxes. Although customers are supposed to...
Kevin Brady's misleading Wall St. Journal op-ed
Today's Wall Street Journal features an op-ed by Kevin Brady, right-wing Texas Republican who chairs the notorious "Joint Economic Committee" that has been a notorious producer of anti-tax propaganda-driven studies over the years of Republican hegemony in the House. See...
Fixing Sequestration (for the rich only)
Once again, Congress has demonstrated that it notices mostly what affects rich people and can't quite identify with ordinary Americans. And that it will not pass either spending laws or tax laws (which include a wealth of spending laws through...
Robert Reich: Chained CPI Makes No Sense For Seniors
With MoveOn.org, Robert Reich has produced a new video on the proposed change to Social Security that would REDUCE BENEFITS for seniors and wreak the most havoc on the most vulnerable. As he notes in the video, the proposed change--which...
Baucus Will Not Run in 2014 (yay!)
Max Baucus announced to his fellow Senators today that he will not seek re-election to the Senate in 2014. He has been the top Democrat on the Finance Committee since 2001. See Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus Won't Run Again...
Doggett fighting for fairness on Tax Day!
On Monday, Congressman Lloyd Doggett, a long-time member of the House Ways and Means Committee, releases a GAO report showing the continued advance of corporate tax expenditures that allow corporations to pay little or no taxes year after year. “Of...