The ‘Godfather of Tax Policy’ explains his beef (pepperoni, sausage, meatball) with his fellow Godfather’s tax plan.
The ‘Godfather of Tax Policy’ explains his beef (pepperoni, sausage, meatball) with his fellow Godfather’s tax plan.
Unheard-of GOP Presidential candidate Jon Huntsman isn’t doing so well in the race for his party’s nomination. This is probably due to the fact that he seems like a fairly pragmatic fellow and pragmatism isn’t really something that fits in the GOP agenda. I mean, COME ON, the man believes in evolution and trusts scientists on climate change. Clearly he’s going nowhere with those kinds of policy positions.
So, in what will likely amount to another failed attempt to bring some sense to the GOP narrative, Huntsman will give a speech on tax reform and various other issues in New Hampshire.
Huntsman will lay out his plans for tax and regulatory reform, energy independence and free trade in a New Hampshire speech that’s being billed as perhaps the last best chance for Huntsman, who stands far behind the GOP frontrunners in polls, to establish himself as a serious contender for the Republican presidential nomination. “Meeting our challenges will require serious solutions, but above all, it will require serious leadership – a quality in high demand in our nation’s capital, and among my opponents on the campaign trail,” Huntsman will say, according to excerpts released by his campaign. The centerpiece of the plan is a proposal to reform tax rates. The Huntsman plan would eliminate all loopholes, deductions and tax exemptions in exchange for establishing three individual income brackets, taxed at eight, 14 and 23 percent. The Huntsman plan would also eliminate capital gains and dividend taxes, do away with the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) and reduce the corporate tax rate to 25 percent.
Now all he has to do is mention God’s role in all of this and he’ll be the frontrunner.
Huntsman to unveil sweeping tax reform [The Hill]
Why on Earth would someone like MC Hammer have to go and make reassuring claims about his financial situation? The fact that the IRS is hassling him with an illegit, illegit to quit, tax lien has us completely nonplussed (is that the right word?). The man is the poster child for rag to riches to completely over-leveraged riches to bankruptcy to mediocre comeback celebrity.
More on HammerTime’s trubs, after the jump
Hammer is all bent out of shape over a lien that the IRS slapped on him last month for $625k that is related to some damn thing 15 years ago. Right about the time when he was working really hard at going bankrupt.
HammerTime would also like everyone to know that along with a hit TV show, he is a very successful Twitterer with over 1 million followers, so obviously this whole tax lien is a huge misunderstanding because everyone knows that 1 follower on Twitter = $1 in the bank. So if the IRS could just drop it, that’d be great. Thanks.
MC Hammer Raps IRS over Tax Debts [Web CPA]
In a speech before the 23rd Annual Institute on Current Issues in International Taxation, Washington, DC, Doug Shulman (link not yet available on the website) explained how rich dudes schlepping money to Switzerland (but not any more!) or Hong Kong is not even close to the same thing as “Google’s Irrationally Exuberant Tax Strategy.”
As I have said before, I draw a sharp distinction between rooting out individuals hiding their money in foreign tax havens and the IRS and Treasury creating ground rules for multinational corporations operating in a global environment.
It’s no secret that multinational corporations engage in sophisticated international tax planning. We recognize that much of this is perfectly legal and many businesses are trying to get it right. Of course, some are pushing the envelope too far and it’s here that we have issues. Our goal is to differentiate between the two; to be on top of our game in this analysis; and to ensure corporations are compliant with the tax law and stay compliant.