Category: Tax

Marlee Matlin Can Add ‘Constitutionally Challenged’ to Her List of Disabilities

Academy-Award winning actress Marlee Matlin admits to People mag that she owes $50,000 to the IRS and isn’t at all embarrassed by this fact. ”I’m paying it back. I’m not shying away from it and I’m certainly not ashamed of it,” Matlin told the magazine. “It doesn’t mean I’m a bad person. It’s reality. It’s the reality that a lot of people in America are facing.” You tell ’em, girl!

The Celebrity Apprentice “star” (we use that term loosely, not being a huge fan of D-lister reality shows featuring hot messes such as Gary Busey and Lil’ Jon) tells People celebrity isn’t all it’s cracked up to be and, in fact, it’s her four kids and modest middle class life in the ‘burbs that is to blame. “Living modestly in a suburban neighborhood while trying to support four children through private school is not extravagant or living large,” Matlin said. “My husband is a Los Angeles area police officer and between the two of us we have always made ends meet in the past — and we will in this circumstance as well.”

To adjust to their new life as (probably accidental) tax protesters, the Matlin clan plans to make some important financial adjustments, like putting their poor children into public school. “At the end of the day, it’s about the best interests of the children,” she said. “Transitioning out of a private school environment will certainly relieve some of the financial pressures but hopefully this will not compromise the kids.”

Yes, hopefully it will not. Let the record reflect AG is a product of public school and we all know how horribly I turned out; someone pray for those kids.

Despite these hardships, Matlin seems upbeat and not at all worried about what this means for her reputation (let’s hope the IRS didn’t put her in the non-TIGTA-friendly “Tax Terrorist” category). “I’m not broke. Like everybody else, I owe money. My family is healthy and happy.”

Marlee Matlin Is Paying $50,000 in Back Taxes [People]

Newt Gingrich Has Some Imaginary Tax Policy Proposals for His Imaginary Presidency

To trigger job growth, Gingrich proposed to cut the U.S. corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 12.5 percent, a deeper cut than some other Republican politicians have offered. He would extend income tax cuts that expire in 2013, which were the subject of a pitched battle late last year when President Barack Obama tried to let tax reductions for wealthier Americans expire. And he would completely eliminate the capital gains tax on stock profits. Gingrich, proposed that the country move toward an optional flat tax for Americans of 15 percent, and strengthen the dollar by returning to “Reagan-era monetary policies,” and reform the Federal Reserve to promote transparency. [Reuters]

Tax Professionals Should Keep One Simple Thing in Mind When Assessing Their Performance

It’s getting to be that time of year, after all:

We’re doing reviews performance reviews, and the first item to assess is, “Knowledge and application of applicable accounting procedures and law.” First you check the appropriate box: Needs improvement; Meets expectations; Exceeds expectations; Far exceeds expectations. Then you have to write a comment. Here’s what I’ve got:

The Internal Revenue Code is 4,212 pages in 2 point font, I think the fact that I know any of it qualifies me to check the box – FAR EXCEEDS EXPECTATIONS

Other responses are welcome. Or send them our way.

Conoco Execs Don’t Appreciate These ‘Discriminatory’ Tax Plans

ConocoPhillips CFO Jeff Sheets is warning the U.S. Senate that repealing tax credits for oil companies will make it more difficult for his company and their U.S. counterparts to compete internationally and “higher taxes will mean that oil companies will have less money to reinvest, which could lead to a decline in the supply of hydrocarbons.”

Conoco’s CEO Jim Mulva, who will be testifying before the Senate Finance Committee tomorrow, agreed saying, that these plans are “discriminatory” and “If there is less investment, there is going to be less production and less production means higher prices for consumers.” So, Max Bauchus et al., go right ahead with your plan if you can sleep at night knowing that you’re nothing but a bunch of prejudiced jerks that want to hurt the American people. [WSJ, Reuters]

Is Everyone Aware That There Is a Chicken Sh*t Tax Credit?

Tax wonk Len Burman wrote a letter-cum-blog post to Jon Stewart today over at TaxVox explaining how there really is spending in the tax code through tax credits. You see, Stewart gave President Obama a hard time last month about “reducing spending in the tax code” which JS wrongly interpreted as Newspeak. Burman then goes on to give an shitty perfect example of just how ridiculous tax credits have gotten (in case you weren’t aware already):

You don’t believe there’s spending in the tax code??? Here’s a real life example: the chicken-s**t tax credit. Really, section 45 of the Internal Revenue Code. You can look it up. The late Senator Roth of Delaware (home of lots of chickens and “poultry manure,” as it’s euphemistically called) put this little goody into our tax laws. Here’s the backstory: the EPA said that enormous chicken farms could no longer put their poultry waste in pools or bury it because it poisoned the ground water. One of the best options to meet the new requirement was to dry the vile effluent and burn it to make electricity, but that was still costly. Roth didn’t want chicken farmer profits to plummet or chicken and egg prices to rise just because farmers couldn’t use the earth as a giant toilet, so he pushed through the chicken s**t tax credit to create a profitable market for that (as well as all sorts of other crap).

Burman not only explains to Stewart that using tax credits to keep chicken feces out of the water isn’t a good thing but by mocking the President, he also may have inadvertently helped tax executioner Grover Norquist:

Arch-conservative Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn, leader of the bipartisan “gang of six,” has said that he’d support tax increases so long as they didn’t include rate increases. That is, he wants to rein in subsidy programs run by the IRS.

This is important. Coburn was willing to take on Grover Norquist, who has very effectively prevented any sensible compromise on the budget by insisting that cutting tax subsidies would violate the taxpayer protection pledge that he strong-armed most Republicans to sign. Now Grover can use your laugh line to reinforce Republican intransigence and doom any chance of bipartisan cooperation.

And to indirectly (or perhaps directly) support taxpayer funding of chicken-shitless water.

Jon Stewart’s Fake News on Tax Expenditures [TaxVox]

Chuck Grassley Has Had It with the Hating on Wealthy People

Which makes a lot of sense since the Iowa Senator has a net worth reported to be anywhere from $2.3 million to $6 million.

The Hill reports that Senator Grassley made his annoyance known in a Senate Finance Committee meeting today, “I get sick and tired of the demagoguery that goes on in Washington about taxing higher-income people,” he said. “How high do taxes have to go to satisfy the appetite of people in this Congress to spend money?” Good question, Senator. Are you changing your tune on ethanol tax credits? [The Hill]

Illinois Tax Policy, Once Again, Fails to Impress

Known smartypants George Will took the state of Illinois to task over the weekend for their less-than friendly tax policy. He tells an anecdote of Tim Storm, a business owner that relocated his company to Beloit, Wisconsin from Rockton, Illinois which is a whopping five miles away. This was, at least in part, due to the state’s recently enacted “Amazon tax”:

Illinois, comprehensively misgoverned and ravenous for revenue, has enacted what has come to be called an “Amazon tax.” It requires Amazon and other online retailers to collect the state’s sales tax. Amazon and many other retailers responded by severing their connections with their Illinois affiliates.

Not only is GW all over Illinois’s decision to go after online retailers for sales tax, he also reminds everyone that the pols in the Land of Lincoln did a number on individual and corporate income tax rates:

In January, a lame-duck session of Illinois’ legislature — including 18 Democrats who were defeated in November — raised the personal income tax 67 percent and the corporate tax almost 50 percent. This and the increase — from 3 percent to 5 percent — in the tax on small businesses make Illinois, as the Wall Street Journal says, “one of the most expensive places in the world to conduct business.”

So as you can see, Illinois is on the ropes for its fiscal (mis)steps. Of course, Will isn’t the first person to call out the state for being a little tax happy, as Americans for Tax Reform was all over Illinois for this back in January. Of course, ATR managed to criticize the policy in a snarky Swede fashion as opposed to a bowtie-wearing polymathic diatribe. For obvious reasons, we’re partial to the former.

Working up a tax storm in Illinois [WaPo]

Who Would Have Guessed That Texas CPAs Would Oppose the Elimination of Oil and Gas Tax Breaks?

Next thing you know you’ll hear about CPAs in Iowa (with the exception of one with whom we’re acquainted) opposing the repeal of ethanol credits.

The Texas Society of CPAs’ Federal Tax Policy Committee addressed the issue in its “Analysis of Legislative Proposals to Repeal Certain Tax Treatments of Domestic Oil and Gas Exploration and Development”.The committee agrees that reducing the deficit is of utmost importance, but said that any effort to cut tax incentives for oil companies and raising taxes on oil and gas exploration and development should be weighed against its potential to exacerbate the current underemployment issue, and the need for a secure source of energy.

As noted in the analysis, the committee said it believes repealing tax benefits and allowances for the industry could adversely impact the state’s oil and gas industry, and the economies of Texas and the U.S.

Texas CPAs Oppose Elimination of Oil and Gas Tax Breaks [AT]

One of the Guys That Wrote the Mother of All Corporate Tax Textbooks Has Died

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James Eustice, who co-authored Federal Income Taxation of Corporations and Shareholders with Boris Bittker, died yesterday at 77. He was a Gerald L. Wallace Professor of Taxation Emeritus at NYU and counsel at Cooley LLP.

This epic book is more appropriately referred to as a “treatise” but it probably served as your primary source of information for your corporate tax classes.

For anyone not familiar with B&E, it’s quite the impressive piece of work and would be an excellent weapon of choice in a tax nerd duel. I personally never assaulted anyone with my copy but it did come in handy when I had trouble sleeping in grad school.

Anyone else with fond memories of B&E are invited to share them.

Death of Jim Eustice [TaxProf Blog]