This is probably not how Henry Louis Gates wants to move on from his arrest that occurred last week.
A foundation created and run by Gates is amending its 2007 tax return after an investigation showed that some funds that were initially characterized as “research grants” were, in fact, compensation. This little whoopsie increased the administrative costs of the foundation to 40% of the spending, up from 1%, which some might say, is a lot.
All it probably adds up to is another headache for a man who is probably most annoyed that his last name is one letter away from being exactly the same as the suffix applied to every scandal that has ever occurred in this country since the early 1970s.
Foundation Run by Harvard’s Gates Is Revising Tax Return After Questions Raised [ProPublica via Inside Higher Ed and TaxProf Blog]
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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.
Max Baucus Promises to Monitor the IRS Until the Tax Gap Is Closed ‘Once and For All’
As soon as you catch your breath from laughing hysterically, feel free to continue.
Max Baucus turns 59 69 on December 11th, so even if you assume that he will have the life expectancy of Robert Byrd that means he’s got 32 22 years of watching the IRS’s every move. Sure, we’re making the assumption that the IRS has a snowflake’s chance in Hell of closing the tax gap but that’s an assumption we’re comfortable making.
The General Accounting Office recently stated that the IRS was using “antiquated techniques” to fight tax evasion and Baucus feels compelled to be on top of the situation until the tax gap is a distant memory.
“This report makes clear the IRS needs to develop a comprehensive strategy to fight complex tax evasion schemes and that more work is needed to close the tax gap,” Baucus said in prepared remarks. “I intend to closely monitor the IRS’ progress to make sure they have an effective strategy to root out this tax evasions and close the tax gap once and for all.”
You may now resume laughing until you soil yourself.
Baucus urges new strategy for IRS to combat evasion [On the Money]
The Tax Policy Debate Just a Got a Tad Less Sophisticated
Tax policy is one of the most complex issues in the political discourse, regardless of the simplicity behind the rhetoric used by our public officials. And thanks to this “straight talk,” it has become one of the most polarizing topics in politics. But now that a man has been arrested for trying to engage Congressman Jim McDermott (D-WA) in debate (after drinking of course) on the issue using colorful language (or you might call it “expletive-laced threats”), the discussion has hit a new intellectual low.
Here’s the voicemail Charles Turner Habermann of Palm Springs, CA left for Congressman McDermott, From the National Law Journal by way of Above the Law:
“Uh, I, I, I’d like to remind you McDermott that if you read the constitution all the money belongs to the people. None of it belongs to Government Okay! So, if Jim McDermott says they’re spending money on a tax cut, he’s a piece of human dog shit, okay. He’s a piece of human filth. He’s a liar, he’s a communist, he’s a piece of fucking garbage. Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, or George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, if any of them had ever met uh, uh Jim McDermott, they would blow his brains out. They’d shoot him, in the head. They’d kill him because he’s a piece of, of, of disgusting garbage.”He later says: “And you let that fucking scum bag know, that if he ever fucks around with my money, ever the fuck again, I’ll fucking kill him, okay. I’ll round them up, I’ll kill them, I’ll kill his friends, I’ll kill his family, I will kill everybody he fucking knows.”
In the second message, he says, “Your congressman, Jim McDermott is a piece of garbage. And I’ll tell you something right now, garbage belongs in the trash that’s exactly where he’s gonna end up.”
Then there’s this:
“As for his motivation for leaving the voicemail message, Habermann said he was calling politicians to let them know that what they were doing and saying regarding spending taxpayer’s money was wrong,” the complaint says. “He said he was trying to scare them before they spent money that didn’t belong to them.”
He also said he never intended to hurt anyone and that he was too afraid of losing his $3 million trust fund to commit a crime.
Yep, this guy’s a tax policy wonk, all right.
Arrest in California in death threats against congressman [National Law Journal via ATL]