Tag: It’s an election year

BREAKING: Democrats Suck at Accusing Republicans of Trying to Raise Taxes

So some Democrats thought it would be a cute to try and turn the tables on their Republican opponents by insinuating that by supporting the Fair Tax, the GOP was raising taxes on middle class Americans.

Love or hate the Fair Tax, anyone that takes more than 30 seconds to research the idea knows that if implemented, the Fair Tax would abolish the income tax.

In some recent ads, a few Democratic nominees left that part out entirely:

Research supplied by FairTax.org shows that Democrats in 16 districts have run at least 31 ads blasting Republicans for supporting the tax. But many of these ads neglect to mention the levy is essentially a national sales tax that would replace the current federal tax system.

FactCheck.org recently slammed the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) for running ads that omitted this fact.

“Democrats are accusing Republicans of supporting a 23 percent sales tax on everything, which would be on top of all existing taxes… it’s misrepresenting by omission of the FairTax idea,” FactCheck.org director Brooks Jackson told The Hill.

The motivation behind this strategy could be due to a number of factors:

1) The Democrats who ran the ads feel that most Americans are gullible enough to believe anything they see on TV.

2) The Democrats who ran the ads don’t understand how the Fair Tax policy would work on its most basic level, thus meeting the intelligence level to serve in Congress.

3) Democrats simply suck at accusing Republicans for trying to raise taxes.

It wouldn’t be a surprise if the first two played a part but come on. Leave the “he/she wants to raise your taxes” to the experts you fools and stick with the lowbrow stuff.

Dem ads against GOP not accurate on crux of FairTax proposal [On The Money]

Accounting News Roundup: Political Nonprofits Pushing the Limits with Ads; Familiar “Outrage” Over Big 4 Audit Industry Dominance; Obama Attacks GOP Tax Policy in Weekly Address | 10.18.10

Groups Push Legal Limits in Advertising [NYT]
“The basic rule of thumb for nonprofit groups organized under Section 501(c) of the tax code is that more than 50 percent of their annual activities cannot be political. Although it is a matter of debate how spending on traditional issue ads would be categorized by the Internal Revenue Service, it is indisputable that spending on express advocacy would be classified as political.”

Lords to hear top six firms on audit reform [Accountancy Age]
“A showdown has been planned for the UK’s top six acevidence is heard at a House of Lord’s inquiry into audit reform.

The House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee will take evidence from the heads of the Big Four – PwC, Deloitte, KPMG and Ernst & Young – followed by their mid-tier rivals – BDO and Grant Thornton – during its inquiry into audit competition.”

Accounting industry sees ray of light on the horizon [Crain’s]
“Demand for accountants is forcing large CPA firms to bump salaries by as much as 3.8% next year, the steepest jump since 2008. U.S. companies with more than 20 employees plan to increase hiring of full-time accountants and finance personnel this quarter for the first time since early 2009, says Michael Shapow, a senior vice-president at Menlo Park, Calif.-based staffing firm Robert Half International Inc.

During the dot-com era, bachelor’s degrees in accounting fell from 53,000 in the mid-1990s to 35,000 in 2002, according to the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants in Washington, D.C. The figure has boom-eranged, rising to 49,000 in 2008, creating a new problem: not enough professors.”

Systemic Risk! Dominance! Momentum! Auditors In Crisis. Again. [Re: The Auditors]
The “outrage” and “risk” over the dominance by the Big 4 in the audit industry is so played.

Obama Attacks Republicans on Tax Policy [TaxProf Blog]


AICPA to SEC: Companies Will Need as Much as Five Years to Ready for IFRS Adoption [JofA]
“In the portion of its letter regarding the impact of IFRS conversion on contractual arrangements, the AICPA voices support for a requirement for companies adopting IFRS to file one year of comparative financial statements rather than two. ‘Our research indicates that companies will need five years preparation time to adopt IFRS if the SEC requires two years of historical comparative financial statements. If only one year of comparative financial statements is required, a four-year transition period would be needed to adopt IFRS.’ The SEC has not said what the requirement would be.”

Christine O’Donnell Attack Ad on “Taxman” Chris Coons Uses Witchy-Sounding Music

We defy you to find more appropriate background music for a scene with three spell-casting broads cackling around a cauldron.


But what about that sinister rhetoric? Jim Newell over at Gawker suggests that the ad channels a viral ‘Bed Intruder Song’. Reasoning that the lyrics “Hide your kids, hide your wife, and hide your husband, cause they rapin’ everybody up in here” translated into the “Hide your will, hide your lights, ’cause he’s taxing everything out here.”

Maybe Newell is onto something. If you just imagine boxy eyeglasses and a Members Only jacket combined with Coons’s textbook horseshoe balding pattern, he would have a über-creepy vibe going on. Plus he loves taxes! Yep, this ad is a winner.

[via TaxProf]

Ron Johnson Would Like to Be the Second Accountant in the U.S. Senate

Because God knows 57 lawyers is far too many and Russ Feingold just happens to be one of them.


As you may be aware, this is the second relatively high-profile race where an accountant and lawyer face off that we’ve covered. In the South Carolina governor’s race tax-tardy accountant Nikki Haley is facing special-interest whore Vince Sheheen. We should also note the the Senate race in New York between incumbent Kirsten Gillibrand (lawyer) and Joseph DioGuardi (accountant) but so far it’s been fairly boring unless DioGuardi happens to make an issue out of Gillibrand’s hotness.

Anyhoo, similar to those two races, the ballot in Wisconsin will appear as follows:

Accountant (R)
Lawyer (D)

So as voters, when faced with such a choice, should we assume that the accountant running for office is family values type that believes in cutting taxes and reducing spending (with no intent to do so) and the lawyer is a spineless tax and spend type that fails to accomplish anything even when they have the political power or leverage?

Wisconsin is doomed.

U.S. Senate Continues to Successfully Bicker Over Tax Cuts

Dick Durbin is über-confident that nothing is going to happen prior to election day, which means he and his colleagues will have to sneak it in between then and December 31st when the cuts expire.

“The reality is we’re not going to pass” the tax cuts before the election,” said Durbin of Illinois. He blamed politics, saying “we are so tightly wound up in this campaign” that a bipartisan agreement to act won’t be reached.

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, a North Dakota Democrat, said “it’s clear there aren’t 60 votes for any proposal, so no proposal is going to pass at this point.”

Sixty votes would be needed for a tax-cut extension to advance in the Senate.

Our concern is that some of Durbin’s friends in the Senate will be losers come November 2nd and may feel like sticking it to the entire country purely out of spite. It would be a mistake for anyone to overestimate the maturity level of any member of Congress.

Durbin Says Senate Won’t Pass Tax Cut Extension Before Election [Bloomberg]

Earlier:
Gerri Willis Doesn’t Care What A Couple of Old Men Think About Tax Cuts

Gerri Willis Doesn’t Care What A Couple of Old Men Think About Tax Cuts

In case you haven’t heard, there’s a bit of a debate over what to do about the expiring Bush tax cuts. And because it’s an election year, they make for a perfect political pigskin to throw around.

Fox Business Network is marking this momentous occasion with Taxed to Death Week (a demise that we do wish for our worst enemies) and wons to Gerri Willis of the Willis Report.

Going Concern: Tax cuts are a pretty popular way for politicians to pander to their constituents. It seems pretty convenient that they are set to expire right after the mid-term elections. Who should we blame for this?

Gerri Willis: There are plenty of people to blame – George W. Bush put them into place way back in ’01 and ‘03 and we knew way back then they had an expiration date – so take yer choices, there are plenty of politicians to point the finger at.


GC: And God knows Americans need someone to blame. Since Congress let the estate tax expire, is there a real risk that the tax cuts could expire without any action?

GW: Sure, it’s actually the easiest action to take because it requires absolutely no effort on the part of anybody – Congress doesn’t have to do anything. The President doesn’t even have to pick up a pen to sign the bill. They could all just dither until midnight December 31. Whoosh! Tax hikes.

GC: Just like tornadoes in Brooklyn. And that’s not good for anybody. Anyway, there’s a lot of information and misinformation out there with regard to the tax cuts. Can we safely assume that objectivity is taking a back seat to political gain and Americans are at the mercy of the rich and powerful (who, incidentally, are the ones greatest affected by the ultimate outcome)? How can Americans know what’s really going to happen? How can accountants best sort through all the noise to best serve their clients?

GW: Surprise! Politics are involved – of course they are, but Americans aren’t stooges. There are plenty of places to get objective information on the tax cuts. I’d suggest Fox Business and The Willis Report. Frankly there is no way for accountants or anyone else to know what is going to happen – Congress is really holding us hostage – my financial advisor sources say nobody is going on vacation in December because they know that something can happen anytime that will change the landscape.

GC: Here’s something strange – Warren Buffet has indicated that he’s in favor of eliminating tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. Alan Greenspan is in favor of letting all the tax cuts expire. So we have one of the richest people in the world saying he’s willing to pay more taxes and the former head of the Federal Reserve saying that everyone should pay more taxes. Generally speaking, these are smart guys. Are they onto something or is this a sign that we need to start ignoring everything that old men say?

GW: Okay, to be fair here there is wealthy and then there is wealthy, right? $250,000 in San Francisco or LA or NYC is not the same thing as $250,000 in Omaha or Comanche TX. And, Greenspan simply continues to try to resurrect his reputation which was harmed by the mortgage meltdown.

GC: Ultimately though, the one thing Congress agrees on is that tax cuts for the middle class should stay and the big debate is whether the wealthy get a short extension on their cuts or a “permanent” (although it’s not really permanent) one. But do rich people really need an additional moderately-priced BMW?

GW: Heehee. Maybe they won’t buy a BMW – maybe they’ll hire someone! The thing for the middle class to know is that it isn’t just your income taxes at stake – there are a handful of beloved middle class tax credits at stake too – write-offs for college loan interest; child tax credit; and of course there is no AMT patch yet this year – if that doesn’t come to pass tens of thousands of Americans could owe AMT — a tragedy.

Lawyer, Accountant Slam Each Other’s Professions in the South Carolina Governor’s Race

Forgetting about politics for a second – the gubernatorial race in South Carolina has gotten personal as the camps of Nikki Haley (R) and Vincent Sheheen (D) sling mud at each other’s chosen profession.

Sheheen isn’t impressed with Haley’s tardiness on paying taxes saying, “I think it’s particularly problematic that she would not pay her employee withholding because that money really belongs to the employee. … For somebody who claims their accounting skills are a reason why she should be elected governor, I think that’s particularly disturbing.”


Sheheen goes so far to say that Haley is completely out touch with South Carolinians who have to pay taxes and eat, something that Nikki Haley presumably does not do, “I think she’s just out of touch with regular people in South Carolina who do pay their taxes and do have to buy food and put it on their table.” Maybe the Haley family just eats their meals over the sink; it’s not entirely clear.

Haley’s camp fired back, citing Sheheen’s snakey-ass lawyer ways:

Haley’s campaign fired a broadside at Sheheen this week, noting that he was endorsed by The Injury Board Blog Network, a national group of personal injury attorneys. It noted that Sheheen, a lawyer, voted to weaken a tort reform bill in 2005.

“The entrenched special-interest network of trial lawyers and personal injury attorneys is circling the wagons for Vince Sheheen,” said Haley’s communications director, Rob Godfrey.

But guess what?!? Vinny Sheheen is a-okay with that. He’s a successful lawyer, not some two-bit accountant-cum-tax dodger, “I hope everybody endorses me. I’d rather have a successful lawyer as my governor than an accountant who doesn’t pay her taxes.”

Obviously, both these candidates are complete losers and our friends in the Palmetto State are going to end up with a shitty new governor. But that’s the way our country works so let’s see what you think. If you had to choose between these two clowns:

Sheheen blasts Haley over taxes [Charleston Post Courier]

Tax Reform Suggestions Will More or Less Encompass Every Idea, Ever

Despite other pressing issues out there, such as, whether a Muslim community center is too closeto Ground Zero or if it’s just a religious revival of an old Burlington Coat factory, the matter of tax reform managed to creep back into the news late last week.

The President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board plans on dropping some suggestions on fixing our tax system on August 27th. This comes after the getting suggestions from the American people but then stalling a little bit on the issue.

Now that some recommendations are scheduled to be made public the Journal suggests that the timing isn’t ideal for an election year but also mentions that while there’s going to be plenty of idea put out there, no real solutions are going to be recommended:

But the timing of the release just before the Labor Day weekend suggests that the administration might be trying to downplay it. Many Democrats say tax hikes are inevitable if the government is to bring down the federal deficit, expected to total about $1.5 trillion this year, but that option remains politically sensitive, given the high jobless rate and ahead of November’s mid-term elections.

According to the Treasury Department, the report will offer “an almanac of options from a broad range of viewpoints,” but won’t make specific policy recommendations. It will discuss ideas related to simplifying the tax code, strengthening enforcement and overhauling the corporate tax system, the department said.

An ‘almanac of ideas’ will no doubt incorporate all ideas on tax reform floated by anyone, anywhere so that it can appear that people are trying really hard to come up with a solution without making anything too politically awkward. In other words, business as usual.

White House Panel to Issue Tax-Overhaul Report Aug. 27 [WSJ]