Tax Politics
The Politics of Taxes
Massive Deficit Accumulating
The Trump Administration is on the path to rack up a trillion dollar deficit for fiscal year 2018-2019, due to a combination of declining total tax revenues and administrative overspending. The federal government collected a record $1,521,589,000,000 in individual...
Republicans Might Actually Try to Make Tax Cuts and Changes Permanent
House Republicans have put forth a bill that would make some of the tax cuts and changes permanent instead of expiring after a few years. This includes: The reduction in the individual tax rates The increased new standard deduction, which went to $12000/individual and...
Water Tax/User Fee Disgrace
When is a tax not a tax? When it’s a user fee -- at least in New Jersey. That’s what one lawmaker is attempting in the legislature. A bill that would tax water based on use, in order to “ is fix a crumbling water delivery infrastructure in the state.” The problem is...
Four States Attempt To Sue Government Over SALT
New York Governor Cuomo leads a four-state lawsuit against the federal government over the tax reform law that passed last fall. Governor Cuomo declared it "a practical act of self-defense against an adversarial federal government" and suggested that the bill was...
The State Department, IRS, Now Denying Some Passports
The State Department, in tandem with the IRS, has stepped up enforcement of an Obama-era law that blocks Americans with ‘seriously delinquent’ tax debt from receiving new passports -- and will, at some point -- be allowed to rescind existing passports of people who...
More Concern for Weissmann
I've written about Andrew Weissmann in these pages before, and this article, written earlier in the year, recently came to my attention. Weissmann has a history of despicable lawyer practices, and this latest article shows growing concern about his past tactics --...