Accounting involves a lot more creativity than most people, who think everything is cut and dried, realize.

This is a new one on me. The governor of Alabama is claiming that the Bible is telling him to raise everyone’s taxes in his State. There are a few more ironies to this story.

The governor is referred to as a conservative Republican, who just happens to be proposing a huge ($1.2 billion) tax hike.

In typical liberal hypocrisy, the lefties, who normally come unglued and scream bloody murder any time anyone mentions religion, aren’t protesting this action. For them, separation of church and state takes a back seat to more money for the government.

Americans Work Until Today to Pay for Government – On average, every penny of income you have earned from January 1 until today was for the government. What you earn the rest of the year will be for yourself.

Government Costs More than You Think

Today, We Start Working for Ourselves

Norquist Says Battle Over Taxes Won, Spending Is Next

Not Good – The Nevada Supreme Court has tossed out a voter mandated limit on taxes and is forcing the legislature to raise taxes.

New Proposal to Shrink Government: Term-Limit the Big-Spending Appropriators – What I’ve always been saying. We need a continuous turnover of elected rulers in our capitals. The longer anyone stays in office, the more corrupt and disconnected from the real world they become.

The New Tax Law’s Effect on Trusts and Home Sales

Flat Tax Fever – In a strange irony, Russia and some other former communist countries are adopting flat income tax rates, while we here in the USA continue to use Karl Marx’s progressive tax rate scheme to heavily penalize the more productive in our society. To show how insidious this is in our society, DemonRat presidential wannabe retired general Wesley Clark defended the concept of progressive tax rates as something our nation was founded on during a recent interview with Tim Russert. It’s no surprise that Russert didn’t challenge Clark on his idiotic claim. It’s not NBC policy to make DemonRats look stupid. That’s only used for GOP guests.

The Harrison Daily Times seems to be the only one covering this story. My guess is that someone high up at the Times was among the many victims. New details:

Harrison Abstract receiver files report – It doesn’t sound good, especially for the people who had their recently deposited money frozen when the company was seized.

Harrison Abstract audited

Couple awaits closing – These people lost the money they deposited into escrow on Wednesday, two days before everything was frozen. This is exactly what happened to our clients, who deposited their money into the Harrison Abstract bank account on Thursday, one day prior to the shut-down.

These kinds of things are extremely messy and can drag on for several years. It reminds me of a case back in the PRC, where a savings & loan in which my parents had an account was seized by the government for mismanagement. It took years for the depositors to get any of their money back; and that was only spurred along by threats of violence by some very upset depositors. With Harrison’s love of lynchings and other forms of vigilante justice, that may be what it takes in this case to ensure a speedy resolution.

The rich are already paying their fair share

Unpaid Taxes Take Their Toll. FirstPay Customers Learn the Dangers of Passing the Buck – I have seen this kind of thing happen on several occasions during my career. Payroll processing services keep the tax money instead of forwarding it to the State and Federal tax agencies. When the charade is exposed, the employers are then forced to pay the same taxes a second time.

State tax follies – Luckily, the higher State taxes aren’t wiping out all of the savings from the recent Federal tax cuts for most people.

Low-Income Tax (aka Welfare) Break Loses Steam

Tax Credit (aka Welfare Payment) Is Forced to Vote to Embarrass Republicans

Tax cuts inflationary? That theory should be ancient history.

Left Turn. Is the GOP conservative? – A lot of us are wondering if the GOP is abandoning its conservative roots in pursuit of the moderates who are turned off by the increasingly communistic DemonRats.

Firms Had a Hand In Pension Plight (link to article expired)

Social Security numbers key to identity theft

Here are some more stories on the investigations underway over the collapse of one of the busiest title companies in Harrison, Arkansas. We have several clients who have used their services, including some who did lose money when the company’s bank accounts were frozen; so we are following the developments quite closely.

Police asked to investigate abstract co.

JP asks AG to review abstract co.

Original Article on the Seizure – Check the recent reader comments, including one person proud of Harrison’s reputation for lynchings; except that this time it’s not a racial KKK thing.

While the first extension for 2002 1040s doesn’t run out until August 15, there are some that are up on July 15. The first extensions filed by April 15 for Fiduciary (1041) and Partnership returns (1065) are only for three months. These always have a way of sneaking up on me since I am usually so focused on 1040s.

Three more months of time can be obtained by filing Form 8800 by July 15 for both 1041s and 1065s. This brings their due dates into synch with the second extension date for 2002 1040s, October 15.

Senate Panel Hears Proposal to Reduce Pork – This is as likely to have an effect on the out of control spending as it is to expect Bill Clinton to keep his hands to himself while visiting Hooters. Some temptations are too strong for weak-willed people to resist. The only solution for those rulers who consider the Federal Treasury to be their private piggy banks is to check the spending scorecards of all incumbents next year and vote the ones out who have been spendaholics, regardless of party affiliation.

Besides violating their avowed dislike for big government spending, the GOP rulers in DC have abandoned their hatred of government regulation. The latest Federal Register is the longest in history (75,606 pages for 2002), to accommodate the flood of new regulations promulgated by our rulers.

Anyone who is truly a fan of low taxes, less government spending, and fewer regulations can’t be very satisfied with the performance of the GOP. There is still a political party that hasn’t abandoned those principles. Sending a few more Libertarians to DC would surely send a wake-up message to the RINOs who take their conservative base for granted.