How Lawyers Helped Drive The Boom in Tax Shelters – So, what’s so wrong about attorneys charging people hundreds of thousands of dollars for “objective” opinion letters on tax shelter scams those same lawyers created? It looks like a high growth legal specialty is going to be in handling malpractice suits against these guys.

During the months of February and March 2005, the California Franchise Tax Board (income taxes) and Board of Equalization (sales taxes) will have an amnesty program for people who haven’t filed their 2002 or earlier tax returns or did so but failed to include some income or claimed too much in deductions. People who ‘fess up during those two months and pay their back taxes and interest will be free from any penalties and criminal prosecution.

As the FTB says in their Tax Amnesty Quick Reference, this won’t apply to anyone who they have already started criminal proceedings against. The application to participate in the amnesty isn’t scheduled to be available until January 15, 2005.

As with any State amnesty program, this creates a new variety of tax planning decisions. As I’ve mentioned several times before, anyone who is ready to come clean with the State tax authorities had better be ready to do the same with IRS because all info provided to the State will be shared with IRS, which has no similar amnesty programs in the works.

Buffetted. The Sage of Omaha loves the estate tax — as well he might – Why we were upset that Arnold Shwarzenegger was relying on him as an advisor during his run for Ruler of the PRC.







Tax burden politics – According to the lefties, nobody should be happy about their own tax breaks if anyone else received more, especially the evil rich who pay almost all of the taxes.

Bush Tax Cuts Erased Income Tax Burden for 7.8 Million Families

Socialism is evil: Part II – Another great lesson from Walter E. Williams.