I’ve looked at the application process for these IRS advisory boards and am confident that Bernie Kerik would never have gotten very far in the selection process if he had been applying for a spot on any of them.  It’s a little frightening to know that members of tax policy boards are more closely screened than those in charge of homeland security. 

IRS Selects 12 New Members for IRS Advisory Council

IRS Selects Nine New Members for Information Reporting Program Advisory Committee

 

Thanks to Neal Boortz for the info on this website, Choose The Blue, which supposedly has all of the political donations by businesses broken down by political party.  Their goal is obviously to encourage consumers to patronize supporters of the DemonRat Party.  However, their info is just as useful for those of us who prefer to let our money do the talking in supporting those companies that donated more to the GOP and punishing supporters of the high taxing and regulating Donkeys.  Unfortunately, their data only includes info on donations to the two big parties.  Those of us who support third parties, such as the Libertarians, won’t be able to use these stats to identify our commercial allies. 

New Study Quantifies Lottery Tax Revenue and Questions Government-Sponsored Gambling – It has long been said that lotteries are just a tax on the stupid.  I know it’s heartless to say things like this; but I can’t help being grateful that those people are helping keep the other taxes lower for those of us who understand basic math.

Tax Bloggers Use Internet To Widen Tax Policy Appeal – I received a pdf copy of this article by Warren Rojas of Tax Analysts for their Tax Notes subscription publication a few days back and was just recently granted permission to post it here.  He covers a good assortment of blogs from the practitioner and academic communities.