Tax Guru – Ker$tetter Letter

Lottery winner, 94, sues to get it all now – If anyone’s a candidate for the secondary market to sell off her future rights to these payments, this 94 year old woman is.  Making her wait 20 years to be paid off is ridiculous.

Nebraska Man May Have Rare Coin. Silver Dollar May Be Worth Millions. – Nice retirement benefit.

Smokers make run on loose tobacco before tax begins – Just another reminder of how much taxes affect personal behavior.  One of the long running frustrations in debates over tax issues is that the other side remains so oblivious to this simple fact of life.  In their fairy tale world, tax rates can be raised and new taxes can be added and everyone will continue doing the exact same things as before.  The fact, as proven over and over again, is that higher rates stimulate less taxable activity and lower rates encourage more.  Please remember this in the face of so many calls to raise tax rates to attack the deficit. 

This is also the reason I have never been in the least bit afraid of losing my livelihood if we were to achieve our wish and replace the Federal income tax with a national sales tax or any other such change in the way governments fund their activities. People will still need our services to help them minimze those new taxes.

The Feds have released more details on the six people convicted in the Anderson’s Ark tax scam.

I couldn’t agree more with Spidell that, in their unquenchable thirst for tax dollars, the rulers of the PRC are crossing even more fairness lines by adding new fangled penalties.  Having worked with plenty of other former PRC residents, as well as non-resident owners of investment property there, I know that contacting Governor Arnold and other elected officials to play fair is a waste of time. Non-voters are easy targets for taxation who literally have no ability to punish those who want to fleece them.

AMT Can Complicate Timing of Tax Breaks From Charitable Gifts – Excellent point from the Wall Street Journal.  Normally at this time of year, there’s a mad rush to get as many deductible expenditures in as possible before January 1.  However, if it looks like you will be subject to the insane AMT, you will just be wasting your money because the tax calculation will ignore many of your Sch. A deductions.

As I’ve frequently said, the tax savings are higher for any deduction that can legitimately be shown on the front of your 1040 instead of on Page 2 via Sch. A.  This is just one of the reasons for that. 

For those folks still wallowing in the naivete that the AMT only hits the evil rich, this quote should be a wake-up call to contact your elected rulers in DC before it’s too late.

The AMT is expected to ensnare 29.9 million taxpayers by 2010, compared with 3.5 million this year, according to forecasts from the Tax Policy Center, a joint-venture of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution in Washington. More than half of those affected will be filers with income between $75,000 and $100,000, according to the center’s database.

 

Bush Expected To Delay Major Tax Overhaul

State to tax illegal drugs. Tennessee targets dealers, users with new levy. – Thanks to Bill at HobbsOnline for this perfect example of “if you can’t beat them, join them.”  Since the Drug War is impossible to ever win, governments might as well make some money off of it.  Also, as Al Capone found out, not paying taxes is treated by our rulers as much more important crimes to prosecute than other trivial things, such as murder and drug dealing; so those drug pushers in Tennessee had better not miss a payment.

While working on finishing up my 2004 CPE over the past few weeks, I noticed that there are actually plenty of self study courses based on the infamous Enron shenanigans:

Enron: The Accounting Profession’s 9-11?

Enron: Fraud, Deception, and the Aftermath

Securities Trading in the Post – Enron Era