Tax Court IRS And Secret Law
The Tax Court is letting us down when it comes to electronic transparency. Public documents, such as briefs and petitions, that are readily available from other federal courts are effectively inaccessible to those of us who don’t live or work in the nation’s capital. And maybe the IRS and even some law firms like it that way. Rather than write about this abstractly, I would like to show it to you as we go along. I’m going to use a decision I recently blogged about – an important hobby loss case (Section 183).
Donald Trump Floridian
One of the problems with the New York to Florida switch is that being a New Yorker is a very distinctive identity – Floridian not so much. And Trump for all his many faults in my mind is a consummate New Yorker. He can register to vote in Florida, file a Florida domicile declaration and apply for a homestead exemption on the family residence portion of Mar-a-Lago. Those are the basics, but what else can he do?
He can read A Land Remembered or at least talk about what a great book it is, even if he never reads it. He can have one of his minions read it for him. Beyond that, he can start using his twitter account to signal his change in loyalties.
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Over and over again courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging one’s affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everybody does so, rich or poor; and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands: taxes are enforced exactions, not voluntary contributions. To demand more in the name of morals is mere cant.