Most Recent Posts
American Working Abroad Gets Nasty State Income Tax Surprise
It is a big interconnected world we live in. Some of our taxing concepts, though, are better suited to a time when we were less mobile. State income taxes are an...
Some Presidential Words On Federal Income Taxes
Julian Block is back, this time with a collection of thoughts by Presidents and Presidential candidates on taxation. Some Presidential Words On Federal Income Taxes...
Did Mormons Benefit From The IRS Scientology Deal ?
Originally published on Forbes.com on August 12th, 2012 The Tom Cruise - Katie Holmes story inspired me to take a look at the tax history of Scientology. Scientology...
Son Of Boss – Don’t Blame Romney Blame His Tax Pros
We know that Mitt Romney was on the audit committee of Marriott in 1994, when it did a Son of Boss deal, that sheltered $70,000,000 in income. The Court of Claims...
Julian Block On Taxation Of Prizes And Awards
Originally published on Forbes.com on August 9th, 2012 The proposal to exempt the cash awards of Olympic medal winners from taxation must have gotten Julian Block...
Romney, Marriott And Son Of Boss —- For Dummies
Now that the question of Mitt's knowledge of Son of Boss deals has been raised by CNN, I thought it might be a public service to explain Son of Boss deals. A lot of...
Convicted Cicero Town President Learns Silence Not Golden In Tax Court
Everybody who watches TV cop shows knows you have a right to remain silent and that what you say can be used against you. Betty Loren-Maltese who went from being...
Some Zero Tax Romney Returns Would Be As Shocking As Gambling At Rick’s
My personal Rafalcagate, where my ignorance of the multi-stage nature of dressage, caused me to call the Romney horse out too soon, has me thinking about Mitt's returns...
Professor Proposes Charitable Alternative To Flexible Spending Use It Or Lose It Rule
Adam Chodorow is a Professor of Law at Arizona State University. I invited him to do a guest post on a topic of his choice. He and I seem to share a taste for...
Rafalca London Olympics Medal Or Not – No Current Tax Savings
I had studied Romney’s 2010 and draft 2011 returns sometime ago. The Rob Rom partnership which owns Rafalca did not register with me. A few days ago, Janet Novack, my esteemed editor, called to interview me for her piece Both Left And Right Got The Taxes On The Romneys’ Olympic Horse Wrong. You can see what I had to say about it in her piece, but as part of the interview, I cluelessly asked her why this was in the news now. She told me it was because of the Olympics? I did remember that the Olympics were going on. I don’t have a television, though, and the only Olympic sport I like is curling, which they don’t do in the Summer Olympics. The tax questions were fascinating though and I did a piece on how to keep straight the various obstacles there are to posting negative numbers on your return – Romney’s Olympic Horse Not Jumping Through The Last Hoop of Deductibility. As Frank Frank notes, though, my research on the actual dressage competition was abysmal.