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Most Recent Posts

What  Art Of The Deal Tells Us About Donald Trump And His Tax Views

What Art Of The Deal Tells Us About Donald Trump And His Tax Views

It was tough for me as I was in the middle of City on Fire, which is a brilliantly plotted work, but rather a long haul.  Interestingly both City on Fire and Art of the Deal have quite a bit on the New York City fiscal crisis of the nineteen seventies.  You have to give Trump credit. He always believed that his native city would rise.  Bottom line, I’m really glad I took the time out to read Art of the Deal.  Published in 1987, it evokes some powerful memories. Unlike the Centrum frenzy last month, there is much for a tax blogger in Art of the Deal, especially one who spent much of his time with closely held companies and real estate deals.  There is also some insight into Trump’s character

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IRS Trying To Make It Harder To Qualify As Real Estate Pro

IRS Trying To Make It Harder To Qualify As Real Estate Pro

The stakes were pretty high in this case, just over $130,000.  Rather than risk Tax Court the Stanleys went the route of paying the tax and suing for refund.  It may well have been calculation of the odds, since taxpayers have not done that well in Tax Court in 469 cases, although usually their facts are a lot worse.  That this is a district court decision lessens its value as precedent.  Adam Chodorow told me that the Tax Court judges consider themselves the experts. They are bound to follow appellate decisions, but only in the circuits where they are decided.

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Hobby Lobby Owners Win First Round In $3 Million Tax Refund Case

Hobby Lobby Owners Win First Round In $3 Million Tax Refund Case

The Trust filed its 2004 return on October 15, 2005 claiming a charitable contribution of $20,526,383. On October 15, 2008 the trust filed an amended return upping the charitable deduction to $29,654,233 and claiming a refund of $3,194,748. That is a pretty slick move, although you have to have plenty of cash in order to use it. In the event the IRS finds other issues on the return besides the higher charity, they can only be used to offset the refund. As long as it is not being frivolous the Trust has no penalty exposure and the interest clock is running in the taxpayer’s favor.

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Foundation Of Big GOP Donor Loses Tax Court Case Over Political Ads

Foundation Of Big GOP Donor Loses Tax Court Case Over Political Ads

The expenditures on which the IRS asserted the excise tax were amounts paid to run radio ads in Oregon between 1997 and 2000. All in there were over $630,000 in expenditures. Taxable expenditures under 4945 include attempts to influence legislation through an attempt to affect the opinion of the general public or any segment thereof and attempts to influence legislation through contact with members of a legislative body or other government officials.

On the other hand making available the results of nonpartisan analysis, study or research is not subject to the excise tax.

The radio ads over the four years were is support of a requirement that prisoners work a forty hour week, mandatory minimum sentences, crime victim rights, review of state agency administrative rules and limiting the growth of state government.

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Tax Court Denies Exempt Status To Group Using Trading Card Games To Promote Sobriety

Tax Court Denies Exempt Status To Group Using Trading Card Games To Promote Sobriety

While it may be laudable, in the light of the administrative record in this case promotion of sober recreation is insufficient justification here for tax-exempt status under a statute that must be construed strictly. The decisive factor here is that the form of recreation offered as therapy also is offered by for-profit entities, and GameHearts even emphasized, in its application for tax exemption, that it would introduce new participants to thatfor-profit recreational market and “boost the overall market shares of the industry”. We also note that GameHearts received contributions of surplus materials from the industry. While GameHearts itself does not profit from the recreation it offers and could not offer recreational gaming experiences that would compete in the for-profit recreational gaming markets, we conclude nonetheless, consistent with our holdings in Schoger Found. and Wayne Baseball, that recreation is a significant purpose, in addition to the therapy provided, because of the inherently commercial nature of the recreation and the ties to the for-profit recreational gaming industry.

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Aspen Colorado Waste Reduction Fee Upheld

The ordinance clearly expresses an intent that the waste reduction fees remitted to the City be used for several other functions reducing the cost to the City of litter cleanup and waste disposal, including education regarding trash and waste management, the funding of programs and the presentation of community events regarding trash and waste management, and outreach through the use of a website to educate the public about these topics.

Thus, we conclude that the City intended the charge to finance a particular class of services related to the reduction of trash and waste and to fund education about those matters.

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Princeton University Will Have To Prove It Deserves Property Tax Exemption

Although this is a bit of an oversimplification, there is a grim logic to municipal finance. You take the part of the town budget funded by property taxes and divide by the total value of taxed property and that is your tax rate (often expressed as dollars per thousand). As any bright fourth grader could tell you back in the day, lowering the denominator will give you a higher fraction. That is presumably why other taxpayers have standing to challenge the exemption. Sometimes you will find that dubious tax breaks cannot be addressed by courts because nobody has standing to challenge them. That is what happened with Freedom From Religions challenge to the parsonage exclusion.

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Trump In Worcester – Little On Tax – Much On How Rich He Is

Trump In Worcester – Little On Tax – Much On How Rich He Is

Opening remarks were by Jim Knowlton of the Worcester Republican Committee.  He noted that in 1854, when the Republican Party was emerging from the Whigs, Abraham Lincoln visited Worcester.  That was a different Republican Party and a different Worcester.  The first national women’s rights convention was held in Worcester in 1850.  And in 1854 when the federal government was going to great expense to return Anthony Burns to slavery, it was the tough guys from Worcester, Stephen Foster, Abby Kelley’s husband and Free Church minister Thomas Wentworth Higginson who turned the encounter violent.  After the Burns incident Higginson declared that getting to Worcester would be as good as getting to Canada for future fugitives.

Trump finally came out and greeted us by talking about how great Tom Brady is – a winner.  He pointed to the press, who were confined in sort of a pen on the center of the floor and got everybody to boo at them saying that maybe 30% of them were OK.  He then launched into talking about the problem of money in politics indicating that he knows all the other candidates can be bought because he has been buying politicians.  He then went into how great he is doing in all the polls.  He went on at some length about how rich he is and how bursting with pride he is about his campaign financial disclosures.  That was probably the most detailed part of the speech.

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Ownership Through LLC Kills Local Charitable Property Tax Exemption

Ownership Through LLC Kills Local Charitable Property Tax Exemption

The decision actually illustrates two of Reilly’s Laws of Tax Planning. As far as the exemption being lost to a technicality, the first law states “It is what it is. Deal with it.”. Then there is the fifth law “A tax plan that ignores AMT or SALT is not much of a tax plan.”. Somebody decided that the LLC was fine to use because of it being a disregarded entity for federal income tax purposes apparently not considering that the rules might not be the same for purposes of real estate taxes.

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