The Paperwork Reduction Act of 1980 may not be working. Just this past year, our representatives in Congress passed three bills totaling 3,632 pages, about 3,600 more than the laws established in the 1914 Federal Trade Commission and the 1935 Social Security Act. In looking for new taxes to pay for the recently-issued health bill, […]
Author Archive | Tom O'Brien
Recess
As we write this, our 535 delinquents in Congress are now on recess, extolling their accomplishments to their constituents. After the election, the lame ducks will hopefully remember what they had forgotten to do before going on recess. When Congress does return to do whatever it Is they do, they need to do something about the estate tax. As […]
Plain English?
We recently alerted our clients to an interesting development. On October 13, 2010, the President signed Public Law 111-274, the short title of which the “Plain Writing Act of 2010”. The Act requires the federal government to begin using “plain writing” by October 13, 2011. The language used in the Act itself is not, apparently, […]
Tax Reform
The President’s Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform has finally issued its report, and surprisingly, found the current tax system to be flawed and in need of some tinkering. As part of our civic duty to assist the panel, we suggested that the IRS make an increased effort to comply with the Paperwork Reduction Act by eliminating the […]
Used Socks
With the deadline for 2006 tax-deductible charitable contributions approaching, we recently alerted many of our clients and friends about a change in the Internal Revenue Code. Because of the wide-ranging effect of this change, we feel compelled to bring it to the attention of the general public. A few months ago, Congress passed another new tax law, known as […]
Simplification at Work
The Wall Street Journal recently reported that the IRS”s “Office of Taxpayer Burden Reduction” (more popularly known to you as TBR) is in search of recommendations on how to reduce “taxpayer burden”, meaning the amount of time and money taxpayers have to spend to comply with federal tax obligations. Of course, if you want to provide some recommendations, […]
$400 Billion
The Internal Revenue Service is claiming that it is not collecting some $400 billion a year in income taxes, The Service blames a lot of this on the so-called underground economy. We believe it unfair to arbitrarily single out a certain group of people for this problem just because they ride the subway. As proof, we point out that tax revenues […]
Happy Birthday!
Were you 65 years old at the end of 2003? If you did not itemize your deductions, you were entitled to as much as an additional $1,150 in your standard deduction. Suppose you did not turn 65 until January 1, 2004. No problem – you were still 65 last year. The Internal Revenue Service considers you to turn […]
Rolaids, Please!
As you know, Congress recently passed the Jobs & Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation A.ct of 2003. The word “Simplification” does not appear in the title and is not an oversight. One of the areas of ”relief” in the new tax law relates to capital gains. The new maximum capital gain tax rates (only ten of them now • 5%, 75%, […]
