(3 comments) SHARE        Monday, April 24, 2023
The 75-year thievery of joint tax returns There's no good reason to have joint tax returns. The only thing they're really good for is to perpetuate tax unfairness.

(2 comments) SHARE        Friday, January 6, 2023
IRS winks at $50 billion tax giveaway to the rich Congress is constantly handing out tax breaks to the rich. Now the IRS has gotten into the act, sanctioning state laws that give millionaires a way around the $10,000 SALT deduction limit that was part of President Trump's 2017 tax bill.

(2 comments) SHARE        Saturday, October 15, 2022
Crucial choices ahead for beloved, besieged Social Security Social Security affects a greater number of Americans than any other government program. A combination of factors (including the sharp right turn of the Republican party) has put its future in danger.

(1 comments) SHARE        Monday, July 25, 2022
Tax breaks helping the rich get richer Tax policy should always aim for tax fairness. Unfortunately, Congress is especially good at finding ways to do exactly the opposite. It's continually creating tax breaks that favor people with money. One of the worst is taxing capital gains at a lower rate than income from work. A new "worst," now before the Senate, would push back the age for required minimum distributions from 72 to 75.

(1 comments) SHARE        Friday, April 15, 2022
Two pathways to a major tax reform Among dozens of tax loopholes, the stepped-up basis is one of the costliest and most egregious. President Biden and law professor Daniel J. Hemel are backing separate and distinct ways to bring the giveaway to an end.

(10 comments) SHARE        Tuesday, November 30, 2021
Manchin's better way to pay for Build Back Better Build Back Better promises to significantly add to and improve America's social safety net. At the same time, millions of our most affluent taxpayers have been promised not to worry about any new taxes. That makes no sense--fiscally, morally, or any other way. As we seem to have forgotten, we're all in this together.

(1 comments) SHARE        Wednesday, September 22, 2021
Biden: Tilt taxes to the middle class The presidency of Ronald Reagan marked the beginning of a tax system highly favorable to the rich. President Joe Biden wants to go in a different direction, but he first needs the approval of Congress. We'll soon see whether he gets it.

(3 comments) SHARE        Tuesday, August 3, 2021
The real, untold story of Roth IRAs If there were ever a contest for most unnecessary legislation, the creation of Roth retirement accounts could easily top the list. There was never any good reason for Roths. They're just one more in a long, long list of tax breaks created by Congress for people in no need of tax breaks. .

(1 comments) SHARE        Thursday, June 17, 2021
Nobody dodges taxes like the super-rich Our tax code may be progressive on its face, but the super-rich could care less. They draw on their riches to beat the code, and they're beating it by the billions.

(1 comments) SHARE        Saturday, April 24, 2021
When the rich don't pay, the rest of us do The IRS gets the income figures for most Americans from the companies they work for. Millions of others, though, do their own income reporting. If a bill now before Congress becomes law, the agency will get third-party income information for the first time for millions of high-income taxpayers who currently self-report.

(3 comments) SHARE        Monday, March 8, 2021
Congress's soft spot for rich retirees Tax breaks usually have some reason for being, but here's one that doesn't: a proposal to raise, for the second time in two years, the beginning age for required minimum distributions from retirement accounts (RMDs). The original age was already too late, the current age of 72 is worse, but the proposed new age of 75 takes Congressional giveaways to a whole new level.

(1 comments) SHARE        Sunday, January 3, 2021
The numbers add up for 'child-side' tax policies Tax breaks go overwhelmingly to those in the upper incomes. According to two Harvard researchers, a greater proportion of those monies might better be directed to low-income families and their kids. The initials of their concept are MVPF, short for Maximum Value of Public Funds.

(5 comments) SHARE        Saturday, October 17, 2020
Democrats could revive a Reagan tax reform Capital gains have almost always been taxed at a lower rate than ordinary income. The last time they weren't, Ronald Reagan was the president who made it happen. If Democrats win in November they could restore Reagan's equal taxes on income from wealth (capital gains and dividends) and income from work (wages and salaries).

(8 comments) SHARE        Tuesday, July 28, 2020
Rx for prescription drugs: slash the prices, kill the ads Visitors to the U.S. often shake their heads at the ads for prescription drugs that litter our TV channels; they never see them in the countries they come from. There's also nothing comparable to the prices Americans pay for prescription drugs; we lead the world by far. It's time to bring an end to both the ads and our sky-high prices.

(1 comments) SHARE        Thursday, June 25, 2020
My unexpected move from adman to taxman Until I retired the only thing I knew about taxes is that they came due on April 15. I know a bit more now: most importantly, that the GOP has taken every opportunity to tilt our tax system toward the wealthy. This article recounts my mostly fruitless efforts to make the tax code fairer. In the particular, it's the story of how and why I went from writing commercials to being a tax activist.

(2 comments) SHARE        Wednesday, May 13, 2020
Pandemic fallout includes handout to rich retirees The suspension of required minimum distributions for 2020 is just one more confirmation of a basic American truth: it's those with the most who get taken care of first. Even a pandemic didn't change that.

(1 comments) SHARE        Tuesday, April 21, 2020
SECURE Act leaves millions of workers as insecure as ever America's private-sector retirement system is in deep trouble: too few people saving too little money, if any. The SECURE Act is Congress's latest attempt to fix it; unfortunately it doesn't do much fixing.

(4 comments) SHARE        Wednesday, December 4, 2019
The IRS deserves cheers, not jeers It's de rigueur to hate the IRS, and misguided as well. First, every dollar that's spent on tax enforcement brings in roughly $5 to the Treasury. Second, every honest taxpayer owes a big thank-you to the agency that goes after the dishonest ones. Unfortunately, the GOP has done a yeoman's job of cutting the IRS budget (which, of course, has made tax cheating a safer bet than ever).

(1 comments) SHARE        Friday, April 12, 2019
Two days in Tennessee in 1953: A racial memory I was an innocent abroad when, as a 17-year-old in 1953, I made my first trip into the South. I probably learned more American history in those two days than I'd learned up to then. Trouble is, I didn't really feel smarter; I just felt a whole lot sadder.

(5 comments) SHARE        Thursday, March 7, 2019
Wall Street mini-tax could raise maxi-revenue Believe it or not, the tiniest of taxes could raise hundreds of billions for the Treasury: a financial-transactions tax, "FTT" for short. The Congressional Budget Office, using estimates worked up by the Joint Committee on Taxation, put the number at $777 billion for the decade 2019 - 2028. The United States had one before, and just maybe could have one again.