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How President Obama’s Tax Plan Raises Tax Payments for a Couple Earning $250,000 or Less

Tax Foundation:  “The Tax Foundation launched a new calculator last week that helps users see how their taxes might rise in 2011. In a FoxNews piece about it, we explained that some families making $250,000 or less could see a tax increase under Obama’s budget proposal, which would be a violation of [...]

Estimate Your 2011 Federal Income Tax with the Tax Calculator

Use MyTaxBurden.com’s simple fill-in-the-blanks income tax calculator to estimate your 2011 federal income tax under any or all of the following scenarios:

Congress allows all of the Bush tax cuts to expire; Congress acts to extend into 2011 all of the Bush tax cuts; and Congress passes the tax laws suggested in [...]

The Big Tax Increase Facing Small Businesses

Forbes:  “Hedge fund taxes get all the attention. Congress is about to raise billions in taxes on some doctors, accountants and architects. . . . Congress is also creating a tax mess for small-business owners in the form of an $11 billion tax hike over the next 10 years.  The tax increase [...]

Rich Pay 40% of Nation’s Tax Burden, Hillary Clinton Says Its Not Enough

The Tax Foundation:  “The chart below shows estimates by the Tax Policy Center for 2010 of the distribution of income compared to the distribution of all federal taxes (personal income, payroll, and corporate) by percentile.  It shows that households earning over about $212,000 earn about 30 percent of the nation’s income but [...]

Taxpayers Face Uncertainty in 2011 As Bush and Obama Tax Cuts Expire

The Tax Foundation:  “Polls show that many Americans are anxious about their taxes and believe their payments are rising. At first glance this seems like a public misperception because tax policy at the end of the Bush administration and the beginning of the Obama administration has been dominated by a blizzard of [...]

What Higher Taxes Will Really Mean

New York Times:  “The federal income tax increases over the next three years have led to lots of grumbling. But for all the back and forth about the percentages, something has been overlooked: what do these increases mean in real numbers? . . . high earners will be paying 17 to 19 [...]

Rasmussen: 66% Say America is Overtaxed

Too bad Congress isn’t paying attention.  A new poll by Rasmussen has some shocking results on what people think about taxes.  “Eighty-one percent (81%) of Republicans believe the nation is overtaxed. So do 73% of voters not affiliated with either major party. Democrats are evenly divided on the question.”

5 Myths About Your Taxes

The Washington Post has an article entitled “5 Myths About Your Taxes,” which according to the author are:

The poorest and the richest Americans pay no taxes. Americans are overtaxed Higher taxes could eliminate the federal deficit. Most people’s tax returns are way too complicated. You should aim for a big tax [...]

Trying to Get Foxx’s Estate Out of the Redd

The following story is proof that we cannot escape paying taxes by dying.  AolNews:  “It could easily have been the plot for a ‘Sanford and Son’ episode: a bizarre money-making scheme cooked up by a well-meaning but possibly misguided man that seems destined to go comically awry.   But in this real-life case, [...]

New York Times Special Section on Taxes

The February 15, 2010, New York Times has a special section with a number of stories on federal taxes.  The stories are entitled:

With Rules in Flux, It’s a Tough Time for Tax Strategies Tax Tips Some Clues for Finding New Tax Breaks Don’t Overlook the Rewards for Thinking Green That Fog Still Hasn’t [...]

Backdoor Taxes to Hit Middle Class

Reuters:  “The Obama administration’s plan to cut more than $1 trillion from the deficit over the next decade relies heavily on so-called backdoor tax increases that will result in a bigger tax bill for middle-class families.  In the 2010 budget tabled by President Barack Obama on Monday, the White House wants to [...]

Tax Hikes: An Economic Time Bomb

Wall St. Journal:  “if the Democratic economic policies continue nevertheless, this year will be nothing like the bitter economic January we will be living in a year from now.  Government spending has already hugely increased, and so has the size and scope of government, but next year there will also be substantial [...]

Alternative Minimum Tax Bomb Exploded 1/1/10

The Alternative Minimum Tax bomb exploded January 1, 2010, because Congress failed to pass legislation that would have prevented the tax from affecting millions of taxpayers.  The number of taxpayers affected by the AMT will jump from 4 million in calendar year 2009 to 27 million in 2010.  As the reach of [...]

Fighting the IRS

The Blog of Legal Times:  “Your chances of winning a fight with the IRS are about as great as your chances when fighting City Hall.  National Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson, in her recently-released annual report to Congress, listed the 10 tax issues most litigated in the federal courts.  Of the 923 cases [...]

IRS Rarely Audits the Poor

The Tax Lawyer’s Blog:  “President Obama has famously defined the rich as those making in excess of $250,000 per year.  Well, now we find out from the Associated Press that the IRS rarely audits anyone who makes less than $200,000.”

12 IRS Non-Filer Enforcement Stories

The Tax Lawyer’s Blog:  “Each year the IRS publishes examples of its non-filer enforcement actions.  Below are the examples for fiscal year 2010.  They are excerpts from public record documents on file in the court records in the judicial district in which the cases were prosecuted.”

Is The IRS Coming To Audit You?

Forbes.com:  “High-income taxpayers, even those without offshore accounts, are now targets.  Here’s how to protect yourself.  If you’ve picked up a newspaper lately, you’re probably aware that the Internal Revenue Service has created a new enforcement unit to target high-net-worth individuals with complex financial holdings. To read these accounts, you might be led to [...]

Holy Tax the Rich Batman: Top 1% of Taxpayers Pay More Federal Taxes than Bottom 95%

The Enterprise Blog:  “The top 1 percent of taxpayers paid 40.42 percent of all income taxes collected in 2007 ($451 billion), the highest share in modern history for that group, and more for the first time ever than the entire bottom 95 percent of taxpayers, who paid $439 billion, or 39.4 percent [...]

17 Tax Increases in Senate Health Care Bill = $370.2 Billion

TaxProf Blog:  “The Joint Committee on Taxation has published a list of the 17 tax increases in the Senate health care bill, which are estimated to raise $370.2 billion in revenues over ten years.”

IRS May Limit Deductibility of Schedule C Losses: Incorporate People!

The Tax Lawyer’s Blog:  “Here is more evidence (as if we needed it) that supports the soundness of our recommendation that small business owners should incorporate or form an LLC rather than operate as a sole proprietorship.  Back in October we reported that the IRS is considering placing limits on the amount [...]

Man Sentenced to Prison for Not Paying Taxes

Tax Resolution:  “John T. Minemyer, 49, of Casper, Wy., was sentenced to 12 months in federal prison for tax evasion.  Minemyer was also ordered to pay a $25,000 fine and restitution totaling $200,918.22.”

Tax Rates Must Increase to 92% to Erase Deficit

The Tax Foundation’s study estimates that to eliminate the federal deficit, tax rates for couples filing joint returns in 2010 must more than double.  The following list shows income levels, current marginal tax rates and the increased marginal tax rates needed to erase the deficit.

$0 to $16,750 increase from 10% [...]

Baucus Healthcare Bill May Cause 70% Marginal Tax Rate

Harvard University Professor of Economics Greg Mankiw believes that Senator Max Baucus’ healthcare bill will impose a staggering tax on Americans of all income tax levels.

Jim Capretta looks at the Baucus healthcare bill and concludes that, because the subsidies phase out as income rises, it imposes an effective marginal [...]

Tax Court Finds S Corp Owned by Roth IRA Must Be Taxed as C Corp

BNA:  “The U.S. Tax Court ruled in a Sept. 29 opinion that a Roth individual retirement account is not an eligible shareholder of an S corporation, and therefore a corporation whose sole shareholder is a Roth IRA must be taxed as a C corporation (Taproot Administrative Services Inc. v. Commissioner, T.C., No. [...]

IRS Failed to Answer 22.4 Million Calls During 2009 Tax Season

As the federal government continues to grow, it provides less service at a higher cost.  During the 2009 income tax filing season 75.7 million people tried to call the IRS toll-free telephone lines.  Although the IRS answered 35.8 million (47.3%) calls, 22.4 million calls were not answered because taxpayers hung up, were [...]

Alternative Minimum Tax Time Bomb Explodes in 2010

Congress created the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) in 1969 because of a story in the Wall St. Journal about 100 millionaires who paid no income tax.  The primary reason they did not pay any income tax was because they had invested in tax free municipal bonds, a type of investment that produces [...]