If there’s no deduction for contributions, charities don’t have to produce a certified receipt for each donation, and the contributor doesn’t have to track down the nine-digit Tax ID Number of each ch...
By routing its manufacturing through a tiny factory in Puerto Rico, Microsoft saved over $4.5 billion in taxes on goods sold in the United States over a three-year period.
But Nikki White was a citizen of the world’s richest country, the United States of America.
BBLR means that if the tax base—that is, the total amount of income, or sales, or property that can be taxed—is kept as large as possible, then the tax rate—that is, the percentage that people have to...
A Congress that produces something like Section 7803(c)(2)(B)(ii)(IX) in the name of reducing complexity hardly seems likely to agree on any serious changes that would improve the system.
Special preference to an automobile manufacturer incorporated in Delaware on October 13, 1916. That would be General Motors, although the name of the firm does not appear.
The widest definition of wealthy is in India, where a 1% wealth tax kicks in for anybody whose net worth is more than 3 million rupees, which comes to about $45,000. (In India, that still means a smal...
The warmth and the soft glow of the tubes also attracted moths, which would fly through ENIAC’s innards and cause short circuits. Ever since, the process of fixing computer problems has been known as...
By the mid-1980s, the tax code allowed depletion or depreciation allowances that cut taxes for cement companies, Christmas tree farms, apple orchards, gravel pits, railroad cars, rubber importers, cat...
ALL THOSE ISSUES SHOULD be enough to demonstrate that the deduction for charitable contributions is costly, unfair, and easy to abuse. But there’s actually a more fundamental problem with this particu...
The goal in Japan is not to isolate the criminal from society, but precisely the opposite. A convict is sent back to his neighborhood, family, and job so that the social pressure to fit in and the pai...
2012 tax-reform act stipulated that members of the national parliament and the prime minister’s cabinet would pay 5% higher rates than anybody else in the country. We did it as a gesture of solidarity...
It’s classic: Congress decides to reduce the complexity of our tax code by making it even more complex.
IRS Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998, a voluminous and hugely complex new law, which included the laughable anti-complexity clause—that is, Section 7803(c)(2)(B)(ii)(IX).
Would ancient Tibetan medicine recognize the value of X-rays? Absolutely! the doctor said. When patients bring me their X-rays from the clinic up at Khunde, this is extremely helpful in my treatment....
When I was traveling the world on my quest, I asked the health ministry of each country how many citizens had declared bankruptcy in the past year because of medical bills. Generally, the officials re...
The argument for a lower tax rate on capital income—an argument supported by many economists—runs as follows: (1) economies need capital investment to grow and create new jobs; (2) capital investment...
Some are rich and some are poor. Some are beautiful, some aren’t. Some are brilliant, some aren’t. But when we get sick—then, everybody is equal. Everybody must have equal right to the best medical tr...
Internal Revenue Service: If you determined your tax in the earlier year by using the Schedule D Tax Worksheet, or the Qualified Dividends and Capital Gain Tax Worksheet, and you receive a refund in 2...
Go to Part IV of Schedule I to figure line 52 if the estate or trust has qualified dividends or has a gain on lines 18a and 19 of column (2) of Schedule D (Form 1041) (as refigured for the AMT, if nec...