From the category archives:

government/federal agencies

DOJ Revises Statement on Taxpayer Funded Muffins

30 October 2011

Those must have been some delicious muffins. Initial reports out of the Department of Justice last month indicated that department officials had doled out $16 per muffin for an Executive Office of Immigration Review conference in Washington, D.C. The revelation raised ire among taxpayers and officials, making those muffins the equivalent of the $600 toilet [...]

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Obama’s Plan for Higher Airline Taxes Sees Not So Friendly Skies Ahead

28 September 2011

I hate to fly. There. I said it. It’s not a phobia or anything. I just find the whole experience grossly unpleasant from start to finish. I can’t figure out ticket prices to save my life. I don’t like being treated like one of a number of cattle. And I hate the whole nickel and [...]

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Airline Taxes, Job Cuts Tied to Fights Over Subsidies and Unions

5 August 2011

Congress learned a lesson this week: it’s hard to talk job creation when you’re directly responsible for thousands of employees being out of work. In July, Congress failed to reach a compromise on the budget for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The immediate result was that airlines were not authorized to collect federal ticket taxes, [...]

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Senate Passes on $1.2 Billion in Guaranteed Revenue

3 August 2011

Now that the debt ceiling fix is in place, you’d think that Congress would want to get to work on the rest of the budget. Um, not so much. The Senate went on vacation for the summer without taking any action on the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) budget. The previous budget ran out in July, [...]

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Debt Ceiling, Spending Cuts to Rise But No Word on Higher Taxes

1 August 2011

If you stayed up to watch the marathon Braves/Pirates game, the one that lasted 19 innings, you kind of know how most people feel about waiting for the debt ceiling deal to be made. It’s been long. And no one was quite sure how it was going to end. And if you saw the end [...]

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Five Things You Need To Know About the Current Airline Ticket Tax Controversy

27 July 2011

I’ll be honest: until about a week ago, I had virtually no clue how aviation-related taxes were imposed or collected. Thanks to Congress, the Air Transportation Association of America (ATA) and the IRS, I’m getting educated pretty quickly. Here are five things you need to know about the current ticket tax controversy: 1. Ticket taxes [...]

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Congress Tells Airlines To Stop Pocketing Extra Fares

27 July 2011

Just a few days ago, we found out exactly what airlines thought of consumers when, after a lapse in the law allowed travelers to catch a bit of a break, a number of major carriers found a way to turn it to their advantage. The glitch meant that airlines wouldn’t be collecting taxes while the [...]

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Do Americans Want to Pay Higher Taxes To Reduce Our Debt?

26 July 2011

Do Americans want to pay higher taxes to pay down our debt? It depends on who you’re listening to. Much has been made of wealthy taxpayers publicly stating that they want to pay higher taxes even as Congress is arguing that most Americans don’t want to taxes to be raised on anyone, full stop. This [...]

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It’s Friday, Do You Know Where Your Tax Data Is?

15 July 2011

You may not. A report issued by the Treasury Inspector General for Administration (TIGTA) (downloads as a pdf) found that the IRS does not always act promptly to notify taxpayers when personal and private taxpayer information has been accidentally disclosed. Information can be inadvertently disclosed a few ways. Mix-ups can happen at the return level: [...]

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Debt Ceiling? What Debt Ceiling?

11 July 2011

I’ve received a lot of emails lately asking me to explain what the debt ceiling is and what it really means. It seems that it’s a term that Congress likes to throw around without a lot of explanation. So here’s the scoop: As of August 2, the United States can’t pay its bills anymore. We [...]

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