taxgirl » history

Tax Trivia: Al Capone

Kelly — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 14:27:23 +0000

Update: We have a winner! It’s Marc! For the answer, see the comments!

It’s our last tax trivia question for the giveaway! Thanks to CCH Complete Tax for the free software!

For the chance to win the last prize, answer the following question:

Everybody knows that the feds finally got Al Capone for tax evasion. He was convicted and spent more than 7 years in prison. He also paid nearly $300,000 in back taxes, fines and costs (in today’s dollars, that’s more than $4.2 million). In addition to getting Capone off of the streets, what collateral benefit did the high profile conviction provide?

The first correct answer wins free CCH tax prep software. I’m looking for a specific answer on this one: my answer is final.

Remember that you have to comment on the actual post, not on email, Twitter or Facebook, in order to win (though feel free to comment that way for fun). You can read the rules for the giveaway and more about the prizes here.

What’s your guess?

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Tax Trivia: Tax Rates & Inflation

Kelly — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 01:42:39 +0000

Update: We have a winner! It’s Karen! For the answer, see the comments!

Our next tax trivia question for the giveaway is:

The US income tax system was made permanent in 1913. How much taxable income would taxpayers filing a joint return have to report in today’s dollars to be subject to tax at the top rate in that year, assuming that the income thresholds were simply adjusted for inflation? I’ll accept the first answer within $1,000.

The first correct answer wins free CCH tax prep software. My answer on this is final.

What’s your guess?

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Up, Up and Away… In My Beautiful Tax Balloon

Tax Trivia: EITC Reporting

Kelly — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 12:15:46 +0000

Update: We have a winner! It’s Adrienne! Jaime was also a winner for getting the bonus question right. For the answer, see the comments!

Our next tax trivia question for the giveaway is:

Since its inception in 1975, the EITC has been controversial – no wonder, since it’s considered one of the largest social welfare programs in the US. At the turn of the century, the IRS conducted a lengthy study into trends related to the EITC and overpayments. What specific group of people did the Fraud Detection Center note could be considered part of a trend of inappropriate EITC claims? Bonus points if you know what activity some of them claimed as earned income for purposes of the credit.

The first correct answer wins free CCH tax prep software. I’m looking for a specific answer on this – and my judgment on this is final.

I’ll be out of the office today teaching a CLE on taxes and I’ll have limited access to email – if you’re a winner, you likely won’t know until late afternoon, so keep guessing. If you’ve submitted an answer and you don’t see it, it’s likely in the queue.

What’s your guess?

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Tax Trivia: Wallet Sales

Kelly — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 16:22:15 +0000

Update: We have a winner! It’s ID! For the answer, see the comments!

Our next tax trivia question for the giveaway is:

So many of you guessed that the most misused Social Security number is 078-05-1120. It was a number printed on a piece of paper sold in wallets that many taxpayers mistook for their own. Which famous discount store sold the majority of these wallets?

The first correct answer wins free CCH tax prep software. My answer on this one is final.

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Tax Trivia: Misused Social Security Number

Kelly — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 23:40:50 +0000

Update: We have a winner! It’s Michelle! For the answer, see the comments!

Our next tax trivia question for the giveaway is:

What is the most misused Social Security number in history, with more than 40,000 taxpayers using it as their own?

The first correct answer wins free CCH tax prep software. My answer on this one is final.

What’s your guess?Similar Posts:

Tax Trivia: Excise Taxes

Kelly — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 19:36:20 +0000

We have a winner! It’s Jason! For the answer, see the comments!

Our next tax trivia question for the giveaway is:

Which popular everyday item was first taxed as a luxury in 1898, at the start of the Spanish-American War and continues to be taxed today?

The first correct answer wins free CCH tax prep software. My answer on this one is final.

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Tax Trivia: No New Taxes

Kelly — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 04:22:43 +0000

We have a winner! It’s Elizabeth! For the answer, see the comments!

Our first tax trivia question for the giveaway is:

George H.W. Bush uttered the phrase, “Read my lips: no new taxes” while speaking at the Republican National Convention in what city?

Don’t forget: the first correct answer wins free CCH tax prep software.

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Happy Feast of St. Matthew, Patron Saint of Tax Geeks

Kelly — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 11:56:50 +0000

It’s been quite a streak of religious holidays! Rosh Hashanah and Eid were both celebrated over the weekend and now… It’s the Feast of St. Matthew!

Okay, many of you may not be familiar with the significance of the Feast of St. Matthew (I’ll admit that I was not) so here’s the scoop:

Matthew is one of the Twelve Apostles named in the New Testament of the Christian Bible and is the author of the Book of Matthew. He was a tax collector – sometimes referred to as a “publican” – among the Jews, which was a pretty unpopular job back then, even worse than it is now. In the time of the Romans, tax collectors didn’t receive a salary; they were expected to earn a commission, of sorts, by collecting whatever extra they could in the guise of taxes. Most were cheats and widely despised. In fact, even Jesus lumped them together with the worst of the worst, having dinner with a group of people so terrible that the Pharisees were prompted to ask, “Why does your teacher eat with tax-collectors and sinners?”

Today, Matthew is recognized as a Saint in the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Lutheran and Anglican churches. He is the patron saint of:

Accountants
Bankers
Bookkeepers
Tax collectors

So there you have it, a patron saint for tax geeks. Who knew?

(Hat Tip: @taxplaya)
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Ask the taxgirl: Deductions for Guest Blogging

Kelly — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 12:30:21 +0000

Taxpayer asks:

While putting together a new group of guest posters for my site, a tax question hit me! Is the time I spend guest posting on other blogs for promotional purposes tax deductible? i.e. I don’t get paid for the post – my only compensation is the link back. But I could be getting paid for the post… so is the amount I charge for that service a marketing business expense?

If it is – I’m sure you have many readers that would be interested!

Thanks so much!

Taxgirl says:

Gosh, I sure wish it was – since I spend so much time writing for other publications and blogs – but it’s not. The IRS likes to match items of deduction with items of income. If they allowed a deduction for the cost of your time, then they’d require you to value the same for purposes of attributing income (the “value” of the article). But they don’t. Since there’s no income component, there’s no deduction.

Even though it feels odd, this is consistent with the IRS’ position on the treatment of services when there’s no compensation throughout the Tax Code. You can’t deduct your time for volunteering, even though it’s valuable, or time spent on services for which you didn’t get paid because you were “stiffed” by a client (hey tax geeks, most of my readers are cash based so no need to write in to tell me how this isn’t *quite* true for accrual based taxpayers).

I do have one piece of good news, though. Any out of pocket expenses related to the piece (i.e. money spent on paid art, research and the like) can be deducted as promotional expenses. So all is not lost!

Thanks for writing in – and good luck with the blog! Guest posting is a great way to promote your blog or services. I’m always happy to accept ideas for guest posts at taxgirl – just drop me a note!

Like any good lawyer, I need to add a disclaimer: Unfortunately, it is impossible to give comprehensive tax advice over the internet, no matter how well researched or written. Before relying on any information given on this site, contact a tax professional to discuss your particular situation.

Have a question? Ask the taxgirl! – Now on Facebook!

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Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness

Kelly — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 12:39:36 +0000

I was thinking this morning about what to write today about the 4th of July. I was sure that I could come up with something brilliant and pithy about how important the day is to all Americans. And then I realized that it had all been said, much better than I could ever say, almost three hundred years ago. So follows is the text of the Declaration of Independence.

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. –Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.

He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.

He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.

He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:

For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing taxes on us without our consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:

For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:

For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies:

For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:

For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

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