Today, we celebrate the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. To honor the day, I am reposting something that I wrote around this time three years ago. It remains one of my favorite posts. Enjoy!

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I’ll be frank. I don’t always love being a lawyer.

When I was a little girl, I used to watch Perry Mason with my grandfather on TBS. That constituted my entire legal experience before entering law school. And it was flawed.

You see, on TV, none of the lawyers lied to Perry Mason over the phone about being amenable to a continuance and then told the Clerk of Court differently. Nobody faxed Perry Mason a witness list the day before a hearing along with evidence that they “forgot” to send prior. A lawyer didn’t claim proper service on Perry Mason and then fail to deliver the notices to his law offices. You never saw a lawyer represent clients who had sent Perry Mason death threats via email attempt to assert that Mr. Mason was the one being unreasonable. You didn’t see cases drag on for years and years (yes, plural) because counsel just couldn’t get it together enough to resolve the matter. On TV, no matter how dire, how dramatic, there was ultimately justice.

The law is supposed to be about justice, about finding the truth. And increasingly it feels like it’s not. It’s more about touting your wares, putting yourself on commercials during daytime television standing in front of legal books shouting about maximizing money, about doing anything to get paid. And that is sad.

A few months ago, I attended a hearing that made me question my role in the law. You’re probably assuming that the hearing somehow didn’t go well. That isn’t true. It went remarkably well. Our client was an excellent witness. The judge was fair and very accommodating. We walked out of the hearing knowing that we had done a good job. The thing was, I felt relieved that it was over. I was happy for my clients. But I wasn’t happy for me. Truth be told, I hated every minute of preparing for the case. Well, not every minute. The theory, the strategy? That I didn’t mind. Our strategy was simply to tell our story. And we somehow felt that should be enough. In the end, I think it was.

But the getting there? The games? The complete lack of professionalism exhibited by opposing counsel? Lying about continuances? Surprise witnesses? Last minute evidence? Maybe that seems exciting on TV but in real life, it’s not exciting. It’s sickening. It’s stressful. It’s not fair to good lawyers who spend their time crafting a case. It’s not fair to clients who don’t know what to expect in the court room. And yet somehow, month after month, this behavior doesn’t seem so unusual.

And as opposing counsel sat at her chair in her too tight blouse with the clickety-click of her little heels on the floor, the same counsel who called my clients’ claims frivolous, the same counsel whose supervising partner at Big Law Firm once commented to me that she didn’t understand why a small firm like mine would go up against a big firm like hers, I thought about why we were all at that place, how it all happened that we were in the same room believing two different versions of the truth. I couldn’t explain it.

Later that same day, while reaching for my Moscow Mule (yes, my favorite cocktail du jour, even before Rachael Ray put it in her magazine last month – grr) at the Union League, I understood why the partner at my former firm kept a bottle of wine in his desk: the pressure of being a lawyer, the pressure of having to win, it’s a lot to take in. And while other professions can often look to each other for reassurance, we don’t really have that in the legal profession with few exceptions. It is, by its very nature, adversarial. It is competitive. It is cut throat. And me? I am not. Of course, I like to win. I like to think that I am good at it. And then maybe I think that’s not something to be particularly proud of.

So, over the past few weeks, which have been professionally difficult, I have tried to remember why it is exactly that I became a lawyer – and what about it I used to love. And I was reminded of my favorite scene in the movie [entity display="Philadelphia" type="place" active="true" key="pa/philadelphia"]Philadelphia[/entity]. The one where Andrew Beckett sums up what’s actually good about the law:

Joe Miller: What do you love about the law, Andrew?

Andrew Beckett: I… many things… uh… uh… What I love the most about the law?

Joe Miller: Yeah.

Andrew Beckett: It’s that every now and again – not often, but occasionally – you get to be a part of justice being done. That really is quite a thrill when that happens.

And so I tried to think of when that happened last – when justice was actually done. Not when I won a case or when I got a client out of trouble – that happens often enough. But remember, winning and justice aren’t the same thing. I had to think for awhile.

Later, I was preparing to write post about Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. I figured I’d just put up a copy of his famous “I Have A Dream” speech and call it a day. But as I researched, I found part of his autobiography which, I will confess, I have never read in full. And I saw something interesting: I knew that Dr. King had been arrested several times for various accusations, but I didn’t realize that he had been on trial for tax evasion.

Yep. On February 17, 1960, a warrant was issued for the arrest of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on charges of tax evasion. He was accused of allegedly falsifying his Alabama income tax returns for the years 1956 and 1958; he was the only person ever prosecuted under the state’s income tax perjury statute. It seemed like an inevitable victory for the government.

In his autobiography, Dr. King described the trial like this:

This case was tried before an all-white Southern jury. All of the State’s witnesses were white. The judge and the prosecutor were white. The courtroom was segregated. Passions were inflamed. Feelings ran high. The press and other communications media were hostile. Defeat seemed certain, and we in the freedom struggle braced ourselves for the inevitable. There were two men among us who persevered with the conviction that it was possible, in this context, to marshal facts and law and thus win vindication. These men were our lawyers-Negro lawyers from the North: William Ming of Chicago and Hubert Delaney from New York.

And something quite remarkable happened. On May 28, 1960, only after a few hours, Dr. King was acquitted by an all white jury in Montgomery, Alabama.

Dr. King said about his trial:

I am frank to confess that on this occasion I learned that truth and conviction in the hands of a skillful advocate could make what started out as a bigoted, prejudiced jury, choose the path of justice. I cannot help but wish in my heart that the same kind of skill and devotion which Bill Ming and Hubert Delaney accorded to me could be available to thousands of civil rights workers, to thousands of ordinary Negroes, who are every day facing prejudiced courtrooms.

And it dawned on me: no matter how many slick-haired, silver-tongued attorneys do their best to make a quick buck at the expense of the reputation of the profession, you can’t dispute that justice is attainable. And justice is good. And justice is important. And even if it is infrequent, it’s worth it when it happens.

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It’s officially 2012 today and it’s my obligatory wrap up post. Okay, sort of obligatory. As a math geek, I find the whole stats thing pretty fascinating and it’s fun for me to figure out which posts I thought were most significant as compared to the views. Follows are the top viewed stories, my personal choices for the top stories and a few honorable mentions. Check them out, let me know if they matched your best guesses…

Here are the top ten taxgirl stories that you found interesting, by number of views, in 2011:

10. Congress Offers Tax Free Flights – For Now
9. New Rules About Forms 1099 Are Causing a Stir
8. Dear IRS: A Tax Pro Fires Back
7. It’s Baaaack: Making Work Pay Credit
6. Calculating the Making Work Pay Credit 2011
5. Five Things I Wish I Knew Before I Lost My Job
4. Keeping Up With the Kardashians: Marriage, Divorce and Taxes
3. Casey Anthony On Trial, Liened by IRS
2. Cyber Monday Sales Tax Free – But For How Long?
1. Bank of America Debit Card Fees Slammed as Durbin Tax

(The list was compiled using a combination of my stats from Forbes and my Google analytics since my move to Forbes happened midyear).

And here are the top ten taxgirl stories that I think reflected best reflected the state of tax and financial policy in 2011:

10. Apple Likely Waiting on Tax Holiday
9. Bank of America Debit Card Fees Slammed as Durbin Tax
8. Gingrich, Perry Float ‘Flat Tax’ Proposals
7. 1099 Repeal Still All Talk
6. Dramatic Turnabout in Amazon’s Fight with California
5. Occupy Wall Street Raises Questions About Taxes, Money and Blame
4. Dear IRS: A Tax Pro Fires Back
3. Clock Ticks As Super Committee Ready to Admit Failure
2. Airline Taxes, Job Cuts Tied to Fights Over Subsidies and Unions
1. Congress Takes a Holiday, Passes Payroll Tax Cut Extension Anyway

Some quick honorable mentions:

• The story that meant the most to me while I was writing it: Making Sense of Where Our Tax Dollars Go
• The story that I learned the most while writing it: Death and Taxes: The Real Cost of the Death Penalty
• The story that was the hardest for me to write: The Post I Swore I Wouldn’t Write
• And the story that I had the most fun writing this year: a tie between 10 Uses for Leftover Halloween Candy and my annual April Fool’s Day post

It’s been a great year at taxgirl. I want to offer a special thanks to my readers. I have the best readers in the entire blogosphere. I am incredibly lucky to have this opportunity to get up every day, flip on my laptop and write about what interests me, knowing that I have this wonderful, engaged community of readers. I truly appreciate your comments on the blog – even (or in some instances, especially) when I don’t agree with you – as well as your questions, emails, tweets and posts on Facebook.

I see great things on the horizon… May 2012 exceed your expectations!

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I wasn’t kidding when I suggested that Richard Hatch would probably be shopping around a new reality TV show deal now that he’s out of prison. I just didn’t think it would happen so fast.

NPR is reporting that the former Survivor winner has hopes of showcasing his relationship with the children conceived from his sperm donations as part of a new TV show.

Pause. Yes. There are just so many jokes. And my mom could be reading. So moving on to the tax part…

Hatch was convicted of charges related to tax evasion and tax fraud in 2006. He was sentenced to 51 months in federal prison and served just over three years before his release in 2009. Hatch was to spend additional time on supervised release but failed to comply with the judge’s orders to file and pay his tax obligations and went back to jail in 2011.

Now out (again), Hatch still claims that he’s innocent, saying that he has been, “subjected to something that can only be described as institutionalized bullying.” He also says that any taxes which might be due should be paid to the government in Malaysia since that was where the series was filmed. Hatch and his tax advisors apparently don’t grasp the whole “worldwide income” piece of the U.S. tax system. Even though the game was played in Malaysia, the winnings were paid to a U.S. person (Hatch) by a U.S. company (CBS) in the U.S. for a U.S. TV show (Survivor). And even if Malaysia felt that they deserved a bite of the apple, that might result in a foreign tax credit if Hatch actually paid those taxes (he hasn’t) but it doesn’t exempt him from reporting and paying tax in the U.S. But it’s not even a serious argument, is it? That certainly wasn’t his position in 2000… or 2001… or 2006. But it makes for interesting press now, I guess.

Hatch also claims that CBS is responsible for paying his taxes. Hatch claimed, as part of his appeal, that he confronted Survivor producers about alleged cheating on the show and they promised to pay his taxes if he kept quiet. CBS, of course, says that didn’t happen.

The “it’s Malaysia’s money” and “CBS should pay my taxes” arguments still don’t explain why Hatch didn’t report over $300,000 in earnings as co-host of a Boston radio show and almost $30,000 from rental properties. I’m guessing there’s a fun explanation for those omissions, too.

Despite Hatch’s views on the matter, his supervised release remains in effect and he must still pay the IRS for his tax obligations which, together with interest and penalty, now stands at $1.7 million. I’m guessing Hatch figures a new show is his ticket to paying those bills.

If that sperm donor show doesn’t work out, Hatch will likely try his hand at another show. He has two stints on Survivor and one on Celebrity Apprentice under his, uh, belt (yes, that’s a not so veiled reference to his fondness for nudity). He told the press that he wants to compete on The Amazing Race.

My vote for The Amazing Race dream team? Richard Hatch and Kate Gosselin. C’mon Phil Keoghan, make it happen.

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As much as I’ve blogged about reality TV star (and I use the term “star” lightly) Richard Hatch over the years, I feel I owe it to you to report that our favorite tax evader was released (again) from prison today.

Hatch’s most recent stint was the result of failing to file and pay the taxes for his $1 million winnings from CBS’ Survivor. He served three years in federal prison for not paying the tax on those winnings initially, a sentence which was upheld despite a number of appeals, including one to the Supreme Court. Hatch was released from jail in 2009 but found himself in trouble again this year when he refused to follow the judge’s orders.

Hatch has claimed that he no longer has any money remaining. You and I both know what that means: more reality TV.

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While some indicators point towards an economy on the mend (including steady inflation rates and strong Black Friday sales), it’s clear that many Americans are still financially strapped. This has been particularly evident over the past few weeks as my email inbox has been chock full of questions about whether H&R Block will be offering their traditional Christmas loans in 2011.

Increasing pressure from the feds has limited the ability of many companies to offer advance loans, including those refund anticipation loans (RALs) from H&R Block. RALs (and similar lending products) are essentially loans secured by the promise of a tax refund. In the case of the Christmas loans, H&R Block offered loans in November and December which would be paid by the borrower in installments as agreed or by having the borrower sign over a portion of his or her tax refund. A typical Christmas loan in years past, based on anecdotal evidence provided by my reader, seemed to be about $900. The loans were generally used to buy Christmas gifts and were paid back in early January or February (when forms W-2 and 1099 were issued). After the loan was paid from the taxpayer’s refund amount together with interest, fees for tax preparation products and tax preparation services were generally subtracted and the balance, if any, was issued to the consumer in some form (check, debit card, direct deposit, etc.). If the taxpayer owed more than his or her refund, he or she would pay the difference.

Beginning this year, the IRS no longer provided tax preparers, banks and lenders with the “debt indicator” that these lenders use to determine eligibility for RALs. The debt indicator is an electronic acknowledgment to tax preparers advising whether any part of a taxpayer’s refund has been earmarked for offset due to outstanding tax debts or priority obligations such as unpaid child support or delinquent student loans. In previous years, the IRS provided this information, free of charge, to third party preparers, who then made the decision to offer a variety of loan products depending on the answer.

With increased defaults on these loans, pressure to reduce interest and fees for the loans and a lack of a free debt indicator, many of the traditional loan products have been scaled back. H&R Block no longer advertises a “Christmas loan” (at least not in my area of the country) but rather touts its Emerald suite of products. This includes the Emerald Advance Line of Credit which is a year-round line of credit of up to $1,000 which can be repaid with a portion of your tax refund. The loans appeal to holiday shoppers with the promise of quick cash at the end of the year. However, Block is clearly tying the loans to tax refunds by stating the line of credit must be paid down in full by February 15 of each year.

The loan is subject to credit and underwriting approval. As a result, I have heard that the acceptance rate for the loans is much lower than in years past.

If you follow the blog, you’ll recognize that I’m not a fan of these loans. I’ve heard all of the reasons why folks want/need them and I get it. I still find them to be largely abusive. I think they unfairly target the poor and I think that those who offer the loans often skew the benefits of the loans while failing to mention a few money-saving alternatives.

If you’re considering applying for a “Christmas loan”, RAL or other loan secured by a tax refund, I would urge you to think about these strategies:

1. Adjust your withholding. If you’re getting a big refund at the end of the year, that means (in most cases) that you’re having too much money withheld from your paycheck. It’s your money. You’d do better to take a little bit out as you go through adjusting your withholding than waiting for a lump sum at the end (after all, the IRS isn’t going to pay you interest for keeping your money all year). I know this is one of those things that sounds complicated but it’s not. You can ask your tax pro for recommendations or if you’re not sure where to start, grab a copy of your last tax return and your most recent pay stub and head over to the IRS withholding calculator. You’ll make any changes on a federal form W-4 (downloads as a pdf). In most cases, if the change is for the current year, your employer must put your new form W-4 into effect no later than the start of the first payroll period ending on or after the 30th day after the day you turn in the form. However, since it’s already so late in 2011, the change will not affect your 2011 tax year, just your 2012 tax year.

A quick note: If you rely on the EITC for the lion’s share of your refund and you have, in prior years, elected to receive advanced EITC (sometimes called AEITC or AEIC), you may longer do that. The [entity id="section_92" style="padding: 1px; color: #fff; background: #336699;" class="forbes_entity" active="true" item_id="section_92" key="/education" display="Education" natural_id="channel_6section_92" type="section" active="false"]Education[/entity] Jobs and Medicaid Assistance Act of 2010 signed into law repealed the Advance EITC; this means that for 2011, workers cannot receive Advance EITC in their paychecks.

2. Research loans which are not tied to tax refunds. You may not be in a position to get another loan – but there’s no harm in looking, right? It may be that you would qualify for a short term loan that you could pay back with your tax refund without shelling out extra money for tax prep through a consumer preparer with an incentive to sell you a loan. The IRS offers free tax prep services for more than half of taxpayers. If you e-file and rely on direct deposit (or, if you don’t have a bank account, you might qualify for one of the new debit cards from IRS), you can get your refund back in as few as 8 days after filing – with no fees or interest! You can then use that money to repay your loan. In most cases, you should come out ahead.

3. Open a savings account. One of the excuses that I often hear from taxpayers about waiting for a big refund check in January or February rather than taking it out by lowering withholding (see #1 above) is that a refund check acts like a forced savings account. Why not open an actual savings account then? With increased competition from banks and credit unions, it’s even easier to open a savings account than before with lower (or zero) fees and no minimum balances available. And, with direct deposit, you could route funds directly to your savings account – if it’s not in your hands, you won’t be as tempted to take it. Figuring the amount to save is simple. Look at your last few refund checks. Take the average (let’s say $1500 for our example) and divide it by the frequency of your pay (if you’re paid weekly, that would be 52). In our example, that works out to $28.85 per week. Bonus? You’ll earn interest (the IRS won’t give you away) instead of paying it.

4. Don’t cheat yourself out of deductions and credits. In the rush to get a refund back quickly, many taxpayers rush through their returns or rely on schlocky tax preparers. There are many options for finding free tax prep services, many of which have been trained or approved by the IRS. You shouldn’t underestimate the value in regularly utilizing the services of a tax professional – knowing about your individual circumstances makes it easier to make recommendations and find deductions and credits that your might be missing.

5. Spend less. I know that sounds patronizing and hokey. And if you’re like my kids, you’re rolling your eyes. This year, I’ve watched both my dad and my father-in-law fight serious health problems. A dear friend lost his mother and another, her father. Life is short. And in my line of work, I’ve seen money problems destroy marriages and families, crush dreams and take a toll on personal sanity. In the end, it’s not about the presents. It’s about appreciating what you have. And yes, we’d all like one more pair of shoes or another game for the DS. But if that doesn’t happen, life goes on.

I’m not going to tell you not to use a RAL. You know what is most appropriate in your own circumstances. But I will say this:  if you’re going to make the decision to use a RAL, make it for the right reasons – not because you think that it’s your only choices or because you feel too intimidated to ask questions. You owe it to yourself to know what your options are before you act.

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Finally some good news: the cost of living is apparently holding steady.

Earlier this week, the IRS announced that interest rates will remain the same for the calendar quarter beginning January 1, 2012.

And that’s not the only indicator… The PNC Christmas Price Index® has been released this year and prices seem to be holding constant. The cost for a set of the gifts in the song “The Twelve Days of Christmas” bumped up a mere 3.5% to $24,263.18 for 2011. This follows a huge leap in 2010 of 9.2% to $23,439.38.

Those trends aren’t coincidental. James Dunigan, managing executive of investments for PNC Wealth [entity id="section_29" style="padding: 1px; color: #fff; background: #336699;" class="forbes_entity" active="true" item_id="section_29" key="/management" display="Management" natural_id="channel_4section_29" type="section" active="false"]Management[/entity], explains (downloads as a pdf):

Typically we see parallels between our Index and the Federal government’s.

To figure the costs of the items, PNC went straight to the experts. This year, the company relied on [entity id="place_4e0a70490f93e4767db2c10f" style="padding: 1px; color: #fff; background: #336699;" class="forbes_entity" active="true" item_id="place_4e0a70490f93e4767db2c10f" key="pa/philadelphia" latitude="39.95227" longitude="-75.162369" display="Philadelphia" image="http://images.forbes.com/media/lists/places/philadelphia-pa_50x50.jpg" natural_id="places/37964" type="place" lists="&91;&93;" active="false"]Philadelphia[/entity] dance companies, the Pennsylvania Ballet and Philadanco, to price out the services of the ten lords-a-leaping and the nine ladies dancing. The prices for most of the birds – including the partridge and the turtledoves – were provided by the National Aviary in Pittsburgh.

If you want to buy the whole shebang from a single partridge to twelve drummers drumming for each verse (that’s 364 separate pieces of Christmas joy), it will cost you $101,119.84. The most expensive items on the list? Those seven swans a-swimming: you’ll have to shell out $6,300 for them, an increase of 12.5%.

While the cost of goods seemed to rise, labor, not surprisingly, remained fairly constant. Of the four gifts that didn’t increase in price, three of them – eight maids-a-milking, nine ladies dancing and ten lords-a-leaping – were related to employment. Musicians, however, pulled in a slightly higher price with boosts for both the eleven pipers piping and twelve drummers drumming.

The cost of the pear tree that houses the infamous partridge increased by a whopping 13.3% at suburban [entity id="place_4e0a70490f93e4767db2c10f" style="padding: 1px; color: #000; background: #ddd;" class="forbes_entity" active="false" item_id="place_4e0a70490f93e4767db2c10f" key="pa/philadelphia" latitude="39.95227" longitude="-75.162369" display="Philadelphia" image="http://images.forbes.com/media/lists/places/philadelphia-pa_50x50.jpg" natural_id="places/37964" type="place" lists="&91;&93;" active="false"]Philadelphia[/entity]‘s Waterloo Gardens, consistent with a rise in prices for many agricultural products. The popularity, however, of pear trees at the holidays remains fairly low – perhaps if we tacked a tax on them to raise consciousness a la the Christmas tree, they’d fare better.

The Christmas Price Index began 28 years ago, in 1984, when the chief economist at PNC Bank decided to figure out how much it would cost to buy each of the gifts. It’s now an annual tradition… kind of like this one:

[youtubevid id="EDBMzGq1vhs"]

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Talk about the naked truth. Fans of beleaguered artist Ai Weiwei have tapped the power of the internet to show their support… by posing naked.

Ai Weiwei was charged with tax evasion earlier this year, a charge that he claims is related to his outspoken criticism of the Chinese government. He was able to raise the money necessary to pay the fine and appeal the charges but said at the time that he was expecting things to get worse. He was right. Now, the artist is being investigated by Chinese officials on porn charges. The charges are tied to a photo titled “One Tiger, Eight Breasts” which shows the artist and four women, all of them sitting nude but with no contact between the five (link will take you to the original photo – NSFW).

In response, supporters have posted nude photos of themselves online. A number of supporters have even tweeted the photos to Ai (@aiww) – some have gone so far as to change their avatars to various nude poses.

And dear readers, you know I love you but for future reference, if you want to show your support for me, a quick comment below or a nice email will do. No need to post nude photos. Except for you, Luke Wilson. Rowr.

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The first football game that my kids ever attended was a Penn State football game. They now own Penn State jerseys and Nittany Lion pillow pets. They’ve been tailgating in Philly (when PSU played Temple) and in State College. They’ve clamored over the Nittany Lion statue and eaten at the Creamery, brunched at the Corner Room and traipsed over to Old Main. They’ve yelled together with the Penn State cheerleaders and watched the Blue Band take the field.

For them, Penn State has always been a wonderful place where kids can be kids.

We all know by now that hasn’t been the case for every child. The allegations of the horrors committed by former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky – and the cover-up that followed – have made headlines across the world. It’s been hard for any of us to understand. I found it especially difficult as a mom to explain to my 9 year old daughter, who is the same age as many of the victims identified in the indictment, why the Philadelphia Inquirer featured Penn State with JoePa was on the front page when it wasn’t game day. (For the record, the discussion that followed focused not on the specifics of what happened but on the importance of telling the right people if you see someone being hurt.)

The resulting fallout and an investigation that seems to grow wider and wider by the minute has been tough for many of my friends in Pennsylvania. Like the network of colleges in my home state of North Carolina, there is a lot of pride in the greater community across the state that has put its faith and its money in a state funded public university. Here, Penn State is thought of as THE Pennsylvania State University. The sheer number of alums and others with connections to the university is staggering.

I have refused to jump on the bandwagon that says that those folks are not entitled to their feelings because they aren’t a victim of the scandal. While I agree that the real victims are those little boys and their families at the heart of this tragedy – and they are those that we should focus on and hold in our hearts – I firmly believe that those who were misled by those that they trusted should also be allowed to mourn and be sad. It’s not about football or JoePa or national championships. It’s about a lie. A lie that was bigger than almost any of us could imagine.

I also understand why they’re angry. And in Pennsylvania, many are about to become more angry.

The Harrisburg Patriot-News, the top newspaper in the state’s capital, has reported that Sandusky will continue receive an annual pension of $58,898 from the State Employees Retirement System (SERS). This is in addition to the $148,271 that he collected in a lump sum when he was quietly forced out retired in 1999.

Those attached to the scandal will also likely receive top dollar. Gary Schultz, accused of participating directly in the cover up, received a lump sum of $421,847 in 2009 (after the investigation began) and will collect a whopping $331,000 a year in pension. That works out to a monthly (yes, monthly) pension worth $27,558 – or nearly four semesters of credits for a resident Penn State freshman.

According to the Patriot, former Athletic Director Tim Curley and former Penn State President Graham Spanier were not members of the state pension system though Curley, who is on administrative leave at his own request, continues to draw a taxpayer-funded salary.

SERS is a statewide retirement plan for public employees; as a result, benefits paid out from the plans can be a mix of deferred compensation, state funded contributions and investment earnings. As a public university, Penn State receives a sizable amount of funding from the Commonwealth. In 2010, funding from taxpayers was at $334 million; that number was reduced to $165 million after Governor Tom Corbett (R) took office.Similar Posts:

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Over the summer, my dad asked me if I had heard about Chinese artist Ai Weiwei. I had heard brief mentions of some tax woes but nothing big.

It’s a big story, my dad advised. I nodded, making a mental note to follow-up. And then I didn’t.

As with so many things (but not everything – pig’s feet are not delicious and khaki shorts are not appropriate for any occasion) Dad was right. This week, Ai made headlines all over the world when he announced that he would challenge his $2.4 million tax bill. The bill was levied against him by the Chinese government as the result of an investigation into what they’re calling tax evasion. Ai and his supporters call it something else: suppression. You see, Ai likes to talk. Openly. And his favorite target is criticism of the existing Chinese government.

If the name Ai Weiwei sounds vaguely familiar to those of us who maybe aren’t well versed in Chinese dissidents, it’s because he helped design the National Stadium in Beijing, known as the “Bird’s Nest” (鸟巢). The stadium was the centerpiece of the 2008 Olympics.

For all that Ai is recognizable after the Olympics, his artwork is far from mainstream. He’s controversial, a status which he clearly enjoys. But he’s also aware that there are lines that shouldn’t be crossed in Communist China, telling the BBC in 2005:

You really have to be very alert about where is the fine line, the border.

Apparently, he found that line.

A few months after Ai’s studio was demolished by the Chinese government, Ai was detained at the airport in April 2011 on undisclosed charges. Rumors swirled that the charges were related to finances and that proved to be true when months later, Ai allegedly confessed to tax evasion. Prior to the announcement, Ai had been held in secret for 81 days.

Now, Ai is speaking out. He has decided to fight the charges against him. It won’t be an easy task. To do so, Ai will have to put up $1.3 million as collateral. That’s the first step before he’s allowed to appeal.

To raise the money, Ai’s mother is selling her home. Supporters have also been donating money for Ai. A recent campaign on Google+ resulted in big dollars, all of which Ai promised to return. The government has alluded to his conduct as “illegal fundraising” – perhaps a dire warning that even if he makes the tight deadline, he will be charged again. For now, Ai has 15 days from the receipt of the bill to come up with the money. If he doesn’t come up with the money, he will likely find himself in jail again.

Ai now says that he did nothing wrong. His supporters believe that he is being targeted for speaking out against the Chinese government. It wouldn’t be the first time that the government has come down hard on Ai for being outspoken. After he supported an investigation into student deaths following the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, Ai was allegedly beaten by the police so badly that he suffered a hemorrhage.

Despite how he’s been treated, Ai refuses to leave China. His home, he constantly reminds his supporters, is in China. This doesn’t mean, however, that he has stopped talking about his ordeal. Even though he’s being monitored, Ai is on twitter: @aiww (yes, he tweets in Chinese). He says about the site, “Without Twitter, it’s just like I’m not a person. I’ve already sent out more than 60,000 tweets.” Those tweets are being compiled into a book.

It’s no wonder, with all of the media attention, that the Chinese government is concerned about the flow of information in and out of the country. As a result, the BBC reported that high ranking government officials recently contacted senior executives from internet, telecommunications and technology companies to discuss their options.

Meanwhile, the whole world is watching.

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Want more taxgirl goodness? Sign up to receive posts by email, follow me on twitter (@taxgirl) or hang out with me on Facebook.Similar Posts:

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Hooray! Christmas has been saved!

Okay, a bit dramatic.

But the hue and cry surrounding the so-called Christmas tree tax had reached such a fevered pitch by this afternoon that you could have assumed the very holiday itself was under attack. Rest assured, the holidays are still on track.

Nonetheless, President Obama announced plans to nix the proposed fee on the sale of Christmas trees. No more Christmas tree tax.

The fees from the sale – which had been characterized as a tax – were intended to fund the Christmas Tree Promotion Board. That’s right. As I blogged earlier today, the point of the board was to boost the image of Christmas trees.

Really? Christmas trees don’t have an image problem. Brussel sprouts. There’s your image problem.

But there were a couple of bigger issues here.

One, the fee would likely have been passed along to the consumer. And it was a small fee. But it was a fee. Another one. Another fee imposed at the government level that consumers bear. Of course, the National Christmas Tree Association was quick to promise that wouldn’t happen, saying that the program “is not expected to have any impact on the final price consumers pay for their Christmas tree.” I don’t buy it. The cost of business is the cost of business. All business owners understand that. They don’t eat fees out of the kindness of their hearts – even if they are selling the most jolly items on the planet.

The bigger concern was that government is picking and choosing industries to support. As I blogged earlier, that feels wrong. No wonder most Christmas tree growers were in favor of the charge. Who wouldn’t want a government-organized national campaign meant to improve the sale of your product or services?

But why Christmas trees and not, say, Christmas wreaths? Or Halloween pumpkins? Heck, I’m a lawyer. We have an image problem. Why not impose a federal mandated fee on the provision of legal services so that we can form a national board to improve our image? (Yeah, yeah, insert all of your lawyer image jokes here.)

Fee or not, I was buying my tree. I suspect most other Christmas tree buyers felt the same. The issue was never about the scope of the fee. And it wasn’t the presumption that the President was secretly plotting to destroy Christmas (really, people, you actually believed that?).

It was about free market and government and priorities and slippery slopes. And I, for one, am glad to put a period at the end of this one.

(I weighed in on a related story here.)

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Want more taxgirl goodness? Sign up to receive posts by email, follow me on twitter (@taxgirl) or hang out with me on Facebook.Similar Posts:

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