There are some changes happening here at Taxgirl. For one, the website is getting a new look. Feel free to poke around while I freshen up. And if you have any suggestions for changes you’d like to see, be sure and let me know. If you haven’t heard my big news yet, it’s official: I’m full…
It’s Fix The Tax Code Friday! Donald Trump ruffled some feathers in Kansas City when he suggested that what he wanted most in terms of tax reform was: I want to put H&R Block out of business. I want to put ‘em out of business. A person with a simple tax return can’t figure it…
If you were planning to get a little bit of tax work done over the weekend, you might be out of luck. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is conducting its annual Labor Day maintenance this weekend. As a result, there will be an outage for certain IRS systems and services, including e-services (Transcript Delivery System,…
Litigation isn’t often pretty. And when there are big dollars at stake, it can turn downright nasty. That’s exactly what happened when Jeffrey Prosser and his companies filed for bankruptcy. Prosser, the former owner of Innovative Communications Corp. (ICC) in the U.S. Virgin Islands, amassed personal wealth valued at more than $360 million in 2004…
Just a few weeks remain until Pope Francis’ historic visit to Philadelphia. It’s not only Pope Francis’ first time in Philadelphia but his first official visit to the U.S. While the Pope will also be making stops in Washington, D.C. and New York City, the focus of his visit is the City of Brotherly Love…
Earlier this week, a federal grand jury sitting in Dayton, Ohio, handed down a 23 count indictment (downloads as a pdf) against Fesum Ogbazion and Kyle Wade for conspiracy and tax-related crimes. Ogbazion and Wade were each charged with one count of impeding the administration of the Internal Revenue Code, one count of conspiracy to…
Author’s Update: The Illinois Lottery disagrees with the characterization that a promise to pay in the future is an IOU, reaching out to say, “At no time has the Illinois Lottery issued an ‘IOU’ to winners, nor does it plan to do so.” The Lottery has released the following statement: “Due to the ongoing budget situation…
Think your property tax rates are high? It’s all relative. The Tax Foundation has compiled a list of property tax rates by state – with a twist. It’s not always easy to rank property tax rates because states tax real property using a variety of methods. In my home state of Pennsylvania, for example, the formula to calculate…
It appears that Santa Claus has fallen on hard times. Santa’s Office – yes, the real one – located in Finnish Lapland is filing for bankruptcy over massive debts, including a 200,000 euro ($223,980) tax bill. The Finnish Tax Administration notified the company in May of 2015 that a substantial payment was due. Once the…
$8.9 million. That’s what a Chicago jury agreed was the value of using Michael Jordan’s name for a one-time spot in a magazine. The decision came after an extensive lawsuit involving Dominick’s Finer Foods, a Chicago-area grocery store chain owned by Safeway, Inc. The chain was in business for nearly 90 years before shuttering their…