Where tax policy meets politics — legislation, elections, and the debates in Washington that decide how (and how much) you’re taxed.
I was wrong. Remember when I said that the House was going to push off the debt ceiling for three months? Turns out they didn’t mean it. They meant four months. The House voted today to delay a decision on the debt ceiling for four more months, through May 18. The measure passed by a…
House Republican leaders announced over the weekend that they will vote this week on a plan to extend the debt ceiling for three more months so that they don’t have to do anything just yet. And to make us feel better, they swear that if Congress can’t pass a budget by then, they won’t get…
The Treasury Department may be getting a new look … or two… or three. Just weeks after (now) former Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Commissioner Doug Shulman announced his plans to step down, Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner will also be departing. Since the IRS is a bureau under the Treasury, the Commissioner generally reports…
Lots going on in D.C. today so let me catch you up to speed. The Democratic Senate reached a compromise on the budget deal in the wee hours of the morning. The deal extended tax cuts for all except those at the very top – but didn’t touch spending. That, the Senate claims, they’ll tackle…
Don’t believe the hype: there is no deal on the budget. Yes, I saw all of the headlines, too, some of them to prompt readers to write me for details. Is there a payroll tax holiday? What about the adoption credit? What’s happening to capital gains? The quick answer: nothing. What happened was this: the…
We were expecting a vote today on the budget. What we got was more fighting. With the House and the Senate back to work for a change today (I guess a raise will put some pep in your step), many were hopeful that Congress might reach a deal on the budget. But that all changed…
If you’ve been worried about what will happen to those poor folks in Congress once the tax increases hit, worry no more: they’re getting a raise! Yes, despite the fact that the current Congress is one of the most ineffectual in recent memory, President Obama signed an executive order boosting their pay after March 27….
They came, they saw, they concurred. Yes, I meant concurred. And here’s what they agreed on: they should do something about the budget. Sadly, I’m not kidding. At the meeting at the White House today, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) managed to hammer out an understanding that…
President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH), House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) will meet today at 3:00 p.m. at the White House to discuss the (lack of a) budget. Call me cynical (I prefer…
We’re programmed to hate losses. A loss tends to mean that you did something wrong, made a poor move, or chose the ill-advised option. But in the tax world, a loss isn’t always a bad thing. Losses on paper sometimes mean a win at tax time – just ask Mitt Romney. Romney’s 2010 federal income…