How 720 became the new 680? article in the Washington Post drew the following reaction from Tom: Credit: A Vicious Spiralby Tom aka Rusty Rustbelt Somehow over the years I became known as a bit of an expert in personal financial planning, I suppose the tax background plus getting dragged into senior financial planning (via […]

by Linda Beale UBS and other ? offshore bank accountscrossposted with Ataxingmatter The government’s dismissal of a criminal information against UBS filed in Florida– United States v. UBS AG, No. 09-600333-CR-COHN, Dismissal of Information, Oct 22, 2010– leaves the tax cognoscienti wondering what the next step in its fight against secret offshore bank accounts will […]

Lifted from comments at Economix on the distorted comparisons of public versus private wages: These BLS data have been frequently cited to support the claim that public sector workers are paid more than private sector workers. However, as described at a February 2009 conference sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, the wage differentials […]

Candorvilleh/t Noni Mausa

by Mike Kimel There seems to be something inherent in human nature that leads to frequent predictions of the end of the world. Usually, those predictions turn out to be wrong and then require some form of backpedaling. As an example, folks who use(d) a statistical package called Shazam might remember the two quotes that […]

Mark Thoma expresses his exasperation with the tax cut slogans of lawyers and journalists: The disappointing part is that the press still lets them get away with this. At best, the press generally says something like “some economists claim this isn’t true,” implying there’s a debate about this issue — that some credible economists think […]

by Tom aka Rusty Rustbelt Health Care: Reinhardt thinks about (health) accounting Uwe Reinhardt (Princeton) is one of the world’s preeminent health care economists. In a NYT piece he makes an interesting attempt to define a new “health care accounting.” ( and see his earlier pieces mentioned in the article) Reinhardt explains and critiques the […]

by Linda Beale Democrats touting tax cuts crossposted with Ataxingmatter The New York Times ran a story this week about the Obama tax cuts–the point? while the Tea Partiers rage against the Obama administration because they want more tax cuts, they have missed the fact of substantial tax cuts under the Obama administration. See Michael […]