Senator Elizabeth Warren says it well: Transcript is found at Floor Speech by Senator Elizabeth Warren The Retirement Crisis November 18, 2013 As Prepared for Delivery.

CEOs at the forefront of the drive to slash Social Security possess personal retirement funds worth an average of $14.5 million, and three have nest eggs worth more than $100 million. That’s according to a new report by two Washington-based research groups – the Institute for Policy Studies and the Center for Effective Government. Fix the Debt is […]

by Linda Beale Religious freedom, taxes, and corporatism–Part II In Part I, I outlined some of the many ways in which the U.S. provides favorable treatment to religious institutions and/or their representatives, including income exclusions from the federal income tax for ministers that are unavailable to any other occupation. In this Part II, I want […]

by Dale Coberly PERNICIOUS IGNORANCE ABOUT SOCIAL SECURITY A REPLY TO KRASTING Bruce Krasting in comments to Bruce’s post on Social Security made a number of claims that deserve a fuller answer than I was able to give in comments.  Below in quotes are Krasting’s claims followed by my replies.  I hope I am reasonably […]

Well lets try again (two hours of draft having just disappeared)/ The above figure is II.D6 from the 2011 Social Security Report. The reasons why I didn’t use the 2013 version will become clear later, short version is it doesn’t show ‘The Shape of Solvency’ while the longer version is, well, long. This figure shows […]

Who knew? TAX WIZARDRY THROUGH AN OFFBEAT MERGER Classic tax shelters used in the 1990s have become unattractive to most companies, thanks to enforcement actions by the Internal Revenue Service, coupled with changes in accounting and reporting requirements, Victor Fleischer writes in DealBook. Yet executives and tax directors have found other ways to avoid taxes […]

by Linda Beale IRS will issue summonses for offshore bank account info The IRS got court orders permitting it to see information about taxpayers with undisclosed offshore bank accounts from US banks.  In re the Tax Liabilities of John Does (SDNY No. 1:13-mc-00377 Nov. 12, 2013). According to BNA Daily Tax RealTime (Nov. 12, 2013 […]

Columbia U. Conference Shows Incentives Pervasive but Controls Work  Day one of the Columbia International Investment Conference in New York has concluded, and the takeaways are very clear. The topic is investment incentives, prompted by Louise Story’s “United States of Subsides” series last December. Story moderated panel 1, which covered the pervasiveness of subsidies. How […]

There are a couple of easy ways to check out current Federal Public Debt to the dollar or even the penny. One you could check out the National Debt Clock which also is conveniently mirrored (in simplified form) in Times Square. In the top left you will find the number for ‘US National Debt’ at […]

Bill McBride at Calculated Risk points us to some apparent better news State and local government austerity is over I think most of the recession related state and local government layoffs are over, and it appears state and local government employment has bottomed.  Of course Federal government layoffs are ongoing, but it appears state and local […]