by Linda Beale Karl Rove on the so-called “fiscal cliff” In a video interview available from Dow Jones/Wall Street Journal, “Karl Rove Doubts a Fiscal Cliff Deal Will Get Done” (Nov. 20, 2012),  Karl Rove’s pre-Thanksgiving news to the world is exactly what one would expect from one of the most successful GOP strategists.  He […]

by Linda Beale Jack Cummings, General Utilities Repeal, and Treasury’s Rollover Jack Cummings (aka Jasper L. Cummings, Jr.) writes in the November 12, 2012 Tax Notes at 797-808 about “The Demise of the Liquidation-Incorporation Doctrine.”  This is a must-read not only for corporate-tax policy wonks, but also for those who want to understand at least […]

by Linda Beale Is it a fiscal cliff or merely a bump in the road? Sixty percent of American voters in exit polls indicated that they supported higher taxes for the wealthy, see here.  Even some arch conservatives are acknowledging that some tax increases won’t do terrible harm.  Id. (noting that the Wall Street Journal’s […]

by Mike Kimel Posterity I think you have to go back to Bob Dole in 1996 to find a Republican nominee for for President whose signature accomplishment wouldn’t be repudiated by most members of his own party in November 2012. The 2000 and 2004 nominee is best known for turning a surplus into a deficit […]

by Linda Beale If the Dems got a backbone Yesterday I urged the Democrats to develop some backbone in response to the continuing right-wing extortion demands for military spending increases, tax cuts and entitlement program changes.How should that backbone be used?  Not an easy question to answer and likely my answer will upset many economists […]

The GOP’s extortion demands: cut Social Security or we’ll shoot the country in the foot The GOP created the fiscal cliff beginning with the “temporary” tax cuts passed in 2001, 2003 and 2004 under the Bush administration, all as purportedly temporary provisions with sunset dates.  They hoped that the passage of the tax cuts would, […]

by Linda Beale Tax Relief for Victims of Sandy The IRS released several bulletins this week providing relief for victims of Hurricane Sandy.IR-2012-83 extends the return filing and tax payment deadline to Feb. 1, 2013 for hurricane  victims in Connecticut (Fairfield, Middlesex, New Haven, and New London Counties; the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation and the […]

by Linda Beale GOP didn’t like the study on impact of tax cuts on economic growth The Congressional Research Service has long been respected as a non-partisan research organization that does in-depth studies as requested by Congress.  But when those non-partisan studies produce results that don’t jive with the right-wing mythology about tax cuts as […]

Via Barry Rithotz at The Big Picture comes Bruce Bartlett’s take on : Bruce Bartlett and the dangers of Republican know-nothingism  Bruce Bartlett goes off on some of the denialist behavior from the GOP. Bartlett writes: When a study doesn’t support their dogma, the GOP censors it: Nonpartisan Tax Report Withdrawn After G.O.P. Protest Original study […]

by Linda Beale Romney’s CRUT Tax Shelter\ The Bloomberg press has looked further at Romney’s use of trusts and other arrangements to avoid taxes, using Freedom of Information Act requests to obtain more information than was released by Romney in his meager tax return release. Romney established a charitable trust in 1996 of a type […]