A few days before our tax returns were due, the Tax Policy Center held a forum that explored some of the idiotic tax laws that Capitol Hill creates and how the IRS adds insult to injury.
Please note the use of the present tense in the last portion of that preceding sentence. Future tense (and future tax stupidity) is implied.
The forum’s main address, entitled "Stupid Tax Tricks," was by Leonard Burman, Senior Fellow at the Urban Institute and Director of the Tax Policy Center.
Some of the provisions, he notes, are simply pork barrel spending dressed up as tax code. Others are good tax intentions gone awry.
Burman, who served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Clinton administration, said the joke back then was that when Bill felt someone’s pain, the staff scrambled to invent a new tax credit for that sympathy. (See, Democrats can laugh at themselves!)
To find out about a collection of stupid tax breaks — such as the hybrid tax credit that, as set up, encourages people to buy less fuel efficient vehicles or the tax break for producing energy from poultry waste and other "renewable" sources — listen to Burman’s podcast.
You also can visit this Web page to read about the Tax Policy Center forum, where you’ll find audio links to the event’s other presentations.
Birdzilla
More stupid tax ideas from stupid liberals who served under the reign of KING WILLIAM(CLINTON)THE FINK what else will they come up with?
Trent Conyers
Upon searching IRS Publication 525 (Taxable and Nontaxable Income http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p525.pdf ) to find out if I needed to report some miscellaneous income I discovered that our tax code requires reporting and the taxation of income from bribes as well as illegal activities: “Illegal income, such as money from dealing illegal drugs, must be included in your income on Form 1040, line 21, or on Schedule C or Schedule C-EZ (Form 1040) if from your self-employment activity.”
What kind of crazy drug dealer is going to report this in their tax reports!!!
Lubna Kably
Hi Kay, I found your blog again, yipeee – you will understand my comment when you read my email.
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