| Rec center first to benefit from tax hike | | Posted Saturday, November 11, 2006 10:46:05 PM by Blog57 Team | | Now that they have voter approval to raise the city's earnings tax, Blue Ash officials will begin plans to spend the money, which will be used to buy property around Blue Ash Airport and upgrade city recreational facilities. A wrapup of local races and issues on the Nov. 7 ballot: BLUE ASH EARNINGS TAX INCREASE About the issue: Blue Ash officials pushed for 0.25 percent earning tax increase, bringing the tax to 1.25 percent which would then produce an additional $5 millon a year. .... | |
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| | | Houses Of Worship Must Abide By Federal Tax Law, Says Watchdog ... | | Posted Friday, November 10, 2006 12:46:20 PM by Blog57 Team | | Americans United for Separation of Church and State today asked the Internal Revenue Service to investigate four houses of worship for intervention in partisan politics. Americans United said that most houses of worship appear to be following the law, but a few seem unwilling to do so. The four complaints to the IRS - two involving Democrats and two involving Republicans - come just one day before the national mid-term elections. The churches reported today are: * Bethel AME Church, Cambridge, Md.: The church hosted a rally for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Martin O'Malley and other Democratic candidates on Nov. 2. O'Malley and others sought votes and were introduced by the pastor. Churches may host educational forums featuring all candidates but not partisan rallies.... | |
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| | | 'Kiddie Tax' Changes Make 529 Plans Better | | Posted Friday, November 03, 2006 10:46:41 AM by Blog57 Team | | A change in how a child's interest, dividends or other unearned income is treated makes it prudent to think of switching the assets producing that income into a tax-advantaged 529 college savings plan. Congress made the 529 permanent this year; it was set to expire in 2010. Under the old law, parents of a child age 14 to 18 could transfer assets to an account in the child's name and count on the first $850 being tax-free. Anything more than that was taxed at a rate of 15 percent or less, rather than at his parents' rate, which can be as much as 35 percent. .... | |
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| | | FLOYD NORRIS COMMENTARY: Ruling on tax code is patently absurd | | Posted Wednesday, October 25, 2006 10:45:52 PM by Blog57 Team | | As American tax law gets more complicated, lawyers have come up with one more way to make life difficult for taxpayers. Now you may face a patent infringement suit if you use a tax strategy someone else thought of first. "I can't even imagine what it will be like in five or 10 years," said Dennis B. Drapkin, a tax lawyer with Jones Day in Dallas, "if anytime a lawyer or accountant gives tax advice, they have to find out if there is a patent on this." He notes that researching patents, and then licensing them, would just make tax compliance more costly. Drapkin is chairman of a task force of the American Bar Association's tax section that recently discussed the issue in Denver. He said that after one conference where tax strategies were discussed, participants got a letter warning that using one idea mentioned would be in violation of a patent.... | |
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| | | Tax filings show refund potential | | Posted Tuesday, October 17, 2006 10:45:42 AM by Blog57 Team | | Electric and gas companies would have had to refund nearly $300 million in taxes collected from ratepayers during the past three years if recently adopted state tax rules governing investor-owned utilities had been in effect, according to tax reports filed Monday with state regulators. In the future, such overcollections will be refunded to electric and gas customers in the form of rate adjustments -- unless utilities manage to overturn or significantly change the law in the next legislative session. The tax filings provide the public with the first definitive look under the utilities' financial kimonos since a law was passed in 2005 requiring utilities to pay the taxes they collect in rates -- or refund them to customers. Monday's filings, required by the new law, were mostly an academic exercise.... | |
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| | | Barbour signs modular home tax cut into law | | Posted Monday, October 09, 2006 2:45:43 AM by Blog57 Team | | JACKSON, Miss. Governor Haley Barbour this afternoon signed a new state law that reduces the sales tax rate on modular homes from 7 percent to 3 percent. The law took effect immediately. The governor says he hopes it will help speed up redevelopment in south Mississippi more than 13 months after Hurricane Katrina destroyed thousands of homes. Both chambers of the Legislature passed the tax cut during special session today (Thursday) that lasted only one hour and 45 minutes. It passed the Senate with NO opposition -- and it passed the House 114-to-1. The governor says the tax cut could save people four-thousand to six-thousand dollars on the purchase of a modular home. Modulars are made in factories and then put up on slabs at home sites. Some contractors say that to the untrained eye, modulars look like traditionally built homes.... | |
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| | | Used-car tax set to kick in | | Posted Saturday, September 30, 2006 6:45:42 PM by Blog57 Team | | SAN ANTONIO - A new state law intended to collect taxes on the full retail value of used vehicles sold in private-party exchanges takes effect Sunday. The so-called "liar's affidavit" law requires that buyers pay sales tax on 80 percent or more of a used vehicle's retail value, regardless of the actual purchase price. The law is meant to stop the two parties in a used-car deal from agreeing to lower the official sales price so the buyer pays less sales tax. State officials say the law, which the Legislature passed this year, is expected to generate $35 million annually. Private transactions make up about one-third of the state's used-car sales. Sylvia Romo, the Bexar County tax assessor-collector, said she expects a backlash from unhappy consumers.... | |
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| | | Enacting new IT Act: The right approach | | Posted Sunday, September 24, 2006 12:46:00 PM by Blog57 Team | | P Chidambaram, ever since he took over as finance minister of UPA, has been advocating for the enactment of a 'brand new Income Tax Act' for the country. The time limits set in the past for this have not been achieved. Now, a report published in an economic daily of on September 13, 2006, shows that he has declared that the new Direct Taxes Code would be operative from April 1, 2008 subject to Parliament passing the Act in time. New tax provisions, without public debate/discussion, are not feasible. There are two ways of ensuring public/taxpayers' participation. The participation could be simultaneous with the process of making the new law or it could be post-consideration of the Bill already prepared and then circulated along with a concept paper, as had been done sometime back in the context of changes in the Companies Act, 1956.... | |
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| | | Political boss loses law license | | Posted Friday, September 22, 2006 6:45:43 AM by Blog57 Team | | Disgraced former state senator and Democratic powerbroker John A. Lynch Jr. has been suspended from practicing law by the state Supreme Court following his guilty plea last week to federal corruption and tax evasion charges. The order temporarily suspending Lynch pending the resolution of ethics procedures against him was signed Tuesday by Stephen W. Townsend, clerk of the Supreme Court, and released Wednesday morning. Temporary suspensions of law licenses are automatic in cases such as Lynch's and become permanent when criminal proceedings run their course. Lynch, 67, who passed the bar in 1963 and went on to become mayor of New Brunswick and state Senate president, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court, Newark, to one count of mail fraud and one count of tax evasion.... | |
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| | | Presiden withdraws finance minister`s letter on draft tax law ... | | Posted Sunday, September 03, 2006 8:45:47 PM by Blog57 Team | | Jakarta (ANTARA News) - President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has decided to withdraw Finance Minister`s letter no S 224 of May 31, 2006 on submitting the draft tax law, as it leads to debates which would disrupt further deliberations. "With regard to the finance minister`s note, although having a positive intention, the minister which I have entrusted with the task of representing the government and in this context I wish to include several points prior to official delibrations," President Yudhoyono said following a consultative meeting with the House leadership for about three hours at the Parliament Building here on Monday night "But as this would lead to debates which may disrupt further delibarations, based on the good intention both of the House and the government to carefully discuss the thoughts of the finance minister in her letter which is actually also the thoughts of the House, the best thing to do would be withdrawing the finance minister`s letter," he said.... | |
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