If you were coaching your kid’s basketball team, you wouldn’t win many games if you told them to aim for the backboard. Your opponents might love you, but there would be at least one dad in the stands screaming at you the entire time. So why have some tax collectors given up […]
Collecting Taxes by Aiming for the Backboard Read More »
Reality television has introduced us all to the joy of the “big reveal.” HGTV specializes in this sort of story. The perky couple, handsome brothers, or plucky first-time homeowners spend most of an episode covered in plaster dust and paint. Then after the final commercial break, they pull back the
Income Tax Returns: The Finnish Take Read More »
Big-league baseball players like the ones who just wrapped up the World Series enjoy careers that last 5.9 years on average, and with 162 games per year, they enjoy lots of chances to be heroes. But eventually, even the best of them hang up their cleats and join the rest
Accountants Behaving Badly, Part 40 Read More »
Legend holds that in 1494, an Italian friar named Luca Pacioli was sitting under an apple tree when an apple bounced off his head. In a flash of insight, he invented the “double-entry bookkeeping” system where each entry has a corresponding and opposite entry to adifferent account. Those entries, called debits
A Scary Disconnect: When Debits and Credits Don’t Match Read More »
Life is full of ups and downs, and sometimes the downs can be so low that it doesn’t feel like there’s ever going to be an up again. How many people have dreamed of faking their own death and disappearing under a new identity, never to return to their problems
The Taxpayer Who Never Was Read More »
Streaming TV services like Netflix have changed how we watch television, dropping an entire season of a series at once for us to binge on. They’ve even breathed new life into “quality television,” a phrase that used to provoke laughs from that insufferably smug type of person who used to
Don’t Let These Guys Catch You Paying Taxes! Read More »
The Infinite Monkey Theorem holds that if you sit an infinite number of monkeys down at an infinite number of typewriters, eventually one of them will bang out the complete works of William Shakespeare — or, at the very least, Hamlet. But do you know what those monkeys are banging out
The Tax Code, 2017 Tax Cuts, and Stopping at a Red Lights Read More »
Mother Nature knew exactly what she was doing when she made babies cute. In fact, evolutionary biologists at Oxford University recently concluded they evolved that way to survive by encouraging the rest of us to look after them. “This is the first evidence of its kind to show that cuteness
Awwww, He Has His Daddy’s . . . Tax Breaks? Read More »
This week’s story is a briny chowder of petty vandalism, tax avoidance, partisan posturing, and flat-out misinformation. There’s probably something in here to offend everyone. So buckle your seat belts and get ready for a ride! Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has been one of Donald Trump’s most controversial cabinet officials
Floating Palace, Indeed! Tax Avoidance on the High Seas Read More »
Aretha Franklin left this world with a musical legacy for the ages. The Queen of Soul started singing for her father’s “gospel carnival tours” at 12, cut her first record at 18, and scored her first hit a year later. She went on to record 112 hit singles, including 20
R-E-S-P-E-C-T Estate Planning Read More »
