WHAT’S THE BUZZ, TELL ME WHAT’S A HAPPENNIN’ - TUESDAY EDITION

* TWTP is still one of TAXPRO TODAY’s “favorite blogs” – and they have now included The Tax Professional.  Posts from both of my blogs are referenced in “In the Blogs: The Tax Goes On”.

* FOXNEWS (frankly, not my usual source for news) has reported “Tax Cheats Pony up $5.5 Billion in IRS Amnesty Program” -

“The Internal Revenue Service has recouped more than $5.5 billion under a series of programs that offered reduced penalties and no jail time to people who voluntarily disclosed assets they were hiding overseas, government investigators said Friday.

In all, more than 39,000 tax cheats have come clean under the programs.

But there's more.

Government investigators suspect that thousands of other taxpayers have quietly started reporting foreign accounts without paying any penalties or interest. The number of people reporting foreign accounts to the IRS nearly doubled from 2007 to 2010, to 516,000 accounts, a report by the Government Accountability Office said.”

With the success of this amnesty program – perhaps the IRS can now consider the federal amnesty program I first proposed in 2008 (see “WHAT ABOUT A FEDERAL TAX AMNESTY PROGRAM?”).

* Over at WISEBREAD Julie Rains lists “4 Ways Your IRA Beats Your Savings Account”.

* MOTLEY FOOL tells us “These 7 States Tax Homeowners the Hardest”.  Which state tops the list with the highest property taxes?  No surprise here (at least to me) -

“New Jersey tops the 50 states with an average property tax burden of $2,819. At $343,000, its average home value is among the top five states, and despite fairly high income and sales taxes, New Jersey's fairly consistent suburban character leads to a reliance on property taxes for revenue as well.”  

There are one or two surprises on the list.

* Russ Fox has a good suggestion for employers who use an outside payroll company in “Use EFTPS If You Use a Payroll Service” at TAXABLE TALK.   

“Yet there’s a way today to make sure your payroll tax company is remitting your taxes: EFTPS. It takes about two weeks to enroll (passwords will be mailed to you). Once you are enrolled, you can see your payroll tax remittances.”

* Robert W Woods of FORBES.COM gives us “10 Remarkable Facts About Online Sales Tax”.

Remarkable?  Certainly interesting. 

* Also at FORBES.COM TaxGirl Kelly Phillips Erb answers the question “Which State Pays Most In Gas Taxes?”.

It comes as no surprise that NY and CA are the highest taxed states.

KPE also lists the states that pay the least in gas taxes. 

This is the only instance where my former home state of New Jersey is not on the bottom of the list among those states with the highest taxes, if not the highest taxed state (see above item on property taxes).  NJ has the third lowest state gas tax in the country. 

 

THE LAST WORD:

 

Did you see THE DAILY SHOW WITH JOHN STEWART last night?  The opening bit was a spot on example of just what self-absorbed idiots the members of Congress are.  While it was obviously written with tongue in cheek, I have no doubt that it correctly identified the reason the idiots in Congress worked together to promptly end the furloughs for air traffic controllers.

 

  TTFN