Adjusting Your Tax Withholdings
It’s a good idea to double check your tax withholdings. Sometimes you’re paying in too much. Other times, you’re not withholding enough and you could be left with a substantial tax bill at the end of the year. Therefore, now is a good time of the year for adjusting your tax withholdings. The IRS wants […]
Area Man Treats Colleague to Dinner, Drinks
The three-martini lunch has a long and mostly honorable history as a deductible business expense. As former President Gerald Ford once said, “Where else can you get an earful, a bellyful, and snootful at the same time?” Ford’s successor, famed buzzkill Jimmy Carter, tried (and failed) to cut the deduction from 100% to 50%. The […]
2018 Readers Choice Awards – Go Vote
https://townelaker.com/readers-choice-awards/
Free App Avoids 100% of This Tax
Traffic apps have revolutionized how many of us get from Point A to Point B. They started with in-dash navigation systems that needed updates every time a new subdivision or interchange appeared. Then they migrated to the phone with Google Maps and real-time traffic updates. Now, apps like Waze tell you where to get off […]
Romantic Tax Collectors Love Valentine’s Day Too
It’s February, and love is in the air. Restaurants are advertising intimate specials for two. Florists are rolling out the red carpet. And in the greeting card racks across the country, Hallmark’s most accomplished poets are debuting their new verse. We’re talking about Valentine’s Day, of course. 62% of Americans say they’ll celebrate the occasion. […]
Country Crooners Sing the Blues
Country music embraces a long tradition of songs about sadness and ruin, heartbreak and pain. It just makes sense, then, that country sometimes runs afoul of the tax system. Most famously, Willie Nelson found himself on the wrong side of a $16.7 million tax bill. And outlaw country icon David Allen Coe, who penned Take This […]
Two-Tired to Fight About It
When you think of “federal crime,” you probably think of big-ticket offenses like mail fraud, identity theft, and tax evasion. But our criminal code is also full of, shall we say, lesser offenses. For example, according to the Crime a Day Twitter feed, “18 USC §1854 makes it a federal crime to cut, chip, or chop a […]
iTaxes Version 38 Billion.0
In 2016, SyFy debuted a new show called Incorporated about a dystopian future where corporations, not governments, rule the world. If that nightmare ever comes true, we all know which real-world corporation will rule them all. It’s Apple, of course, which just took the shrink-wrap off their $5 billion ring-shaped headquarters in Cupertino, CA and is on […]
How Will I Know?
In 2012, the singer Whitney Houston died suddenly, drowning in a hotel bathroom after years of battling drug addiction. Yet the world will always treasure her musical legacy. The Guinness Book of World Records reports that she was the most awarded female artist of all time, with two Emmys, six Grammys, 30 Billboard Music Awards, and 22 […]
He’s Mister Tax Miser
Welcome to 2018! New Years’ always brings changes to taxes. Key numbers, like tax brackets, standard deductions, personal exemptions, and qualified plan contribution limits, all roll over on January 1. But this year brings more change than any year since 1987. Washington has just passed a sweeping overhaul of the entire tax code, from working […]