Times are tough, so squeezing every cent you can out of your paycheck is critical. So why are you letting Uncle Sam hold onto some of your hard-earned money?That's what way too many folks do every year by having their employers overwithhold payroll taxes. You know that nasty line item on your pay st...

There are lots of stories each tax season about how taxpayers can find a reputable, qualified tax preparer. Heck, I've done them myself, here on the ol' blog and elsewhere    . But there's a flip side to this coin. How do tax professionals find good clients? Unfortunate...

By all accounts, Ruth and Bernard Madoff were inseparable. Married nearly 50 years, they worked in the same office and ended most days dining together, just the two of them, at a favorite New York City restaurant. But in December, when Madoff admitted that his multibillion-dollar hedge fund was an e...

You knew this had to happen. Purveyors of adult entertainment say it's time that they got the same government help as financial firms and the auto industry. Yep, Hustler's Larry Flynt and Girls Gone Wild's Joe Francis say it's time for a bailout of the porn industry. Flynt and Francis say the econom...

So how's your 2009 been so far? Mine's been crazy, but you probably already figured that out since this Carnival is going up in the early evening instead of the planned morning posting. Yeah, the beginning a new year is a wondrous thing in the tax world. It requires dexterity and balance, as we pull...

You might never be too rich or too thin, but New Yorkers say that it's the wealthy, regardless of body mass, who should pay more taxes. That's among the findings of the latest Quinnipiac University poll that questioned New Yorkers about the proposed soda tax. Sixty percent of those surveyed ...

The Year-end Money Moves series is back, this time with tips on giving by by Dec. 31. Apologies for the fits-and-starts appearances this year of the five-part presentation. It's been a crazy winding down of 2008 and we've still got a couple of weeks to go! Part 1 of our Dec. 31 deadline series took ...

The IRS does have heart! Yesterday, the agency announced that it is instituting an expedited process to help remove tax liens from the homes of financially struggling owners. We're all too aware of the troubles faced by folks who are about to lose their homes. Some laws have been enacted to help the...

Calm down, livestock owners. Uncle Sam isn't looking to tax your flatulent livestock. In recent days there has been much attention given to what some saw as a possible new fee connected to gaseous farm animals. The bloated story began on July 30, when the Environmental Protection Agency submitted an...

All you long-time tax geeks, remember the bad old IRS days? Back when the tax collector went after us with unchecked abandon? As the Journal of Accountancy's Tax Adviser recalls, in the '90s some taxpayers lost their homes and livelihoods to the IRS because of its aggressive collection efforts. Such...