Tag Archive for Tax System

Focus On New Hampshire Tax

This month, we travel to the New England region of United States to New Hampshire. Known as the Granite State, it is defined by its quaint towns and large expanses of wilderness.

New Hampshire is a state with some mighty history. In January 1776, it became the first of the British North American Colonies to establish a government independent of the Kingdom of Great Britain’s authority, and it was the first to establish its own constitution. Six months later, it became one of the original 13 states that founded the United States of America, and in June 1788 it was the ninth state to ratify the Constitution, bringing that document into effect. Read More

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Just A Few Pints Can Explain How The Tax System Works

Suppose that once a week, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to £100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this.

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
 The fifth would pay £1. The sixth would pay £3. The seventh would pay £7. The eighth would pay £12. The ninth would pay £18. 
And the tenth man (the richest) would pay £59. Read More

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Testimony: The Effects Of The Current Tax System On Americans Abroad

John Richardson, Tax Advisor

Good morning and thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. My name is Marilyn Ginsburg. I will be 70 years old next month and I renounced my U.S. citizenship, with great regret, in my 69th year.

I was born in St. Louis, grew up in Denver, and moved to Canada when I was 26 years old. My husband and I left the United States in June, 1971, a month after we had both finished graduate school, I with a law degree and my husband with a PhD. in American history.We both obtained jobs teaching in our fields at a Canadian University. We assumed we would stay in Canada for a few interesting years, living in another country, and then return to hearth and home. One thing led to another and this never happened, and we have now lived in Canada for 44 years.

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A Quick Refresher On The Foreign Tax Credit

Ephraim Moss, foreign tax credits, expat, tax professional

One of the fundamentally important tax concepts for U.S. expats to know is that the U.S. tax system has built-in mechanisms for preventing the “double taxation” of your income (i.e., tax in both your new host country and in the United States). These mechanisms provide a measure of relief for U.S. expats who remain subject to U.S. taxation, despite living and working abroad.

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Avoiding IRS Underpayment Penalties

Congress considers our tax system as a “pay-as-you-go” system. To facilitate that concept, the government has provided several means of assisting taxpayers in meeting the “pay-as-you-go” requirement. These include:

• Payroll withholding for employers;

• Pension withholding for retirees; and

• Estimated tax payments for self-employed individuals and those with other sources of income not covered by withholding.

When a taxpayer fails to prepay a safe harbor (minimum) amount, he or she can be Read More

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Justify Your Favored Tax Breaks… If You Can

IncomeOn June 27, 2013, Senator Baucus, Chair of the Senate Finance Committee and Senator Hatch, Ranking Member of the committee issued a call to everyone asking them to submit justification for keeping any tax break they believe should be in the federal tax law. They refer to this as a “blank slate”approach. That is, assume that none of the 200+ special tax breaks (“tax expenditures”) are in the tax law. If you believe any should be there, send them the reasons why. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Camp called this idea “welcome news” (6/27/13 press release).

The senators refer to the Joint Committee on Taxation tax expenditure report to define what a tax expenditure is. The Joint Committee on Taxation does not count rules tied to the basic design of a type of tax as tax expenditures. For example, the JCT states in its February 2013 report:

“Under the Joint Committee staff methodology, the normal structure of the individual income tax includes the following major components: one personal exemption for each taxpayer and one for each dependent, the standard deduction, the existing tax rate schedule, and deductions for investment and employee business expenses.” (page 3) The JCT also notes that the carryover of net operating losses is a normal part of an income tax. (page 8) Read More

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