Tag Archives | tax reality

Now that’s a home run: McCourts back in court over billion-dollar Dodgers franchise

By on April 24, 2013 in Creative, Tax Advice

Nasty multi-million dollar divorces make for some great financial insights, especially when they wind up in court.

Today’s lesson: How profitable it can be to own a professional sports franchise, and how the tax code’s preferential rates for capital gains benefit the super-wealthy.

Frank McCourt owned the Los Angeles Dodgers. When he and his wife Jamie divorced, Jamie got $131 million as a settlement.

They were back in court this week. The reason: Shortly after the divorce, Frank sold the Los Angeles Dodgers for $2.15 billion. Jamie’s lawyers say the settlement should be thrown out because she was misled about the value of the team. (Isn’t it entertaining when people fight over hundreds of millions of dollars?)

The tax angle: Court documents show that Frank made $1.278 billion on the sale. His lawyers say he has paid more than $460 million in state and federal taxes on the sale.

If you’re keeping score at home, that’s a combined federal-and-state tax rate of about 36%, or roughly the same percentage that a single person in California would have to pay on ordinary taxable income of more than $90,000.

“Mean”states crush the poor, feds pick up the pieces

By on March 11, 2013 in Socialism in America, Tax Policy

Most talk about tax fairness focuses on federal income tax rates and how much the wealthiest pay. But states collect billions in taxes also, and as Katherine S. Newman writes in the Opinionator blog section of The New York Times, state tax systems tend to be more regressive than the federal system, and most regressive in Southern states and the West.

“Southern states have steadily increased the tax burden on their poorest citizens by shifting the support of the public sector to sales taxes and fees for public services. After California voters passed Proposition 13, which capped property-tax increases, in 1978, Western states began to move in a similar direction,” she writes. “Sales taxes on clothing and school supplies and fees for bus fare and car registration take up, of course, a far bigger slice of a poor household’s budget than they do from the rich.”

Newman points out that we all pay for regressive tax systems in what she calls “mean” states, regardless of where we are. “The more the poor are taxed, the worse off they are, whether they are working or not. We all pay a huge price for this shortsightedness. Medicaid payments, food stamps, disability benefits — all of these federal programs swoop in to try to patch up a frayed safety net. Consequently, the Southern states reap more dollars in federal benefits than they pay in taxes (like Mississippi, which saw a net gain of $240 billion between 1990 and 2009), while the wealthier states — which do more to take care of their own — lose out for every dollar they pay (like New Jersey, which handed over a net of $706 billion over that same period.)”

You can find the whole article, with something to annoy just about anyone, here .

Oscars tax hangover: No free swag bags for celebrities

By on March 8, 2013 in Internal Revenue Service, Tax Advice, Tax Evasion

You probably heard that performers, nominees and others attending the Oscars got “Swag Bags” containing goodies worth $47,802, as Today.com and others reported. A lovely consolation prize for any nominees who didn’t get the statue, fer sure.

But did you hear that people getting the bags have to pay taxes on them?

Really! The IRS has said–you can see it for yourself right here–
that the value of the goodies are income and not gifts.

Says the Service, “…the organizations and merchants who participate in giving the gift bags do not do so solely out of affection respect or similar impulses for the recipients of the gift bags.”

The IRS says that businesses showering goodies on celebrities don’t do it out of affection!Those corporations don’t really, really love them!!

And people, don’t think the celebrities won’t notice that these gift bags are not about love. The IRS also has a bunch of rules about how businesses have to report the value of the gifts on Form 1099-MISC, which is sent to the goodie-bag recipients…and to the IRS.

Corporations say DOMA is a big tax hassle

By on February 28, 2013 in Gay marriage, Internal Revenue Service, Tax Issues

I always say that everything’s about taxes. The current legal wrangling about gay marriage proves it once again.

More than 200 companies have signed onto a brief filed with the Supreme Court saying that the Defense of Marriage Act has become an administrative hassle, forces them to discriminate against different classes of married employees, and should be overturned so that same-sex couples receive federal recognition.

I’ve written previously about United States v. Windsor, which the Court is likely to hear in March. Ms Windsor was married to Thea Spyer and inherited Spyer’s property in 2009, but also was hit with a large estate tax bill that would not have been assessed if She had be a He. Companies including Apple, Nike, Starbucks, Marriott International and Walt Disney, filed in support of Ms Windsor’s case.

As Erik Eckholm wrote in The New York Times in summarizing the brief’s argument, “Treating heterosexual and same-sex married employees differently under federal law, the brief said, imposed high administrative costs as companies maintained dual systems of tax withholding and payroll. It results in extra tax burdens for both companies and employees with health plans, and can affect payments including retirement, pension and life insurance as well as having a bad effect on morale.”

World’s teeniest tax bracket

By on January 22, 2013 in Creative, Internal Revenue Service, Politics, The Economy

With the new tax bill passed by Congress in January 2013, there are now seven marginal tax brackets–10%, 15%, 25%, 28%, 33%, 35%, and 39.6%. OK, no big problem there.

Here’s the stupid thing: The only single filers who fall into the 35% marginal bracket will be those with taxable income of $398,350 to $400,000.

That’s right–there is now a tax bracket with a range of $1,650. One Thousand, Six Hundred Fifty Dollars.

You can see the new 2013 tax brackets for yourself here, courtesy of The Tax Policy Center, which estimates that fewer than 500 singles nationwide will fall into this bracket in 2013. You can also find Forbes contributor Howard Gleckman, in primo head-shaking mode, weighing in here.

I can’t make this stuff up.