Therapeutic? Probably. Deductible? No. So ruled the U.S. Tax Court yesterday in the case of William Halby, a New York tax attorney who claimed that the amounts he spent on, let's call them personal-gratification-related books and materials, and also numerous professional intimate-therapy service providers,…
Reversing a lower court's ruling that Pringles did not qualify as "potato chips" for purposes of taxation, Britain's Court of Appeals has held that they are, basically, close enough. This matters because if Pringles are considered "potato chips" – or…
According to a spokesman, the mistake Timothy Geithner made on his tax returns is a common one, and since he's corrected it and paid the $34,000 he owed, the matter should be considered closed. Our system is so complicated, said…
In October, the lawyer for a man who did not pay taxes or file returns for five years said that his client had been unable to do so because he suffers from a medical condition called “Late-Filing Syndrome,” which renders…
A recent report advises U.S. citizens that, although up to $80,000 of income earned in a "foreign country" can normally be excluded from taxable income, that does not apply if you earned the money in Antarctica. Antarctica, which is not…
I guess after you’ve conquered New York, humiliated Colombian drug dealers, and . . . well, whatever happened in that third movie I didn’t even know existed until now, the Australian Tax Office does not seem very daunting. Paul Hogan,…
Not too many tax cases make the cut here, but this one seems important. On November 29, 2007, Mary Bach struck a blow for all Pennsylvania consumers when a judge agreed with her that, in that state, toilet paper is…
This list could probably get a lot longer, but right now I have two. First, Marva Bilberry, of Belton, Missouri, who runs Bilberry Bookkeeping & Tax Service, at least for now. On April 11, the Justice Department sued Bilberry, alleging…
Or maybe just a proofreading error.
Unless you’re a whaling captain.