TaxLoopholes Blog

Many of us are so focussed on what Obama’s administration and a Dem controlled House and Senate will mean to our taxes next year, that we’re forgetting about 2008.

There were changes in 2008. In fact, the 2008 Economic Stimulus Act had some nice depreciation provisions. And there are also some tax extenders in 2008 that were voted in for one year only. After this year, who knows if we’ll still have them?

I just read something on my tax wire that rocked me to the core. While Congress is looking at rolling back reducing the corporate tax rate, they are also looking at hammering small business owners. Here are a few of the items under discussion:

We’re moving into a time of a lot of changes in our tax laws. There is a lot of positioning going on and testing of the political waters with proposed tax changes.

There are also a lot of rumors of what could be coming. Normally I’d recommend that you don’t pay attention to rumors. In fact, you can drive yourself crazy following all the jockeying for position and news time by the pundits. Right now, though, I’m afraid we could see a lot of change coming as bills are passed quickly in an attempt to bail out the economy.

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Popularly called the iTunes tax, an unpopular sales tax on digital downloads is required to be paid currently in 27 states and the District of Columbia. Add this to the Streamlined Sales Tax Project (SST) and the ‘Internet Tax’ that Megan and I blogged about last week and we’re all about to get hit with a lot more tax than we’re expecting.

Are you working hard right now, busting your butt and still feeling like you’re not getting anything finished - you just get tired and go home?

That’s certainly the case at la Casa del Nakamoto-Hughes. Lots of balls in the air, deadlines coming up, etc. Given that, I should have felt guilty last weekend when my husband and I ran off to Vegas for a couple of days. But you know what? I didn’t!

Yesterday, Megan blogged about the Streamlined Sales Tax Project (SST). SST is a cooperative sales tax initiative for voluntary states. The states come into compliance and agreement together to figure out a way to collect sales tax on every sales, based on the “destination” of the sale. In other words, if you live in California and buy from a Florida merchant, you’ll pay California sales tax. It’s a nightmare for the Florida merchant because she now has to track sales tax rates and rules in 50 states.

I’ve been keeping my eyes on the Streamlined Sales Tax Project for awhile now, checking in to see which states are members, which states aren’t, and which states are in the process of joining.

In a lot of ways the SST makes sense. It would end nexus shopping, and the lure of state-line shopping from a high-tax state into a lower-tax state (i.e., Californians popping over to Oregon), assuming that both states charged a sales tax. So some recent news about SST surprised me.

Pres-Elect Obama has a pet project. Well, he probably has quite a few, but this one could really impact taxpayers, especially business owners and investors. It’s called the Levin-Coleman-Obama Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act. On the surface, that sounds good. But read on if you EVER plan to live or buy or otherwise do business outside of the US.

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