Christie Brinkley Owes Taxes

A wise person once told me that the best way to make this blog visually appealing is to post pictures of models.  I always liked the idea, but I couldn’t figure out how I would get away with it on a tax relief blog . . . until now.  Of course, now that I have an opportunity to follow through on that advice, it’s a 57-year-old model!

Christie Brinkley owes $531,000 in back taxes.  She says it was an innocent oversight and she is going to pay it right away.  There.  End of story.

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Cain Out

The tax code is due for an overhaul. Even though some kind of tax reform is probably inevitable, it looks like we’re never going to be able to see one called 9-9-9. And I guess we’re never going to see the National Free Pizza Day that I was hoping for either.

This morning Republican presidential candidate, Herman Cain, decided to drop out of the race.

Technically he is “suspending” his campaign (as opposed to formally ending his bid) because that will allow him to use the money he has raised to travel around and promote his “Plan B.”

There has not been much time to digest the announcement yet; there are still so many open questions. For instance, now what happens to the “Women for Cain” website that everyone loves to hate?

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The Payroll Tax Cut Extension

There are always two sides to the tax relief coin. Heads: slash taxes. Tails: find a way to pay for it.

Both Republicans and Democrats agree that the payroll tax cut needs to be extended, but can’t agree on how to fund it, and unless they start making concessions soon, it will expire.

Republicans want to pay for the tax cut by cutting spending elsewhere. Specifically, they want to freeze federal workers’ pay through 2015 and reduce the government bureaucracy to the tune of 200,000 jobs.

Democrats want to tax the rich. Specifically, they want to make deeper cuts to the payroll tax and pay for it by imposing a 3.25 percent surtax on income exceeding $1 million.

Both of these measures have been put to votes and both have been killed. Still we are being told that the payroll tax cut will likely be extended in one form or another before Congress breaks for Christmas.

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Governors Seek Marijuana Reclassification

In October the federal government took California medical marijuana dispensaries by storm, intent on shutting them down permanently. You may recall that even the IRS was involved in this operation, hitting them with audits and seemingly creating tax problems out of thin air.

The problem in California is not unlike the problems encountered in other states that have legalized medical marijuana. The state laws clash with the federal governments classification of the drug. The US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) still classifies marijuana as a controlled substance with no accepted medical use (Schedule I). But two governors are trying to get that changed.

Gov. Christine Gregoire of Washington and Gov. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island have filed a petition asking the DEA to reclassify marijuana as a Schedule II drug (one with some legitimate medicinal properties). The DEA has not yet responded to this petition, but has rejected prior petitions to reclassify the drug.

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