Imagine, for a second, that you’re a smoker, which, if you’re a smoker, should be easy. You’ve triumphed over brownish teeth and the lingering stench of stale smoke. You’ve bravely ignored the highly increased risk of lung cancer in the noble pursuit of having something to do with hands while you drink.

Do you like to pair your quintuple-cheeseburger (The High Five!) with a soft drink big enough to swim in and loaded with enough fizzy additives to clean limestone? Are you a lobbyist for a large soda company that long ago traded your chance for any sort of spiritual salvation for piles of stress and increasingly redundant money?

California is dealing with the most intense budget crunch in the country. One proposal for dealing with the financial hardship is one quite familiar to glassy-eyed freshman on 3 a.m. Taco Bell runs everywhere: marijuana. Who says money can't grow on trees?

The IRS decided it doesn’t need to tax airlines for the $1.76 billion made in baggage fees, this year. I mean, when you have the chance to add to the airlines’ astounding amount of tax breaks and subsidies, you’ve got to take it, right? And why not give airlines incentive to institute more “fees” that, like entertainment, food, drink, and alcohol, generate tax-free revenue? Look, TaxRascal is no fan of unfair taxes. We’ve pretty much affirmed that by now, yes? But the airlines are already enjoying all kinds of gentle caresses from the IRS (as well as basically every other government agency ever created, ever), so giving them a pass on another somewhat despicable revenue stream is silly, if not unconscionable. Facts on the ground are changing, and the tax code should follow suit. Airlines are participating in a cashgrab orgy, and given the loose reins, there’s not an end in sight. Just a couple weeks ago, Delta & Continental both increased their baggage fees, tempting other carriers to follow. Delta’s increase moved their fees to $25 for the first and $35 for the second, up from $15 & $25. Delta’s been the pioneer in the baggage fee frontier, with ...

So-called tax experts are gazing dumbly towards the haze of pot smoke hanging over I-5 between Washington and California. Apparently, that tract of land isn’t limited to a freeway and a few rest stops between Seattle and San Francisco. No! There’s an entire state there with its own big-boy capital and training pants tax code. And lawmakers there are pissing all over it. Why are national tax experts interested in little ol’ Oregon? Why, because Oregon’s trying out a tax increase to deal with their bankrupting state. And the “experts” see it as a the first canary in the tax-raising mine. Yes, Oregon is proposing a(nother) income tax increase to pay for… well, something. But give the Oregon legislature a little credit – they’re not simply pushing through a tax increase, they’re having the people vote on it. “No problem, TaxRascal,” you say. “People don’t vote for tax increases.” Wrong! People don’t pass tax increases on themselves. But they’ll happily tax the teeth off their neighbors. Yes, the hippie (communist) spirit is alive and well in that patchouli bog of the Willamette Valley, and when you’re voting on a tax increase on anyone making more than $125K a year, well, then, let’s ...

Uncle Sam went to the WTO loaded for… well, it looks like Sam just wanted to go get loaded. On good ol’ US-brand firewater, that is! According to Reuters.com, the US is pissed at the Philippine government. Why? Well, Obama’s tax lieutenants have a problem with the Philippine’s distaste of Jack Daniels. The miniature nation of islands has an excise tax on America’s Whiskey and gin. No big deal, except the tax on American spirits is anywhere between 10-40 percent more than those from within its own borders. Listen, Philippines. America will look the other way if you kick around your second-class citizens or engage in some illegal arms dealing. The government could even deal with your tiny country having the temerity to provide its citizens with nationalized health care. But if you screw with US expatriates’ right to get drunk on old fashioned Maker’s Mark – at a reasonable price! – well then, you’re gonna be looking at the wrong side of a sternly-worded letter to the WTO. Incidentally, it turns out America’s not the only country suffering from unreasonable excise taxes from the draconian Philippine policy of petty taxation schemes. The EU filed their own grievance against the taxes to the ...

Investors have long known that December and January are among the best months for stocks. Most investors know why, too: late in the year, it's possible to sell losing stocks in order to shelter profits from the rest of the year. For example, if you've lost $1000 on GE, and made $1000 on IBM, you can sell both, take both losses—and pay not capital gains taxes on your profit. Because of this, it makes sense to sell at the end of the year. (The IRS will let you buy the stocks back after 30 days and still give you the tax penalty.) And if people are selling stocks they still like, they're going to buy them back later. All this trading gets other traders excited; it's fun to try to guess which hammered stocks will be sold for the tax loss—and then to chase them back up when their owners buy them back. This year, the S&P 500 was up 3% during December. But if you're expecting Santa to swing by again in January, you might be in for some disappointment. Compared to previous years, this stock market is a lot less interesting. In the late 90's, you could pick tech stocks or ...

A few years ago, PBS put together a special called "Tax Me if you Can". And, regardless of how you feel about paying taxes, it's clearly a big issue: they estimate that companies avoid up to $50 billion in taxes every year through tax shelters. The number may be high, but the idea is spot on: there is a lot of money sloshing into corporate treasuries that could be sloshing into the US treasury, instead. But that's a superficial way to look at it. There are some important questions that tax shelters bring up, and not all of them can be answered by soaking the rich: Should people be penalized for following the rules? The tax code is designed to make good behavior more rewarding, and bad behavior less rewarding. But laws can't just argue about "good" and "bad"—they have to allow specific things. If tax rules are designed to encourage companies to invest in new equipment, they can't just ask nicely—they have to give companies a tax break based on the depreciating assets they own. And if companies use that depreciation to reduce their tax burden, is it really their moral problem? They just exist to make as much money as ...

"The blunt truth about the politics of climate change is that no country will want to sacrifice its economy in order to meet this challenge, but all economies know that the only sensible long term way of developing is to do it on a sustainable basis." —Tony Blair "We know that evidence based policy is window dressing, and now, when they want us to believe them on climate science, to justify Stern's paltry 1% of global GDP [over $600 billion]to mitigate a global horror, we doubt." —Dr. Ben Goldacre " A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money." —Senator Everett Dirksen Climate change! As we shiver through another cold winter day, we often wonder: why did they stop calling it "Global warming," again? But climate change is a serious issue. If you squint through the smoggy haze put out by 1200 limos and 140 private jets, you can see the serious faces of politicians trying to decide just how fast they can get away with spending your money. But perhaps you've wondered which money pits we're going to be filling up first. With that in mind, I'd like to present the Taxrascal Climate Change Spending Guide.

If you love soda, or know someone who does—watch out! Your sugary habit might be someone else's business pretty soon (and they might not share your fascination with the fizzy stuff). Here's what you can do to avoid getting a raw deal when new rules come into effect