So you're interested in buying school supplies, or possibly guns, but you want to make sure you get the best possible deal — you're in luck! Thanks to back-to-school tax holidays, many states will make that shopping cheaper for you. And later in the year, one state is even having a tax holiday for guns! But first, how about some free money? The Wandering Tax Pro finds out how easy it is to get free money from the Feds — but not in the way you'd expect! It's a good point about how little fact-checking there is behind the homebuyer's rebate (and might explain why the homebuyer's tax credit is taking so long. The Digerati Life discusses the historical minimum wage (see also the Taxrascal entry about the minimum wage). Digerati cites a study adding fuel to the anti minimum-wage fire: when minimum wages increase, more high school students drop out — because they think they'll make more money! Kay Bell of Don't Mess With Taxes discusses back-to-school tax holidays, with a handy calendar. Is your state on it? Roth & Company adds to the discussion: there's a gun sales tax holiday, too! Which seems not so much "good" or "bad" as "bizarre," especially ...

Mr. Donald Trump, famous for announcing the line "You're FIRED" on the popular NBC show The Apprentice, was interviewed today by Neil Cuvato from the Fox News Network. Mr. Trump announced that he doesn't approve of the proposed New York Assembly Democrats' Millionaire Tax, which will bring millions of dollars to the hemorrhaging MTA. Under the plan, people who earn over $1 million in New York state will pay an income tax surcharge of about 3/4 of 1 percent for five years. In all, it would raise over $5 billion for mass transit. Mayor Bloomberg and Mr. Trump would contribute to the transportation funds as will athletes and high-paying corporate executives. Donald Trump says that most individuals, including himself,  will flee the city and Manhattan will fall in shambles. Rush Limbaugh recently announced his Manhattan departure. I say they won't leave, especially Mr. Trump. Mr. Trump has made a fortune during high tax season and I believe will continue to be a Manhattanite. His hair alone has its own zip code. In other news there was an article today in the WSJ announcing that San Franciscans top the list of tax-filing procrastinators, in regards to filing within the last two days of tax ...

With the market in the doldrums and the election turning nastier every day, most people are feeling increasingly negative about everything, their finances included. But the markets have (for now) stopped crashing, and some people are taking stock and seeing reasons to be optimistic. Meanwhile, others point out that there are still some financial follies to avoid. And, of course, there's a new crop of entertaining tax evaders since the last edition of Today in the Taxosphere. Legendary investor Warren Buffett says to buy stocks -- he is. According to his new authorized biography, the normally cautious Buffett made lots of personal investments in the late 1970's -- using borrowed money. Could be a good sign. Of course, as Buffett would usually argue, you should do your own research and avoid trying to time the market. FIRE Finance offers a detailed guide to how to save -- and how much to save -- for retirement. Particularly useful: they offer several tables showing how much income to set aside at various ages. If you're thinking of procrastinating, keep this in mind: the savings required if you start at 45 or 50 are many times the proportional savings required of someone who starts at ...

Since he burst onto the national scene earlier this week, Joe the Plumber has become a symbol of how tax policy affects ordinary Americans. He's the center of attention in today's Taxosphere, but the debates also get some coverage as well. And of course, personal finance is in the news because of the continued market gyrations. Today's Taxosphere goodness: Paul Caron, the TaxProf, has a comprehensive roundup of Joe the Plumber coverage. There's bad news for Joe's ambitions; he's not quite a plumber (though he doesn't need a license since he works for a licensed plumber), and he doesn't quite pay his taxes. At Don't Mess With Taxes, Kay Bell also covers Joe Wurzelbacher's story, with more details about what the different tax policies mean for him. This entry includes a comprehensive list of other people named "Joe the Plumber," who are doubtless seeing a boost in business thanks to their new brand name. I'm sure Inbev is, as we speak, scouting for an actual Joe Sixpack (whether he's a bodybuilder or a couch potato is a matter for the focus groups). Via Answerbag, I found this bizarrely-headlined Reuters story about how many corporations don't pay taxes. Tell me -- does a headline ...

We're all bracing for the next debate, but the taxosphere is rolling right along. Today brought in still more outraged comments about the bailout/stabilization plan/boondoggle-upon-a-boondoggle-upon-a-boondoggle. There's a lot to catch up on in today's tax blog posts: Karl Okamoto at Conglomerate notes that the new bailout bill ends a tax loophole for hedge fund managers. Could be good news, but since I've never heard a hedge fund manager's fees quoted in terms of after-tax income, this might just mean that investors will learn to pay the two point five and twenty-five.

Today's taxosphere is still busy digesting the new bailout, but there's plenty of other business to discuss. A pair of high-profile tax evasion cases have gotten some attention, the credit crisis is considered in more detail, and the Biden/Palin vice-presidential debate features some gaffes on both sides. A the California Tax Attorney Blog, blogger Mitchell A. Port talks up the IRS's increasing efficiency. Surprisingly, the big gains aren't just in audits -- the IRS has also gotten much better at providing easy online help for average users. James Edward Maule, proprietor of MauledAgain asks who is to blame for the subprime meltdown and the bailout, and argues that the answer is much more complicated than we'd like it to be. It's a decent post, but the anti-greed argument doesn't fly. Fannie and Freddie tried very hard to increase loans to poor people with poor credit, for what may well have been altruistic reasons. And John Paulson, whose financial strategies helped prick the bubble and cushion the crash, was presumably motivated by all the money he could make for himself and his investors. Greed is too versatile to take all the blame, and too ubiquitous to be eradicated. A better answer is to ...

The taxosphere is abuzz with news as the bailout continues to be debated and revised. Meanwhile, day-to-day tax issues still dominate the discussion. Linda P on Yahoo! Answers has run into a stick tax situation: what do you do if someone was paid off the books for twenty years, and wants to settle things with the IRS? After a while, it can be tempting to try getting away with it for just one more year -- but as the answerers show, that's just a way to compound the problem. At Don't Mess With Taxes, Kay Bell wants to know if the home sale tax exclusion caused the housing bubble. As one linked source argues, Maybe it wasn't speculative mania... Maybe much of it was due to changes in public policy. An even more compelling answer: it was a speculative mania fueled by irresponsible policies, and the promise of further irresponsibility. Paul Caron of TaxProf has more. In case you were wondering about what happens when you don't file and don't fix it, Paul Caron of TaxProf writes about the sentencing of Milton Street, brother of a former Philadelphia mayor. Thirty months in prison for three years of missed filings? Probably not the typical ...

Many bloggers are still processing the effects of the recent financial meltdown and bailout. Here are a few fresh views on that and other matters: Five Cent Nickel explains what happens to your mortgage if your bank goes under. Part of the trouble with the mortgage boom was that the mortgage was disconnected from the people who originated it -- you might live a block away from your mortgage broker in Dubuque, and have no idea that your mortgage was being traded back and forth between hedge funds in Greenwich, bankers in London, and sovereign wealth funds in Dubai and Beijing. But that disconnect works out in your favor when the bank you have a relationship with collapses. An anonymous poster on Metafilter wants to know if he'll get audited because his family refuses to pay income taxes. Lots of good comments on how far the IRS will go to collect (and how far they won't go, too!). Linda Beale at A Taxing Matter lauds Rhode Island's new disclosure rules. We all know how much we pay, but in Rhode Island they're about to find out exactly what they get, too. The editorial staff at the Wall Street Journal launches a full-bore criticism of ...

Interesting Tax blog links from around the Internet: MauledAgain wants a "greed tax": The tax would apply when a person's or entity's attempt to accumulate wealth, rather than "trickling down" benefits to society generally, harms society. Since 'society' is made up of individuals, not all of whom are harmed by such actions, this sounds like a reinvention of the Tort system. David Zaring at Conglomerate is grudgingly happy that bailouts are playing by the rules again. He wonders if they might even get retroactive Congressional approval for earlier bailouts. I think the latter is likely -- once Congress says we should spend our tax dollars a certain way in the future, it should be easy to convince them that we should have spent that way in the past. alorasalia at AnswerBag wants to know if paying higher taxes is patriotic. The easy answer is the currently top-rated theory that if paying less taxes than you owe is bad, paying more taxes must be good. Of course, this theory allows you to conclude that if shoplifting is wrong, rampant consumerism is a moral imperative. Silicon Valley Blogger at the Digerati Life rhetorically asks where to invest after the stock market tanks and, refreshingly, says to ...