Online and off, there's a lot of hope and fear about the next year. Will we see our tax system revamped with new tax breaks and incentives that make things easier for the middle class? Will new social programs make the existing tax burden much heavier? Predicting policy is notoriously tricky, but here are a few best guesses: How much will the tax code change? Less than you'd think. When politicians run for office or pose for the camera, they have every incentive to exaggerate their plans and abilities. Once it's actually time to come up with a law, though, those exaggerated claims bump into each other and lead to some long, drawn-out compromises. Usually, these compromises are solved with a little pork-barrel spending -- the difference between a giant spending bill passing or failing might be an expenditure of a few million taxpayer dollars in a strategically important district. So the political process, and the eventual result, won't change fast enough for taxpayers to see a huge difference on their next return. But what about..? There are lots of big ideas floating around, but often those get dissolved into lukewarm compromises. So what kinds of changes will be big news? It's impossible ...

When Bernie Madoff made every scammer in history look like an amateur with his $50 billion haul, I'm not sure how many people wondered what positive effects he might have had. But think about the argument for a stimulus program: let's say we give Taxpayer A $1,000 right now, and saddle him with another $1,500 in higher taxes down the road. The $1,000 makes him feel richer, so he spends it -- the $1,500 is a problem, but not just yet (and it's a problem for a more robust, post-stimulus economy). The stimulus even works if it's a different taxpayer: if taxpayer A gets the check and taxpayer B pays the consequences, B doesn't spend less until the bill comes due, but A can go on a spending spree right away. Let's compare that to Madoff's situation: If you had $1 million with Madoff, you made a fake $120,000 every year. Let's assume that Madoff did invest the money, but skimmed off the profits for his own purposes (nobody knows just what he did with it, but we do know that he didn't lose all of it and that he never did anything like what he told investors he did). In this ...

It's been an amazing year for political and economic commentators. We've had an historic election, an even more historic financial crisis, and an unprecedented spending plan that's sure to lead to some new taxes down the road. At the forefront of describing, predicting, and explaining the events have been bloggers. I'd like to present a list -- once again, highly subjective and far from complete, and this time in no particular order -- of the ten best tax-related blog posts of 2008. Shanghai's stock market went up about as high as it was legally able to because of -- good news on the export front? An exciting new company going public? An optimism-fueled merger? No. -- a reduction in the stamp tax assessed on each financial transaction. Small tax changes can have huge, unpredictable effects. If you'd ever wondered who cheats the most on their taxes, Don't Mess With Taxes has the answer: the rich cheat more than anyone. Although it's a little more complicated -- the rich have an easier time cheating, and get 'paid' better for it. There's more to the story than just how much money gets take out of your paycheck. Greg Mankiw explains exactly how taxes affect ...

The Taxosphere has a huge variety of writers, from folks who offer sound personal finance advice to those who focus on the theoretical aspects of taxes. But what the Taxosphere doesn't have is a quick list of the best resource for learning more about taxes, and more about what bloggers have to say about taxes. Below, I present a highly subjective, far from exhaustive list of the top ten tax bloggers: If you're in the mood for a sharp, academic mind applied to practical tax-related issues, Linda Beale's A Taxing Matter should be your first stop. Russ Clayton's Taxable Talk offers a healthy dose of outrage, at taxers, spenders, and tax evaders. If you'd like a little more outrage -- with a little more focus on folks who owe more taxes, or at least could afford to pay them, click on over to James Edward Maule's MauledAgain. For a focus on personal finance (with a side serving of taxes), check out The Digerati Life. Clever Dude is clever, indeed, and offers a healthy mix of sound personal finance advice, relevant news, and the occasional contest or giveaway. For a blogger with an apparently exhaustive appetite for personal finance trivia, Five Cent Nickel never seems bored and ...