I.R.S. in a World of Hurt from Budget Cuts

Congress has engaged in its traditional year-end brinkmanship, passing a set of retroactive extensions of popular tax breaks. These also included some changes that may be of interest to tax resisters. For example:

  • Tax penalties for failure to file and failure to pay will now be indexed for inflation, as of .
  • Congress has created a new variety of tax-advantaged savings accounts, designed to help people fund accounts for disabled people. If I’m interpreting what I’ve read about this correctly, the tax advantages are modest: deposits to these trust funds are not deducted from taxable income, but any investment gains on the amounts in the funds, as well as the principle, are not taxable to the disabled person they are given to if they are withdrawn for the purposes of paying the qualified expenses of that person.

Meanwhile, the IRS has begun pronouncing doom and gloom as a result of the latest cuts to its budget.


From the Cambrian:

Alleged Rebeccaism in Anglesey.

We have received an anonymous communication, dated Llanddansant , which states that at , about forty native Rebeccaites assembled in the peaceful village of Llanddansant, being summoned by sound of horn and firing of guns. — That they then proceeded in good order and array, armed with bludgeons and branches of trees, to the house of D. W. shopkeeper, where two bailiffs were in possession of the goods and chattels, under execution from the North and South Wales Bank, of Holyhead. That having entered the house by bursting open the back-door, Dame Rebecca bolted up-stairs followed by a few of her daughters, and ordered the bailiffs, who were snug in bed, to be up and trotting in five minutes, under penalty of a severe drubbing. That ready obedience having been yielded, the men were merely driven forth, under the surveillance of a body guard, occasionally however, pinched and pushed, and even ridden by the wanton daughters of Rebecca; and suffered to depart to their homes on a sincere promise of not returning. This is the substance of the account sent us but for the honour of North Wales we hope the affair is a fiction altogether. —Carnarvon Herald