St. Patrick's Day is here, and every "Irish for a day" tippler in your social circle will take advantage of this convenient excuse to haul grandma out of the house for a little day-drinking. (It seems unnecessary on a Saturday, but whatever.) Faux-Irish saloons across...
The three-martini lunch has a long and mostly honorable history as a deductible business expense. As former President Gerald Ford once said, "Where else can you get an earful, a bellyful, and snootful at the same time?" Ford's successor, famed buzzkill Jimmy Carter, tried (and...
We Americans have fought with our internal revenue code since 1913. But slicing and dicing income, deductions, and a dizzying array of business and personal credits is hardly the only way that Uncle Sam could raise the money he needs to pay for guns and...
Traffic apps have revolutionized how many of us get from Point A to Point B. They started with in-dash navigation systems that needed updates every time a new subdivision or interchange appeared. Then they migrated to the phone with Google Maps and real-time traffic updates....
It's February, and love is in the air. Restaurants are advertising intimate specials for two. Florists are rolling out the red carpet. And in the greeting card racks across the country, Hallmark's most accomplished poets are debuting their new verse. We're talking about Valentine's Day, of...
Country music embraces a long tradition of songs about sadness and ruin, heartbreak and pain. It just makes sense, then, that country music sometimes runs afoul of the tax system. Most famously, Willie Nelson found himself on the wrong side of a $16.7 million tax...
When you think of "federal crime," you probably think of big-ticket offenses like mail fraud, identity theft, and tax evasion. But our criminal code is also full of, shall we say, lesser offenses. For example, according to the Crime a Day Twitter feed, "18 USC §1854 makes...
In 2016, SyFy debuted a new show called Incorporated about a dystopian future where corporations, not governments, rule the world. If that nightmare ever comes true, we all know which real-world corporation will rule them all. It's Apple, of course, which just took the shrink-wrap off their...
In 2012, the singer Whitney Houston died suddenly, drowning in a hotel bathroom after years of battling drug addiction. Yet the world will always treasure her musical legacy. The Guinness Book of World Records reports that she was the most awarded female artist of all time, with...
Welcome to 2018! New Years' always brings changes to taxes. Key numbers, like tax brackets, standard deductions, personal exemptions, and qualified plan contribution limits, all roll over on January 1. But this year brings more change than any year since 1987. Washington has just passed...