Commissioner and chief executive of the Canadian Revenue Agency reminds us in a story in the Financial Post that there are no random audits in Canada. If your tax return is selected for audit, the CRA has identified some aspect of your return, be it a deduction claimed or an industry that it is focusing [...]

More →

Sometimes people wonder why the legislation surrounding various taxes is so complex, given the relatively straight-forward nature of those taxes. The Tax Foundation provides a telling example in a recent post about the definition of a cigarette: Cigarettes are taxed in New Mexico, as everywhere else, and at a pretty hefty rate. As the tax [...]

More →

The Tax Foundation’s Ten principles of sound tax policy are a must-read for those influencing tax policy. I think the list can be further refined down to about half that, but maybe they wanted to get an even ten. For instance, maintaining the neutrality of the system (#2) will result in broad bases (#3). It’s [...]

More →

I like The Tax Foundation. They advocate some really smart tax policy in the US. They also have a good blog that regularly keeps me up on US tax, which isn’t something I ever need to know in my job, but is interesting nonetheless. They blogged about one of their Background Papers titled Gambling with [...]

More →

We like to complain (and for good reason) about the litany of taxes imposed on us by various levels of government, but this post on Neatorama details some bizarre taxes through history that make current ones seem tame. Peter the Great, czar of Russia, imposed a tax on souls in 1718…meaning everybody had to pay [...]

More →