Taxes Hit All-Time Highs

IRS rides 1884 'dead horse' law to defense of tax preparer rules

By Patrick Temple-West

WASHINGTON | Tue Sep 24, 2013 5:16pm EDT

(Reuters) - The Obama administration on Tuesday defended its effort to regulate the tax return preparation business for the first time in U.S. history, basing its case largely on a 19th century law dealing with horses lost or killed in the Civil War.
At an appellate court hearing on a challenge brought by libertarian lawyers challenging the administration, Justice Department Tax Division lawyer Gilbert Rothenberg said: "I hate to beat a dead horse, especially one from the Civil War era."
But he explained that the administration sees the "Horse Act of 1884" as providing ample authority for the U.S. Internal Revenue Service to regulate the tens of thousands of preparers who fill out millions of Americans' federal tax returns.

 

Census: State and Local Income, Sales, Motor Fuel, Motor Vehicle, and Alcoholic Beverage Taxes Hit All-Time Highs in 2nd Quarter

September 24, 2013 - 1:04 PM

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By Terence P. Jeffrey

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(AP Photo)

(CNSNews.com) - Revenues from state and local individual income taxes, general sales and gross receipt taxes, motor fuel taxes, motor vehicle taxes and taxes on alcoholic beverages each hit all-time highs in the second quarter of this year, according to data released today by the Census Bureau.
That means that in no quarter of any year since the Census Bureau first started tracking state and local tax revenues in 1962 have Americans paid more in each of these categories of state and local taxes then they did in the quarter that ran from April through June of 2013.