Taxes Blog

School’s starting up and back-to-school sales tax holidays are winding down.
Texas today kicked off its three-day sales tax event. From Friday, Aug. 19, through Sunday, Aug. 21, Lone Star State shoppers don’t have to pay state and local sales taxes on clothing and shoes costing less than $100; backpacks priced at less than $100; and

We watched last month as Congress brought America to the brink of default in its fighting over the federal debt ceiling extension.
We saw the Federal Aviation Administration temporarily hamstrung and federal airline taxes halted, messing up not only Uncle Sam’s budget but causing tax confusion for the IRS and individual fliers, too.
Is the next Congressional

Hot enough for you? If not, come on down to Texas, where we’re on pace to have our hottest summer on record.
The only people enjoying this weather are air-conditioning repair firms and utility company billing offices. Meanwhile, we sweltering residents just push the thermostats up as high as we can bear. It’s a choice between

Shoppers in three states this weekend won’t have to worry about some sales taxes, both online and in the store. Their states are holding sales tax holidays.
Florida, Massachusetts and Maryland are the latest states to hold back-to-school sales tax savings events.
Florida’s tax holiday began Friday, Aug. 12, and runs through Sunday, Aug. 14. Shoppers will get a

Amazon.com Inc is leading an effort to put California’s recently enacted online sales tax law to the voters next year. If you’re one of the few who didn’t think the online giant was ballsy enough in its sheer opposition to collecting sales taxes from customers and its threats to pull projects from states to obtain tax

It’s only Tuesday, but for those of us hoping to retire sooner rather than later, it’s probably going to be a very long week. Actually, thanks to Standard and Poor’s decision to drop the United States’ creditworthiness from triple-A to AA-plus, it’s probably going to be a stretch of very long months.
The rating agency’s decision,

If you were counting on an airline ticket tax refund, you’re out of luck.
When Congress was unable to agree last month on a bill to continue funding the Federal Aviation Administration, not only did around 74,000 people lose their jobs, but taxes tacked onto airline tickets also lapsed.
Thanks to that legislative oversight, it looked like

Did you buy an airline ticket before July 23 but didn’t fly until that day or later? Then you paid a federal aviation tax that has since expired. And that means you’re eligible for a tax refund of your ticket tax money.
The good news is that the Internal Revenue Service and some airlines are refunding

Summer is almost over. That means back-to-school sales tax holidays.
This August, 17 states are trying to encourage shoppers by exempting certain products from state and in some cases local sales taxes. Mississippi kicked off tax holiday season last weekend. Eleven more states hold their tax-free shopping days this coming weekend. Five more state events are

With folks pinching their pennies ever tighter, 17 states are hoping to encourage shopping by offering sales tax breaks.
This time of year the events are usually characterized as back-to-school tax holidays. But it’s not just classroom supplies that are exempt from sales taxes.
In fact, in Mississippi, which kicks off the 2011 round of late summer