Tell It To Al

Most people would never cheat on their taxes – a whopping 76% – according to a study by global ad agency DDB.

Then there’s 18% who said they might cheat on their taxes, and the 6% who said they definitely would cheat, according to DDB’s Life Styles Study. DDB has been conducting its Life Style Study every year since 1975.

Here’s a little tip for the IRS auditors: Of those who would definitely cheat: 59% are male; 79% are between the ages of 18 and 54; 60% are white; 52% are married. (Yikes! I seem to fit the profile, but count me among the 76%.)

Some of the folks who say they would never cheat have apparently learned their lesson. Of them, 3% of report that they actually have cheated in the past.

Others never seem to learn. Of those who say they might cheat, 25% say they actually have. And of those who say they definitely would cheat, 20% say they have.

Would you cheat on your taxes? And if you would, would you admit it in a survey? That’s not the mark of a very good cheat, now, is it?

Imagine abandoning a country that, more than any other, makes free enterprise and personal wealth possible throughout the world, just to save on taxes.

That’s what rich Americans planted all over the world are doing in increasing numbers. Click here to read my column on MarketWatch.

  Click here for more details from Bloomberg. And click here to watch me discuss the Buffett Rule with Matt Flener, anchor at Denver’s NBC affiliate, 9News.

Part of the problem is what’s viewed as an unfair tax code for people living abroad. But the other part is people who just don’t realize what they are giving up.

Corporations make me feel like a chump on tax day.

They’re not paying. Why am I paying?

Click here to read my column in The Sunday Wall Street Journal.

It is easier for a rich man to squeeze through the eye of a needle, than it is for a camel to go to heaven – the Bible, I think, says something like that.

The IRS is giving rich Americans yet another chance to repent, confess their offshore holdings and pay their taxes.

In previous tax amnesty efforts, it has collected $4.4 billion. The U.S. government has also been cracking down on banks and bankers around the world who’ve been aiding and abetting America’s richest tax cheats.

The net result is that offshore banks are no longer clamoring for U.S. accounts. In fact, some of them are telling their U.S. customers to leave, not wanting to comply with U.S. laws.

Working people have little choice but to pay taxes. They come right out of their paychecks. The rich – for all their whining about taxes – have had a lot more options, legal and otherwise. Click here to read more on the IRS’s latest program.

The last thing anybody needs is some guy from Jersey tellin’ ‘em what to do, but that’s what Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn has got with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on his tail.

Christie has been lobbying Illinois businesses to move to Jersey to escape Quinn’s tax cuts. Quinn retorts the New Jersey rates as one of the worst business climates in the nation.

Shouldn’t these guys be trying to create jobs rather than steal them from each other?

Click here to read my column.

And now for another installment of Hedge Fund Poet.

Lee Slonimsky who runs hedge fund Ocean Partners LP in Manhattan writes poems. Here’s his take on the “Fair Tax.”

Click here to hear Hedge Fund Poet on “Honest Services.”

Click here to hear Hedge Fund Poet on BP’s drilling.

A good friend of mine drove her BMW to the country club today, all tee-ed off about my column in which a handful of millionaires complained that their taxes were just too low and that all millionaires should have to pay higher taxes.

“What a bunch of jack-holes,” she complained over her cell phone. “Do they really think …. Wait, hold on a second, I’ve got to tee-off.”

She put her husband on the phone. He complained, too, until it was his turn to hit the ball.

I love it when a column I write interrupts a round of golf.

Click here to read column.

A Chicago tax lawyer says his client simply forgot about the $32 million he had stashed away in an offshore bank account, according to a report on the Chicago Tribune’s website.

See, this is why we the IRS has an amnesty program for people who simply can’t keep track of all of their assets after hiding them for so many years.

Robert McKenzie of Arnstein & Lehr told the Tribune he’s representing 78 people who want to come clean about their secret offshore accounts under the soon-to-expire program.

“The question I ask my clients is, ‘What’s it worth to sleep at night?’” McKenzie told Tribune blogger and reporter Ameet Sachdev.

Of course, it’s easy to sleep at night if you really can’t remember your $32 million offshore account.

The IRS is extending the deadline on its tax amnesty program – originally set to expire this week – until Oct. 15. The IRS says it’s to give tax cheats – I mean, you know, guys who just forgot – to get their paperwork together.

So far, more than 3,000 people have lined up for the program, which offers reduced penalties and no jail time. The IRS says it will not extend the program again. Click here to read more of those details in a report by the Associated Press.

The program may be a sign of just how bad the economy has really gotten

When the economy was humming a long, and everybody was getting rich from stock options and mortgages, the IRS did not seem the least bit concerned about offshore bank accounts. Now, instead of dinking around with little offshore banks in the Caribbean, it’s gone right for the jugular at Swiss banking giant, UBS AG.

In August, UBS agreed to turn over details on 4,450 accounts suspected of holding undeclared assets from American customers. In February it to pay a $780 million fine and turn over up to 300 client names.

The IRS is trying to send a clear message: The days of dodging taxes via offshore bank accounts is over. Pay up. We’ve got an $11 trillion deficit over here on the mainland.

The two sure things, death and taxes, come in a handy little pack that fits right in your shirt pocket.

And now — with the new federal excise tax on tobacco taking effect on Wednesday — you’ll be taxed even more before you die.

The tax on a pack of cigarettes is going from 39 cents to nearly $1.01.  Continue reading…

Hey, Switzerland.

Appreciate all the hot chocolate over the years, but we’re running a huge deficit over here. And it looks like you’re helping some U.S. tax dodgers who could be paying part of this multitrillion-dollar tab.

The Internal Revenue Service wants your bank, UBS AG, to fork over records on 52,000 U.S. customers who allegedly violated U.S. tax laws by hiding their loot in Swiss accounts worth at least $14.8 billion.

Continue reading…