Category: Blog

On May 14, the Supreme Court struck down the Professional and Amateur Sports Betting Act that had made Las Vegas the only state where bettors could gamble on college and professional sports. (Sorry, wrestling fans, no betting for you. Spoiler alert — the matches are fixed.) Imagine how much louder your neighborhood sports pub will get when the obnoxious drunk at the end of the bar who won’t stop jabbering about his fantasy team is actually putting his money where his mouth is!   Dozens...

Early on Saturday morning, 29 million Americans woke up to take a break from school shootings, Russian collusion, and partisan gridlock to watch a California woman achieve a rare fantasy. The woman in question watched the sun rise as plain old Meghan Markle. But by the time it had set, she had become Her Royal Highness Meghan, Duchess of Sussex. (When she’s in Scotland, she’s the Countess of Dumbarton. In Ireland, she’s the first Baroness of Kilkeel. What did your grandmother-in-law...

On May 2, fire broke out at the Meridian Magnesium Products of America plant in Eaton Rapids, Michigan. The factory supplies components to Audi, BMW, Daimler, Fiat, GM, Tesla, Jaguar and Mercedes. But their most important product may be the die-cut radiator “front bolster” supports in Ford’s F-150 pickup. Workers pressure-feed molten magnesium into a mold, then rapidly cool it like Jell-O. And Meridian is the only factory that does it. No bolster, no truck. The fire has forced...

Baseball is back in swing, and several teams have already made it clear that they won’t be contending for playoff berths. The Cincinnati Reds are leading that sorry pack, the first team to lose 20 games in the season. But the Orioles, White Sox, and Rangers are all nipping at their heels. If any of them are serious about winning this year, it might be time to take a look at signing some free agents. Find an unhappy veteran, steal him away with a big salary and signing bonus, and maybe you’ll...

Everyone has a mental picture of what a tax professional or accountant looks like. Probably pretty boring, right? Dull. Predictable. Not quite smart enough to do useful work, like engineering. Definitely not slick enough for sales. Probably balding and paunchy, bleary-eyed from too many late nights at the office typing numbers into boxes on government forms. But that’s not always the case . . . so let’s take a look at a couple of fun stories that shatter that stereotype.   First,...

Baseball is back, even as some teams are looking at early-season snow days. My 12 year old twin hockey players are in their final year of little league and literally skated off the ice and on to the field for their first practice on Saturday. The new Phillies Field Boss Gabe Kapler is already taking major abuse because he is a stats geek- prepping spreadsheets to crunch numbers like WAR (Wins Above Replacement), BABIP (Batting Average on Balls In Play), and LWCT (Largest Wad of Chewing Tobacco)....

If you know me, you know I like rap music. Yep, may be the only accountant that can beat box and rhyme with the best of them. Love a great tax story about a rapper. Here is one you will find interesting.

Back in 1985, a group of ambitious lawmakers set out to reform the federal income tax code. House Ways & Means Chair Dan Rostenkowski introduced the legislation. (This was before he became inmate #25338-016 at the Oxford Federal Correctional Institution.) Congress held dozens of hearings, cast 29 roll call votes, and debated 111 amendments on philosophical questions like Dan Quayle’s proposal “to provide that the period during which an individual is in the United States competing...

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.) It already started with this weekend’s parade in Conshy. Faux-Irish saloons across America are tapping kegs of Guinness, pouring shots of Jameson, and covering their walls and ceilings in every Celtic cliche they can find: the shamrocks,...

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 failed) to cut the deduction from 100% to 50%. The Tax Reform Act of 1986 succeeded in that goal, and today’s business diner has probably switched from martinis to white wine. But old habits die hard...