Free beer for customers. Body oil as a work expense. Do you know what people across America are being allowed to write off on their taxes?
From Townhall Magazine's EXCLUSIVE April feature, "The Most Outrageous Tax Looopholes," by Helen Whalen-Cohen:
It’s April, which means Americans are thinking about taxes. While Townhall is not opposed to people keeping their own money in the form of tax credits and deductions, we feel the tax code in its current form is so complex that it can be used to manipulate the marketplace, sometimes for political gain. Right now, the tax code is ripe for constituency-pleasing write-offs, leaving everyone else to bear the burden. We’re all for taking the tax breaks available to you, but do we really need such a complicated code—which allows for some of these outrageous breaks—in the first place? Until the United States implements much-needed reform, Americans will keep lumbering along, paying for each other’s behavior and spending 7.6 billion hours per year to comply with the country’s onerous tax code, according to the National Taxpayer Union.
Outrageous Tax Loopholes:
Here’s just a few of the most outrageous tax loopholes we selected ...
--In Oklahoma, a tax court ruled in favor of a gas station owner who gave his customers free beer and wrote it off as a business expense, according to Turbo Tax.
--The IRS already permits individuals to deduct the expense of birth control, which means that religious individuals have already been paying for other people’s behavior that violates their conscience.
--A California man availed himself of a casualty loss deduction aft er totaling his car while driving drunk. According to AllBusiness.com, a U.S. Tax Court ruled to vacate his income tax deficiency after he wrote off the $33,629 for the damage caused by his accident.
--The public sector unions protesting their loss of collective bargaining privileges in Arizona (and all other states) can take comfort in the fact that their dues are still tax-deductible.
Get the complete list by ordering the April issue of Townhall Magazine.
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