Category / Internal Revenue Service

by Hoosier Econ

Texas Ranch For Sale: $725 Million or Best Offer

Per Associated Press:

One of the largest ranches in the U.S. and an icon for Texas horse and cattlemen has been listed for $725 million, marking the end of a decades-long courtroom battle among the heirs of cattle baron W.T. Waggoner, who established the estate in 1923.

The estate includes the 510,000-acre ranch spread over six North Texas counties, with two main compounds, hundreds of homes, about 20 cowboy camps, hundreds of quarter-horses, thousands of heads of cattle, 1,200 oil wells and 30,000 acres of cultivated land, according to Dallas-based broker Bernie Uechtritz, who is handling the sale along with broker Sam Middleton of Lubbock.

I did a little calculating on what a 30 Year Mortgage would be on this property if you put a $30 Million dollar downpayment on it and secured a loan for 4.25%. Your monthly payments would be just a shade over $3.4 Million a month.

by Hoosier Econ

Indiana’s Neighbor Illinois Needs To Mow Their Lawn

Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services again has threatened the state of Illinois to get their financial mess in order or else it will downgrade their bond ratings. Once you are downgraded, your borrowing rates go up making it more expensive to borrow. That means more of their yearly budget will be diverted to paying off interest and debt.

The credit rating agency affirmed the state’s worst-in-the-nation A- bond rating, but its outlook, which had been raised to “developing” earlier this year after enactment of pension reforms, went back to negative.
That means that the state’s credit rating could be downgraded within the next two years unless its finances improve, S&P said. A lower credit rating translates into higher borrowing costs.

Illinois biggest issue is their health pension system which is not sound financially. The Illinois Supreme Court recently had this to say:

“The Illinois Supreme Court was clear in its opinion that the health insurance subsidies paid by the state for retiree health care are a benefit derived from membership in a state pension plan and therefore subject to the Illinois Constitution,” S&P said.

S&P has stated that if the state comes to together for serious reform, then it would most likely revisit upgrading their status. Illinois has a big backlog of bills that already need paid and their most recent budget enacted will produce more deficits. They have used many gimmicks to reassure vendors/creditors in collecting tax revenue while doing bad borrowing schemes in the form of borrowing against future sales tax revenue.

I do not see Illinois changing its bad habits anytime soon.

by Hoosier Econ

Indiana 2012 IRS Data by Zip Code/County

IRS released data tax filings for 2012 from across the United States and showed the breakdown by both zipcode and county for states. The IRS does produce good data reports throughout the years that shows how people move and in out of income brackets. In reality, this usually debunks a lot of political talking points like “the poor” and “income inequality”. Many data numbers the IRS have garnished from people filing taxes is the movement of incomes and tax brackets that are achieved.

I looked at the tax filings by zip code only so far. Found some interesting stats for the state of Indiana. Here is what I found for the year 2012:

– 2,992,840 returns filed

– The top 3 returns filed by zip code were 1) 46143(Greenwood) 24,340   2) 46227(Marion County/Perry Township) 26,280   3)46307(Crown Point) 30,070

– State wide returns filed by salary:

58k returns were $200k or more

261k returns were $100-$200K

240k returns were $75-$100K

373k returns were $50-$75k

1.59 million returns were $50k or less

– 49,000 farms were filed on tax returns

– Just over 1 Million of the returns showed payments from either Social Security benefits or Annuities/Pensions.

 

Like I said, many more numbers were in the data and the county breakdown I didn’t even research…..yet. But enjoy the digging in.

by Hoosier Econ

U.S. House Votes to Cut IRS Budget

While I personally would like to see Lois Lerner criminally arrested for lying to Congress and pulling her “my e-mails” disappeared, I will take this small victory being reported by the AP:

The GOP-controlled House has voted to slash the budget for the Internal Revenue Service’s tax enforcement division by $1.2 billion, a 25 percent cut that would mean fewer audits of taxpayers and make it more likely that people who cheat on their taxes will get away with it. The House approved the cuts by voice vote after little debate Monday night as it took up a $21 billion spending bill that sets the IRS budget.

The IRS doesn’t need reform, it needs to be gutted. The pipe dreams of little fixes hear and there is over. Replace the IRS with a new tax code like the Fairtax.

Unfortunately the Senate led by Harry Reid will not act on this and just table it. More bad news, in a few years the IRS will be full tilt Obamacare enforcement so I would expect more scandals of bigger proportion then Lois Lerner.