Late-night talk show host David Letterman delighted audiences with his wry, subversive “Top Ten” lists for an impressive 33 years. Since he left his show, BuzzFeed has taken over the listicle game. So here, in their honor, we present The Top 10 Taxing Words That (Sort Of) Rhyme With “Tax.” Drumroll, please!
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“Don’t Drive Angry!”
Three hundred sixty-four days out of the year, Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania is a sleepy one-horse town of 5,800 souls, nestled in the foothills of the Appalachians 84 miles northeast of Pittsburgh. But on that other glorious day of the year, it’s the center of the universe. On February 2, a mangy groundhog named Phil dons a top hat and comes out of his hole to look for his shadow. If he sees it, we’re doomed to six more weeks of winter. If not, spring is on its way.
Membership Has Its Privileges
Who wouldn’t want to join the 21st-century equivalent of those old-school clubs where stuffy men sit around in leather chairs reading the Wall Street Journal while white-jacked waiters keep them stocked with gin-and-tonics? But make no mistake about it, American Express is a business, and a profitable one at that. That means, behind the scenes, they sometimes cut a corner or two, including a little light tax fraud.
You Can’t Spell Crypto Without “Cry”
On January 3, 2009, an unknown figure calling himself Satoshi Nakamoto “mined” the first Bitcoin and launched a modern-day Gold Rush. Fifteen years later, there’s still no significant use case for cryptocurrency; wild price swings have failed to establish it as any sort of store of value, and a rogues’ gallery of actual rogues has hijacked, rug-pulled, swindled, and scammed millions of hapless “investors” across the globe. Most famously, crypto whiz kid Sam Bankman-Fried is arbitraging cans of tinned mackerel in the same prison where Epstein didn’t kill himself, while he appeals his conviction on federal fraud charges.
Cool Cats
Someday, accountants will be cool. I don’t just mean in the “Oh, you’re majoring in accounting, that’s cool” sense. I mean Steve-McQueen-cruising-through-Rome-on-a-Vespa cool. Someday, little kids who dream of growing up to be accountants will collect bubblegum cards with Big Four partners’ pictures on one side and detailed career stats on the back. (Tax dollars saved, by year! Endorses checks: right-handed!) When they get to high school, they’ll be as popular as the quarterback of the football team and the Homecoming Queen. (56.8% of CPAs are women.) Someday, cool college kids will skip fraternities to party with the Accounting Club.
2025 Tax Forecast
2025 promises to be a big year for taxes. Right now, the individual provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 set our current standard deductions and tax brackets. Those rules expire, like Cinderella’s carriage at midnight on December 31. At that point, if Washington hasn’t extended them, taxes go up for as much as 80% of Americans. That’s an unacceptable result for Democrats and Republicans alike. And it promises a bruising effort ahead as Congress weighs continuing the cuts against a $36 trillion national debt.