In the first half of this last December, Governor Jay Inslee proposed a new tax plan designed to generate funding for basic education. The plan is responsive to a recent state court opinion which held that funding for K-12 education in Washington must come from the state rather than local districts.
The Tariff Which Shook History
As has been noted previously, substantive changes in tax policy are often closely tied to big changes in the social order. And the tie is not unidirectional, resulting solely from a tendency for tax measures to provoke heated reaction from a population. Sometimes a social change – such as a war –
How Trump’s Tax Plan Will Affect Individuals
The election of Donald Trump to our nation's highest political office is undoubtedly one of the most surprising developments in U.S. history. This is a purely factual observation, completely removed from any sort of partisan bias. Many reliable polls taken just prior to the election showed Clinton
Thought of the Day: What’s in a Tax?
What's in a tax? Divested of all misleading associations and stripped of any false labels, what does a tax truly represent? In these last several months, Huddleston Tax Weekly has covered a wide range of topics. We've looked at tax measures from eras far removed from our own: we've examined the
A Note on the Capital Gains Tax
As the previous installment of Huddleston Tax Weekly made clear, our tax code draws a distinction between ordinary income and capital gains. In general, ordinary income is income derived throughout the course of running a business or trade; capital gains result from the sale of a “capital asset”
Taxation in the Confederacy
Taxation in the Confederate States of America is a subject not often studied by either professional academics or laypeople. This is not at all surprising: there is a natural tendency to avoid giving deep attention to things considered deplorable, and since the legacy of the Confederacy is construed
A Quick Look at the Tea Act of 1773
It has been noted before on Huddleston Tax Weekly that there is a strong tendency in contemporary society to associate taxes with things which are mundane, dull and boring. We’ve also noted that these associations are based on the conditions of our society at the present moment and would make little
How War Shaped Modern U.S. Taxation
The idea that war has in some sense impacted tax policy throughout our nation’s history should strike no one as being controversial. War and taxes have always had a close relationship, not only within the United States but across the whole globe. In fact, it is probably the case that taxes have