In A Good Tax, tax expert Joan Youngman skillfully considers how to improve the operation of the property tax and supply the information that is often missing in public debate. She analyzes the legal, administrative, and political challenges to the property tax in the United States and offers recommendations for its improvement. The book is accessibly written for policy analysts and public officials who are dealing with specific property tax issues and for those concerned with property tax issues in general.

An engaging and enlightening account of taxation told through lively, dramatic, and sometimes ludicrous stories drawn from around the world and across the ages Governments have always struggled to tax in ways that are effective and tolerably fair. Sometimes they fail grotesquely, as when, in 1898, the British ignited a rebellion in Sierra Leone by imposing a tax on huts—and, in repressing it, ended up burning the very huts they intended to tax. Sometimes they succeed astonishingly, as when, in eighteenth-century Britain, a cut in the tax on tea massively increased revenue. In this entertaining book, two leading authorities on taxation, Michael Keen and Joel Slemrod, provide a fascinating and informative tour through these and many other episodes in tax history, both preposterous and dramatic—from the plundering described by Herodotus and an Incan tax payable in lice to the (misremembered) Boston Tea Party and the scandals of the Panama Papers. Along the way, readers meet a colorful cast of tax rascals, and even a few tax heroes. While it is hard to fathom the inspiration behind such taxes as one on ships that tended to make them sink, Keen and Slemrod show that yesterday’s tax systems have more in common with ours than we may think. Georgian England’s window tax now seems quaint, but was an ingenious way of judging wealth unobtrusively. And Tsar Peter the Great’s tax on beards aimed to induce the nobility to shave, much like today’s carbon taxes aim to slow global warming. Rebellion, Rascals, and Revenue is a surprising and one-of-a-kind account of how history illuminates the perennial challenges and timeless principles of taxation—and how the past holds clues to solving the tax problems of today.

Taxpayer champion and enrolled agent Bonnie Lee puts the IRS under the microscope and uncovers proven methods, and surprisingly simple strategies to minimize your taxable income, maximize deductions, and, ultimately—add thousands back to your business’ bottom line! Do you owe an insurmountable sum to the IRS? Pay pennies on the dollar. Secret formula the IRS uses to determine an acceptable offer is revealed—Page 246 Save tax dollars simply by reorganizing your workspace—Page 17 Stuff tax dollars back into your pocket by fixing errors on your balance sheet—Page 50 Eat tax-free! Some meal expenses are 100 % deductible. Find out what qualifies—Page 56 Got a great hobby you’re turning into a bona fide business? Deduct the losses by following these guidelines—Page 99 Is your home office a red flag?—Page 107 You inherited Grandma’s house. Do you have to pay taxes on it?—Page 121 Can you write off your clothing?—Page 133 Under IRS audit? Learn “audit speak” to deal effectively with the IRS—Page 215

This is the book that made its author Henry George suddenly famous. From the year 1879 to the present the doctrines of 'Progress and Poverty' have been familiar to all who are interested in social problems. The book has been read by many to whom Political Economy is still 'the dismal science', and it has been circulated in cheap editions by the thousand among the classes to which it holds out such an alluring prospect. 'Progress and Poverty' has become a classic in labor literature. Its doctrines have been accepted not only by many who see in them a means of personal rescue from distress and want, but by many others who are convinced by the reasoning of the author. Clergymen , in the Catholic as well as in the Protestant church, have become Mr. George's disciples, and business and professional men have gladly sat at his feet.