Amnesties everywhere! Deliquent taxA tax is a mandatory payment or charge collected by local, state, and national governments from individuals or businesses to cover the costs of general government services, goods, and activities. payers always have the opportunity to try to negotiate with state officials, and informal arrangements waiving some of the penalties and fines are common. But desperate for cash, states are institutionalizing these programs and offering them frequently, so frequently that maybe people just expect another one to happen and don’t disclose. Woe to the law-abiding citizen.
- Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick (D) just signed a law to have a tax amnesty that will run from a yet-to-be-decided date and end by July 2010. The state’s last amnesty just ended in June, so I guess if you missed that one….
- New York hopes to raise $250 million with its just-passed amnesty, rejecting Governor David Paterson (D)’s call to slash aid to school districts (Paterson argues the districts have plenty of reserves).
- Ohio, which has several amnesty program since 2001, will have another one specifically for disclosures of overseas accounts. I wonder how much the state expects to get from Ohioans with secret Swiss and Cayman bank accounts and disclose them before March 1, 2010.
- Pennsylvania has released details about its amnesty program, which will run from April 26, 2010 to June 18, 2010. Sponsors think it might bring in as much as $1.6 billion.