Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Steve Hynd, August 16, 2012

After four years on the Typepad site, eight years total blogging, Newshoggers is closing it's doors today. We've been coasting the last year or so, with many of us moving on to bigger projects (Hey, Eric!) or simply running out of blogging enthusiasm, and it's time to give the old flying pig a rest.

We've done okay over those eight years, although never being quite PC enough to gain wider acceptance from the partisan "party right or wrong" crowds. We like to think we moved political conversations a little, on the ever-present wish to rush to war with Iran, on the need for a real Left that isn't licking corporatist Dem boots every cycle, on America's foreign misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We like to think we made a small difference while writing under that flying pig banner. We did pretty good for a bunch with no ties to big-party apparatuses or think tanks.

Those eight years of blogging will still exist. Because we're ending this typepad account, we've been archiving the typepad blog here. And the original blogger archive is still here. There will still be new content from the old 'hoggers crew too. Ron writes for The Moderate Voice, I post at The Agonist and Eric Martin's lucid foreign policy thoughts can be read at Democracy Arsenal.

I'd like to thank all our regular commenters, readers and the other bloggers who regularly linked to our posts over the years to agree or disagree. You all made writing for 'hoggers an amazingly fun and stimulating experience.

Thank you very much.

Note: This is an archive copy of Newshoggers. Most of the pictures are gone but the words are all here. There may be some occasional new content, John may do some posts and Ron will cross post some of his contributions to The Moderate Voice so check back.


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Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Ollie, ollie Oxen Free --- tax edition

By Dave Anderson:


Two pieces of news that may be related.  First, the IRS is offering lighter penalties and a grace period for the reparation of money parked overseas illegally:


International tax evaders who come clean will be able to avoid jail and pay reduced fines under a new voluntary disclosure program announced Tuesday by the Internal Revenue Service.


Tax cheats will have until Aug. 31 to settle up with the IRS or face an ongoing crackdown against Americans who hide assets overseas, IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman said.


And then there is this post by Bob Morris at Politics in the Zeros:



The HCR bill contains a rider that, by codifying and unifying recent case law, makes it much harder for tax shelters to avoid taxes. This may well explain why there is such fierce opposition to HCR from corporate interests. Their pet cash cows are getting gored. It has nothing to do with health care....


The new law provides �that, in the case of any transaction to which the economic substance doctrine is relevant� [.i.e a tax shelter],�the transaction shall be treated as having economic substance only if (i) the transaction changes in a meaningful way (apart from Federal income tax effects) the taxpayer�s economic position, and (ii) the taxpayer has a substantial purpose (apart from Federal income tax effects) for entering into the transaction...."


So, a tax shelter now *must* have economic substance. It must have a purpose other than federal tax reduction. Further, the IRS will challenge taxpayers who try to slide in under the old interpretations. Also, penalties have been increased from 20% to 40% for underpayment of tax liability.



Yes, the "economic substance" argument will keep plenty of lawyers fully employed, as well as their pet economists and expert witnesses, but this is significantly tougher than previous compliance rules. 


I am scratching my chin as I think these two policies are closely related.



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  1. Steve HyndFebruary 8, 2011 at 4:52 PM

    I wonder if the IRS has been looking on with interest as the British Inland Revenue has identified over 30 billion pounds a year in offshore tax cheating it now plans to collect.
    Regards, Steve

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