Taxes

Tax Day Specials in Broward and Palm Beach

Today is April 15, the annual deadline to file your income tax returns. Though there's really no one who actually likes filing taxes (let's face it -- even if you get a refund, the fact that you have to save a shoebox of receipts each year is enough to kill any joy derived from the fact Uncle Same h ... More >>

The Entire State of Florida Is Going to Jail For Tax Evasion

Monday is the last day to file your taxes. Have you filed them? Probably not. Because, according to a report, Floridians are filing slower than usual this year. This could be a mistake, Plantation spokesman for the Internal Revenue Service, Mike Dobzinski says. Because last-minute crunch-time filin ... More >>

Forget Taxes; File Laughter

Fiscal Cliff Deal Will Give Floridians a Break, According to Report

Remember when the House voted for a fiscal cliff bill way back when three days ago? Sure, this might mean some money being taken from your paychecks. But according to a Sun Sentinel report, Florida is one of the big winners in the whole fiscal cliff bill thing. According to the report, Florida ta ... More >>

Marco Rubio Voted No on Fiscal Cliff Bill

On the first ay of the brand new year, the House voted 257-167 to approve the Senate bill that would avoid major tax hikes and spending cuts and keep us all from falling over the so-called "fiscal cliff," which would've been a terrible way to start 2013. The GOPers wanted to amend the Senate's bill ... More >>

Federal Tax Loopholes: They're Like a Mafia Protection Scheme Where Big Corporations Profit

Rubio's Wrong: Tax the Olympians

La-dee-dah, Sen. Marco Rubio doesn't think the money Olympians get paid for winning should be taxed. As our colleagues in Miami point out this morning, Rubio has proposed that the prize money ($25,000 for gold, less for silver and bronze) given to winning athletes should be exempt from taxation. It ... More >>

Allen West Aimlessly Blubbering, Lying About How Obama Is Incompetent and Hates Free Enterprise

In a move I wish was slightly more surprising, Congressman Allen West has posted another petulant Facebook message that includes an entire Wall Street Journal column he didn't write."It seems the inept community organizer has failed. A second term? One must be stuck on stupid!" he wrote. "It is ... More >>

Mandy Dawson Gets Six Months for Tax Evasion

Though former Fort Lauderdale legislator Mandy Dawson said in April that "no different than any other person walking the streets of America" with tax problems, she's certainly different from people walking the streets now: She'll be locked up.Dawson was sentenced to six months in prison today a ... More >>

Allen West Not Paying Payroll Taxes on Campaign Workers

Congressman Allen West's campaign isn't paying its taxes.The question, however, is if it owes any. A review of campaign finance disclosure documents shows West has spent well over $300,000 since the beginning of 2012 on consulting, staffers, and costs directly associated with his staff. But, while D ... More >>

Broward Woman Steals Identities of Active U.S. Marines, Nearly Scams $50K

As far as identity thieves go, Coral Springs resident Dorothy Boulin is among the scummiest.Last week, Boulin was sentenced to five years in prison and three years probation for running a scam that pilfered the social security numbers of U.S. Marines and filed fraudulent tax claims in their names.Co ... More >>

Feds Nab Broward and Miami Identity Thieves Who Scammed Nearly $10 Million From IRS

Another day in South Florida, another multi-million-dollar scam collapsing. This time around federal officials working with the Broward Sheriff Office arrested Ft. Lauderdale resident Alci Bonannee and several others for filing more than 1,000 bogus tax documents that yielded $9.5 million in re ... More >>

Allen West Launches First Attack on Patrick Murphy

The ugliness has started. Sort of.Until now, Congressman Allen West has remained almost silent when it came to actually having an opponent in the race for the District 19 congressional seat -- though Democrat Patrick Murphy followed him up there after West bailed on District 22 for friendlier demogr ... More >>

Five Lies Allen West Told on Mark Levin's Radio Show Friday Night

Allen West has been getting a lot of bad press lately -- news outlets across the country, including this one, latched onto his declaration that "there are 78 to 81 members of the Democrat Party that are members of the Communist Party."He's since moved past that assertion and onto the (slightly) ... More >>

Oceans 234 Shows Love for Tax Professionals With Free Bar Tab Today

Tax day is tomorrow, April 17, and whether we owe money or are getting a refund, most of us can agree that the tax accountant, relentlessly figuring out tax rules and punching numbers on a calculator, usually gets no love... until now.Oceans 234 in Deerfield Beach has heard the plight of the tax ... More >>

You Might Want to File Tax Returns This Year: The IRS's $1 Billion It Owes Americans

​​We've only got about a month left before 2011 federal income taxes are due (April 17, everybody), and, even if you didn't make enough money to require filing a return, the IRS says you might want to.Many people who don't have to file returns still have federal income taxes out of their paychec ... More >>

Allen West Uses Ben-Hur to Vaguely Defend Regressive Tax Plan

​If you were wondering, Congressman Allen West supports the flat tax. If you want to know why, though, it has, ah, something to do with Charlton Heston.West posted a video of himself speaking on the House floor last week under the title, "Why the Flat Tax Works." It's a curious title, because he d ... More >>

How to Cook the Books: Eight Ways Larry Tibbs Allegedly Screwed Up Lauderdale Lakes Budget Projections

​It should be noted up-front that Larry Tibbs hasn't had a chance to respond to the charges lined up in a Broward Inspector General report leaked yesterday -- he has 30 days to submit a rebuttal, which he said yesterday he fully planned to do.But the allegations of wild mismanagement in Lauderdale ... More >>

Newt Gingrich Says Nobody Cares About the Right to Privacy, Challenges Obama to 21 Hours of Debates

​Newt Gingrich's stump speech at Wings Plus in Coral Springs had a lot of meat to it -- he criticized President Barack Obama's State of the Union speech, made fun of the media, and was heckled mercilessly for the first half of the event by a protester who was eventually booted from the parking lot ... More >>

PolitiFact: Where "We Have No Way of Knowing" Turns Into "Mostly False"

wildmanhangout.com​Who fact-checks the fact-checkers?The Pulitzer Prize-winning analysts of political statements over at PolitiFact -- a project of the St. Petersburg Times -- ran a pretty curious rundown of one of President Obama's statements this week.The claim: "Some billionaires have a tax ... More >>

Two of South Florida's Fortune 500 Companies Land on List of "Corporate Tax Dodgers"

Good one, Mr. Moneybags.​Out of the five Fortune 500 companies based in South Florida, two of them managed to bank on a negative tax rate over the past three years, earning them a spot on a list of the country's "corporate tax dodgers."Citizens for Tax Justice issued the report evaluating 280 comp ... More >>

Allen West Interview: Florida Tea Party Favorite Talks About Islam and Donald Trump (Part 2)

​Read the first installment of the Allen West interview here.New Times: Let's talk about the Ryan budget [introduced by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin)], which you supported in the House. [This proposal was passed by the House and at presstime was awaiting a vote in the Senate, although House leader ... More >>

Florida Prisoners Lead The Nation in Tax Fraud

​Florida is number one again. The state that holds the championship belt in oxycodone consumption now leads the U.S. in fraudulent tax returns filed from prison. Perhaps our prisoners are trying to emulate the leadership traits of Captain Medicaid Fraud, aka Gov. Rick Scott. Florida inmates filed ... More >>

Florida Among Top Three States Targeted for a New Form of Identity Theft

flickr.com​How low can you go? Apparently six feet under wasn't low enough for the Fort Lauderdale man sentenced to nine years in federal prison last Friday for stealing identification from mourners attending funerals as part of an ID theft ring. But Diaz's funeral fraud ring isn't the only s ... More >>

Whose Dole Is It, Anyway?

Kristin Haynes, Millionaire Creator of "Dreamsicles" Figurines, Sentenced for Tax Evasion

We must be in the wrong business. Looks like the big money is in knickknacks, trinkets, and doodads. According to court documents in a federal criminal case, Kristin Haynes, creator of the Dreamsicles line of collectible ceramic figurines (like the one pictured here) raked in nearly $3 mil ... More >>

Rick Scott Property Tax Calculator Ignores Small Fact: Florida Law

​GOP candidate for governor Rick Scott released this pretty snazzy new website on Friday: It's a property tax calculator that figures out a Floridian's tax if Scott gets elected versus Democratic opponent Alex Sink. There's just one problem with his site: It ignores the Florida Constitution.Scott' ... More >>

Charity President Says Agency Isn't Ducking Investigator

Flickr: itbe-GregDid Deerfield Beach's housing dollars go down the drain?​Felecia Poitier, president of a charity being investigated by Deerfield Beach for its management of housing funds, denied allegations that her agency has not cooperated fully with auditors, blaming delays on the time-consumi ... More >>

Deerfield Housing Charity Owes Nearly $150,000 in Delinquent Taxes

A nonprofit organization in Deerfield Beach under investigation for mishandling tax dollars has failed to pay taxes on any of six properties for at least five years, according to records released to Juice this afternoon. The Westside Deerfield Businessmen Association stands to lose all six propertie ... More >>

GlobeTel CEO Indicted

courtesy GlobeTel​A couple of years ago, we ran a feature story about GlobeTel, a company that was supposedly going to deploy blimp-like satellites across the country and beam down internet signals. There were a few problems with the scheme: building hi-tech airships seemed a job more suited for b ... More >>

Michael and Victoria Meisner Earn Wrath of Unpaid Taxman

Photobucket This wasn't the Meisner's place, but theirs was a similar Palm Beach mansion​Following a Rothsteinesque money scheme, Boca's white collar Bonnie and Clyde are finally facing the music. This week, Victoria Meisner made her first appearence before a judge, answering charges of fil ... More >>

Bueller? Pines Leaders Fumble Tax Calculations

Flickr user: HeneghanCan you calculate your tax hike?​Pack City Hall with more than 150 angry citizens and any governing body would get a bit anxious. But at Wednesday night's budget hearing, the Pembroke Pines city commissioners appeared to be auditioning for Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? An ... More >>

Plantation Accountant, Firm Barred From Filing Taxes for Clients

In a deal that will have to come with a career change, Carole Exantus of Plantation accepted a permanent injunction against filing tax returns on clients' behalf in order to settle a case with U.S. Justice Department attorneys who had sued her for fraud. From the release:The court found that [Exantu ... More >>

Cigarette Smokers Burned By New Tax; Cigar Aficionados Blow Celebratory Rings

flickr.com While cigarette smokers will now pay a dollar per pack more, the legislature gave the cigar industry a break. A new state-wide dollar-per-pack tax on cigarettes and smokeless and pipe tobacco starts today. The stated goal from the legislature is to encourage smokers to stop. If ... More >>

Florida: Where It's Good to be a Smoker, Bad to be a Lung

Smoke up, Florida! Kentucky raised their state taxes on cigarettes and booze yesterday. Residents will now pay 60 cents in state taxes per pack of cigarettes. So there's good news and bad news for Floridians. This means that the nation's two biggest tobacco-producing states, Kentucky and N ... More >>

Schoolkids, State Workers: You're All Under the Bus for Tax-Shy Legislature

Our Florida legislators have some budget-cutting to do, but they also need to improve the state's education system, which is fast becoming a national embarrassment. This will take some creativity. Republicans, as the majority party, you're up.flhouse.govAdam HasnerAdam Hasner, Republican from Delray ... More >>

Pulp O' The Mornin'

Ellen Dalton Keeps On Ticking

DeGroot On The Big Pump Thump

Heartbreak Hotel

It's the end of an era on Hollywood Beach, where small, cheap motels are all that stand in the way of another playground for the wealthy

For All You Political Junkies ...

DeGroot DePants DeSentinel

When Is A Correction Not Enough?

Sheriff's Atty: Sun-Sentinel Story On Jenne Was Bogus

Curious George Sails the River of Red

Following a long tradition, new Fort Lauderdale City Manager George Gretsas tries to tame the big spenders at City Hall

The Big Lie

Is the North Broward Hospital District playing a shell game with tax dollars?

The Hypocritic Oath

Weston only the start of hospital district chicanery

Annexation Vexation

The plan to bring Broward County's poor areas into the fold is full of holes

The People's Republic of Area A

A group of neighborhood leaders prepares to declare independence and start Broward's first black-majority city

Definitely in My Back Yard

When the residents of Mangonia Park heard that a girls' detention center might be built in their town, they put out the welcome mat