SALT Speak – Joel Michael's blog

Welcome to My Blog

I’m a retired legislative analyst who worked for the Research Department of the Minnesota House of Representatives for over 40 years. WARNING: if you stumble on this blog and decide to read it, my posts are often long and always boring. Don’t say you weren’t warned.

I write mainly about the issues that I worked on:

  • Individual income taxes
  • Corporate income taxes
  • Tax exempt bonds
  • Tax increment financing
  • Tax expenditures
  • Pensions and retirement plan financing
  • State and local government finance
  • Legislative process and related legal issues

Campaign Tax Plans

I don’t see much of anything to like in the gubernatorial candidates’ tax proposals and positions. I hope none of their specific proposals become law, which seems likely given the very tight budget that the governor and legislature will face in the 2027 session.

Social Security Fixes

Reducing spousal benefits should be considered as part of the policy debate to shore up social security’s funding.

Potpourri

This post is a dump of a few federal tax items that have recently caught my attention.

Trump v. IRS Update

In the latest installment of this ongoing saga, the Eleventh Circuit denied the plaintiffs’ motion for a stay of Judge Williams’ order (prior post) sanctioning Trump’s attorneys and prohibiting them from referring to it as a settlement agreement. The decision was unanimous (of the three judges two were Obama appointees and one Trump). Politico story.…

Citizenship Qs

Tax administration animated by ideology rather than revenue collection


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