Joe Bishop-Henchman 🗽💸⚖️🚆 Profile picture
Husband to @ejbishoph. Executive VP @ntuf Taxpayer Defense Center. jbh@ntu.org. Adjunct @catoinstitute. Board @RaineyCenter. Advisory Bd @tax. Also @joe5f6
Sep 1, 2023 • 18 tweets • 3 min read
Really awful stuff.

I've had a lot of people reach out to me in the past couple weeks, as evidence of LNC mismanagement continues to accumulate and the mask continues to slip about their real, awful strategy. They want to know what I think, given I was formerly associated. It's so weird reading these documents. They get so close! Correctly identifying that things are broken, even coming up with logical steps to address them. But then they skip over the obvious flashing "stop doing nazi stuff" and "stop empowering toxic people" at the core.
Mar 25, 2023 • 15 tweets • 9 min read
Ethan and I are in Poland after spending much of the week in Kyiv, where I was among 20 international experts invited by the Office of President Zelenskyy and the governing Servant of the People party to advise on a tax and anti-corruption reform package they are developing. I'm grateful that our group - which included experts and officials from Bulgaria, Lithuania, the UK, and the World Bank - had a number of meetings with executive officials and MPs culminating in a day-long 500-person summit on the proposed legislative package.
Jan 3, 2023 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
We are getting these various camera angles today because C-SPAN is controlling the cameras. Once a Speaker is chosen, they clamp down and have their people control the cameras instead.

C-SPAN always asks to keep control after the first day and is always rejected. Here are their letters to Boehner and Pelosi, for instance, urging more flexibility beyond just shots of a person at the podium and the wide shots of the whole room.

static.c-spanvideo.org/assets/documen…

static.c-spanvideo.org/assets/documen…
Jan 3, 2023 • 20 tweets • 1 min read
Three people have been nominated for speaker:

Kevin McCarthy (R-CA)
Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY)
Andy Biggs (R-AZ) Biggs votes for Biggs
Jan 1, 2023 • 9 tweets • 12 min read
2022 is over! It was a busy year:

-My argument struck down a $500 million tax in Washington state, and altogether NTU/NTUF saved $5 billion taxes and $100 billion in spending

-Promoted at work to be EVP of @NTUF , where we set records this year Image @NTUF -Visited the UK for the Jubilee, where we lunched with Dr. McCloskey, I took Ethan to the Prime Meridian and we came back from Scotland with COVID (but got to hang out with Lawrence and Gabriel and Adam Smith) ImageImage
Jul 18, 2022 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
I often think about how the seven Lincoln-Douglas debates were 3 hours long:

-One candidate for 60 minutes
-The other candidate responds for 90 minutes
-The first candidate replies for 30 minutes

Each debate was on one issue (mainly the extension of slavery to the territories). What we call political debates today are really simultaneous press conferences - give shallow 30- or 60-second answers, avoid gaffes, and have a great soundbite burn on the other candidate.

I'm not convinced this process successfully chooses the best leaders.
May 19, 2022 • 14 tweets • 3 min read
GOOD NEWS FOR TAXPAYERS TODAY

Background: In 2021, Congress passed the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), which included $219 billion in extra aid to states.

ARPA included a provision banning states from "directly or indirectly" using the $ to cut state taxes.

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The Treasury Department has issued regulations explaining that states will need to submit documentation to the federal government explaining any revenue reductions, and if Treasury determines the explanation unsatisfactory, the money will be recouped from the state.

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May 19, 2022 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Because Germany lost World War I so they deposed their German King-designate and went with a Republic instead en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Fr…
May 5, 2022 • 30 tweets • 11 min read
Today in history: a French military defeat.

1/ Cinco de Mayo is not Mexico's Independence Day (that's in September) but the anniversary of the Battle of Puebla, won by the Mexicans over the French on May 5, 1862.

Oddly it celebrates a victory, that was followed by almost total defeat for years, then by complete victory.

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Apr 7, 2022 • 34 tweets • 8 min read
The U.S. Senate Finance Committee has gaveled in, for an oversight hearing on the IRS Commissioner.

I'll share any notable comments or insights from the hearing here!

Watch the hearing live here:
finance.senate.gov/hearings/the-i… We shared a number of suggestions and ideas for how the IRS can make the tax filing season less horrible for taxpayers:

ntu.org/foundation/det…
Dec 7, 2021 • 50 tweets • 16 min read
On December 7, 1941, the New York Central railroad unveiled sleek new streamlined equipment for its Empire State Express between New York City and Buffalo.

Railroad executives picked a Sunday for the launch in hopes of grabbing that day's headlines.

They were scooped...

1/ By 1941, Japan was four years into its "China Incident" in which Japanese troops seized most of eastern China.

(Japan never referred to its invasion of China as a war; war now violated international law after Japan and most nations signed the Kellogg-Briand Pact in 1928-29.)

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Dec 6, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Carole Vilardo, former president of the Nevada Taxpayers Association, has passed away at the age of 80.

Carole is more responsible than anyone else for the sane parts of Nevada's tax system. For decades she showed up to legislative hearings to argue for common sense...

1/ ...and wearing her trademark hats. She praised good ideas and called BS when she saw it, regardless of who it came from and that earned everyone's respect. She had perfect recall of every proposal and utterance in three decades of legislative sessions.

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Oct 28, 2021 • 40 tweets • 13 min read
The 1,684 page Build Back Better bill: rules.house.gov/sites/democrat…

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Sorry had to get through 1,000 pages of spending provisions
Sep 13, 2021 • 75 tweets • 12 min read
What's in the House Dem budget bill draft that's circulating in DC? (NEAL_032.XML) Page 525:
Section 138101 returns the corporate income tax to a graduated rate:

18% on income up to $400,000
21% on income between $400,000 and $5 million
26.5% on income above $5 million

Surtax on corporations with taxable income above $10 million: lesser of 3% or $287,000.
Sep 11, 2021 • 109 tweets • 27 min read
Never forget

(all times Eastern)

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6:00 am – Mohammed Atta and Abdulaziz al-Omari fly from Portland, Maine to Boston Logan International Airport. They land at 6:45.

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Sep 3, 2021 • 18 tweets • 4 min read
You're all in luck! I have the one last thing you can read before you start your Labor Day weekend.

The IRS has issued a goofy notice that I had to triple-check before I believed that it actually means what it says...

ntu.org/foundation/det…

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Here's the conclusion first, then I'll explain:

A small business that has a majority owner who works in the business (think, many family businesses) cannot take advantage of the COVID-relief Employee Retention Tax Credit (ERTC) if that person has any living relatives.

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Sep 3, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
They've existed for some time - Moderna completed its Phase 2 trial of a Delta booster in May 2021 - but the FDA has been dragging its feet. NYT article today mentions, as an aside, that the FDA is squabbling with Moderna about the right dosage for a booster and wants more studies

Health Officials Advise White House to Scale Back Booster Plan for Now nyti.ms/2WRCrAr
Aug 14, 2021 • 39 tweets • 12 min read
On the afternoon of August 14, 1945, a D.C. police officer pulled over a car for making an illegal U-turn. After ten minutes, the driver was allowed to proceed.

1/ The driver was an RCA messenger, and he was delivering a radiogram to the Swiss Embassy containing Japan's acceptance of the Allied surrender terms.

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Jul 6, 2021 • 33 tweets • 6 min read
Of the 6,000 to 8,000 cases appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court each year, fewer than a hundred are accepted. In nearly all the denials, the Court simply states the appeal has been denied with no further comment.

That didn't happen on June 28 with one obscure case.

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That day the Court denied 129 appeals that had been submitted to it. It is rare but not unusual for a justice to write a long statement taking their colleagues to task for declining to hear a case.

That's what Justice Thomas did that day in Standing Akimbo v. United States.

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Jul 5, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Good morning. In less than an hour, aircraft from here will join others from around the world. And you will be launching the largest aerial battle in this history of mankind.
Mankind -- that word should have new meaning for all of us today. We can't be consumed by our petty differences anymore.
We will be united in our common interests.
Perhaps its fate that today is the 4th of July, and you will once again be fighting for our freedom, not from tyranny, oppression, or persecution -- but from annihilation.
Mar 1, 2021 • 22 tweets • 4 min read
On Friday, NTUF filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in an important donor privacy and tax administration case. I was honored to co-author the brief with Barnaby Zall of the Public Policy Legal Institute

ntu.org/foundation/det…

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The case, which will be argued this spring, involves a 2010 demand by then-California Attorney General Kamala Harris that non-profit organizations seeking to solicit donations in California first submit IRS Form 990 Schedule B, an obscure tax form that lists donors.

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