Surveys show that most Americans would rather be caught naked in public than face a tax audit. So, what sort of knucklehead goes ahead and asks the IRS to audit him? Then actually takes them to court when they say no? Fashion designer Georges Marciano left his native Marseilles with his brothers Armand, Paul, and [...]

Monday marked the official celebration of George Washington’s Birthday — commonly called Presidents’ Day — and a grateful nation celebrated with fireworks, parades, and half-off sales at outlet malls throughout the land. (You may have missed the fireworks and parades, but the sales were hard to avoid!) Washington served long before the lawmakers working in [...]

Monday was Valentine’s Day. Most of us celebrated the occasion with flowers or chocolate. But a small group of mob enthusiasts marked it as the 82nd anniversary of the infamous “Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre,” when Al Capone’s “Outfit” gunned down seven members of rival Bugs Moran’s North Side Irish gang, in a garage at 2212 [...]

Sunday night marked the 45th installment of America’s annual salute to all things hype. Celebrities! Concerts! Commercials! If you looked hard enough, you might have even found a pretty good football game. The day before the game, the Wall Street Journal weighed in with the kind of observation you’d expect them to make — specifically, [...]

Punxsutawney Phil came out of his hole this morning, as he does on every February 2, with a winter-weary nation paying extra-close attention this year. Did the fearless 15-pound forecaster see his shadow or not? Are we really stuck with six more long weeks of winter? According to stormfax.com, Phil’s forecasts are right just 39% [...]

Tax breaks come and tax breaks go. In today’s era of trillion-dollar deficits, even sacred cows like the mortgage interest deduction have come under fire. But one longtime tax break appears to remain safe, even as lawmakers gradually chip away at it. That’s the deduction for medical and dental expenses. The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates [...]

Basketball superstar LeBron James has been making history since high school, when the Cleveland Cavaliers selected him as the number one pick in the 2003 NBA draft. James signed his first endorsement deal for $90 million from Nike before making his professional debut. Since then, he’s racked up a slew of All-Star and MVP appearances. [...]

Recent years have brought us a steady stream of financial cheats, frauds, and scams. Bernard Madoff, of course. Rotting in jail. The guys who brought us Enron. Rotting in jail. Bernard Ebbers, head of WorldCom. Rotting in jail. And… Uncle Sam? That’s right, our own beloved Uncle Sam is arguably as guilty of “cooking the [...]

After years of “hitting the snooze button, they finally did it! That’s right — the lame-duck Congress passed the “Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Authorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010.” President Obama wasted no time signing it. We get a little tax relief in our holiday stockings — and this year, just about everyone is [...]

As 2010 draws to a close, most of us are preparing to take time off and enjoy friends and family. But there’s one famous name who works harder than everyone else this time of year — everyone’s favorite fat man in a red suit, Santa Claus.