The Cold War and the Income Tax legal fees. His troubles lead him to investigate the history of the income tax in the United States, and to write extensively on how the assumptions the IRS makes about how and when people earn income map poorly to the actual way a literary man like Wilson makes a living. He dives into the tax code and discovers that "[t]he question of what ought to be taxed and how much and which deductions ought to be allowed has reached a point of fine-spun complexity that — working in terms of a different set of values — recalls the far-fetched distinctions
Working Tax Credit significant levels of overpayments. In order to reduce the overpayment problem, the income disregard was raised tenfold from £2,500 to £25,000 with effect from 2006/07. Income for tax credit purposes is "in principle" assessed similarly to UK income tax. Thus 'income' (c/f 'taxable income') consists of what the individual receives from gross earned and unearned sources—less allowances for 'expenditures' that would reduce that income. But, unlike income tax, tax credits measure income based on family 'household', rather than the individuals within. Also the effect of "income disregard" —to mask large annual increases in resources from reassessment— weakens comparisons with a