Zell's legacy lives on: IRS goes after Tribune

By the time the final papers are shuffled, the IRS and local tax authorities are likely to seek more than half a billion dollars from Tribune in regard to the sales of the Chicago Cubs and Newsday under former CEO Sam Zell.

FORTUNE -- Sam Zell is gone from the Tribune Co., but his toxic financial legacy lives on. Not only did his debt-fueled purchase of one of the nation's biggest MORE

Ultra-low interest rates are making bonds unsafe

Sooner or later, interest rates are going to rise sharply from current levels. And that'll hurt.

FORTUNE -- What do you call a supposedly safe investment in which a five-week hiccup can wipe out more than a year of income? Answer: a bond mutual fund.

Yes, that sounds extreme, if not demented. But it's true—as I'll show you in a bit, using numbers from the nation's biggest mutual fund, Pimco Total Return, MORE

6-step guide to dodging taxes just like Apple

Tax avoidance works beautifully -- and legally -- for Apple and other multinationals. Why not make it work for you?

FORTUNE -- It's faddish -- and fun -- these days to talk about the income taxes that Apple does or doesn't pay. Hey, as we learned this week from a Senate report and hearings, Apple's tax strategems are even slicker than its products are. Many of them involve the "intellectual property" MORE

This country needs another financial crisis

No one wants to go back to the brink, but honestly, what have our nation's leaders learned since the last near-collapse?

FORTUNE -- Almost a century ago Thomas Marshall, Woodrow Wilson's Vice President, got tired of listening to senators blather on about the nation's needs and uttered the words that made him immortal: "What this country needs is a good five-cent cigar." Today, with 24/7 blathering as our national political pastime, MORE

The problem with Obama's retirement proposal (redux)

If it's fair to limit taxpayers' expense for retirement money being set aside by "the rich," it's vastly more fair to limit taxpayers' expense for Obama's own package.

FORTUNE -- It's a lot of fun to be able to make what you think are clear, simple points about the difference between what people in power propose for the likes of you and me, and what they get for themselves.

But every once MORE

Obama has a sweet retirement package. Will you?

No one says the President doesn't deserve his benefits. But it's hard to get past his plan to limit savers to half the value of what he'll walk away with.

FORTUNE -- President Obama's proposal to limit the value of 401(k)s, pensions, and other tax-favored retirement accounts to about $3.4 million certainly sounds reasonable. After all, at a time of big budget deficits, we shouldn't subsidize "the rich" with tax breaks, MORE

Apple proves that a lower corporate tax rate won't matter

A lower corporate tax rate won't deter companies from playing tax and accounting games. Just look at Apple's math.

FORTUNE -- There's a widely shared idea that if the U.S. reduced its corporate income tax rate to 25% from the current 35%, big corporations would stop playing tax games. They would then pour all their attention into profit-making rather than allocating a ton of talent to tax avoidance, and we would MORE

4 years after the stock market bottom, the biggest winners

Stocks have added $11.3 trillion in value, or 138%, since the market bottomed four years ago. That's an annual compounded return of more than 26%.

FORTUNE -- It's so much fun to own stocks these days, with the Dow Industrials and Wilshire 5000 index setting one new high after another, and the Standard & Poor's 500 within 1% of doing the same. Watching the value of your portfolio rise is such MORE

The hidden tax Washington doesn't want you to know

Two new charges may not affect middle-class taxpayers now, but left unchecked, they will.

FORTUNE -- Okay, middle-class taxpayers: Listen up. Our national government in Washington is screwing you again. This time the screwing involves the way that two new income tax surcharges, supposedly designed to affect only the "rich," will reach deeper and deeper into the middle class unless something is done now to rein them in.

I'm talking about the MORE

How Apple should deal with its cash: Go with the Flo

Progressive has an intelligent, rational, and transparent way to deal with the surplus cash that its operations generate. Apple doesn't.

FORTUNE -- The folks at Apple could learn a lot from Progressive Corp., the auto insurance company made famous by the ubiquitous Flo, star of its endless flow of ads.

Apple doesn't need help from Progressive when it comes to selling products. But Apple could really profit by studying how Progressive deals MORE