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Although the tax bill that Congress enacted last week was sold as a simplification measure, it created a bunch of new wrinkles for Americans trying to figure out how much they owe the federal government and why. This week’s confusion over prepayment of property taxes shows how even a step in the right direction—in this case, limiting a deduction that favors the wealthiest taxpayers in the most expensive parts of the country—can make the tax code even more complicated.

The tax bill imposed a $10,000 limit on the deduction for state and local taxes (SALT), effective this Monday. The change does not affect most Americans, because most Americans do not pay more than $10,000 in state income taxes, local property taxes, or the two combined. The change does not affect my family, for example, because we live in Texas, which has no income tax, and rent our home, so we have no property taxes to deduct. It would be a different story if we still lived in Virginia, which has an income tax, and still owned a house in Fairfax County, where the median property tax bill is about $5,000. When you add state income tax, a middle-class family can easily pay more than $10,000 total.

In parts of the country with higher home prices and/or higher property tax rates, such as New York City and Los Angeles, the SALT deduction is worth even more. And the bigger and more expensive your house, the more you can expect to save on your federal income taxes (especially when you take into account the deduction for mortgage interest, which the tax bill also limits). The new SALT ceiling therefore makes the tax code less favorable to rich people with mansions (as well as politicians who overtax their constituents). But it also introduces new complications, especially during the transition period.

This week homeowners in places such as Fairfax County, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Hempstead, Long Island, lined up to prepay their 2018 property taxes before the new limit takes effect. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who see the SALT limit as an affront to residents of expensive, high-tax states like theirs, encouraged advance payments, while officials in Connecticut said they do not have the legal authority to accept them. The tax office in Simsbury warned that prepayment “could be considered an effort to evade federal income tax liability.” Compounding the confusion, the IRS on Wednesday issued an advisory saying prepayments are deductible only if the property tax was officially assessed before the end of this year.

The tax bill specifically precludes deductions under the old rules for prepaid state taxes on 2018 income, but it does not address prepaid property taxes. The IRS did not explain the legal rationale for distinguishing between payments and assessments, which is bound to be the subject of litigation. The upshot is that people who have shelled out thousands of dollars in lump-sum property tax payments may get no benefit from paying early and may not know for sure whether their deductions are valid for months or years. “It’s fun if you’re a tax lawyer,” David Herzig, a professor of tax law at Valparaiso University, told The New York Times. “I’m not sure it’s fun if you’re a person going through it.”

Beyond the economic distortion caused by the tax code’s myriad deductions, credits, and exemptions, there is something fundamentally wrong with a system of revenue collection that can be navigated only with the help of experts—and in many cases (like this one) not even then. When it comes to figuring out what the tax code requires, the experts may disagree. People are expected to comply with the law but have no way of determining what that means.

A holiday happiness story to share: The Oregon couple who had their two children taken away because the state determined they weren’t smart enough to be parents has gotten one of them back.

As I highlighted in July, Oregon’s Department of Health Services put Amy Fabbrini and Eric Ziegler’s boys—one 4 years old and one now 10 months old—in foster homes, not because the parents were abusing or neglecting their kids, but because the state determined that they would be poor parents due to their hampered cognitive skills.

Fabbrini and Ziegler both have I.Q.s well below average—66 and 72—and their learning struggles were used as justification to take the children away as a preventative measure rather than as a response to actual harm the children had suffered.

Right before Christmas, a judge ruled the couple’s limited cognitive ability was not enough to declare them unfit parents for their youngest son, Hunter, who was taken from them right after birth. He ordered the child returned to them.

As I previously observed, when the Department of Health Services argued that the children should be removed, they presented every common parenting mistake, due to the parents’ disabilities, as a potential crisis. The state declared as “parenting deficiencies” things like not washing thoroughly after using the bathroom, not applying sunscreen sufficiently to their child, or giving the child chicken nuggets to eat instead of something healthier.

Circuit Judge Bethany Flint took note, when ordering Hunter returned, that these did not appear to be sufficient reasons for the state government to intervene and take somebody’s kids away and that “there’s no allegation they’re not able to meet [Hunter’s] basic needs.” Samantha Swindler of The Oregonian, who brought this case to light, was there for the latest decision:

“I will affectionately remember this case as the ‘chicken nugget case,'” Flint said. “I found it difficult to read that these parents tried this thing and tried that thing and then they are advised that instead of chicken nuggets they should have boiled chicken breast, that giving fried foods is a parenting deficiency. That was hard to read.”

At times, the state argued that Fabbrini and Ziegler asked too many questions, suggesting they didn’t know how to parent. At other times, the state implied they didn’t ask enough questions, trying to show they didn’t understand their cognitive limitations.

“They can’t win for losing,” Flint said. “I think there’s a lot of evidence in the record that whenever they do say things they are attacked for them, which could create a culture of silence around the parents as well.”

Not for nothing was Reason‘s most popular story of the year about how our paranoia about potential harms to children are leading to really bad public policies. It’s even worse for parents with disabilities, physical or cognitive. In many states it is perfectly legal to use an adult’s disabilities as a justification for terminating parental rights, even in absence of abuse or neglect.

The fight isn’t over for the couple. Their other son, Christopher, has some developmental problems, and Flint isn’t sure Fabbrini and Ziegler understand that the boy needs more than typical parental TLC. The couple’s fight to get Christopher back will continue into January.

Still, given a year of outrage-inducing tales of abuse by government officials, it’s nice to head into 2018 with at least one piece of good news.

Five helpful New Year’s resolutions for Congress to do in 2018.

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Back when then-president Barack Obama used to lament and lament some more that the United States no longer builds amazing infrastructure projects like the Golden Gate Bridge (setting aside for the moment that it wasn’t the federal government that created America’s finest span), buzzkills like us would point out that A) the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 included a whopping $105 billion for infrastructure, characterized by Obama at the time as “the largest new investment in our nation’s infrastructure since Eisenhower built an Interstate Highway System in the 1950s,” and B) “Every dollar that governments spend on every level gets inflated by contracting rules, social engineering, environmental aspirations, and sops to public sector unions.”

A detailed and infuriating illustration of that latter point comes in today’s New York Times, which, following up on a previous indictment of how the city and state of New York have let the subway degenerate into almost comical disrepair, deconstructs “The Most Expensive Mile of Subway Track on Earth.” The nut:

For years, The Times found, public officials have stood by as a small group of politically connected labor unions, construction companies and consulting firms have amassed large profits.

Trade unions, which have closely aligned themselves with Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and other politicians, have secured deals requiring underground construction work to be staffed by as many as four times more laborers than elsewhere in the world, documents show.

Construction companies, which have given millions of dollars in campaign donations in recent years, have increased their projected costs by up to 50 percent when bidding for work from the M.T.A., contractors say.

Consulting firms, which have hired away scores of M.T.A. employees, have persuaded the authority to spend an unusual amount on design and management, statistics indicate.

Public officials, mired in bureaucracy, have not acted to curb the costs. The M.T.A. has not adopted best practices nor worked to increase competition in contracting, and it almost never punishes vendors for spending too much or taking too long, according to inspector general reports.

As a resident of the Empire State, I do not want to hear another goddamned word out of Chuck Schumer’s mouth about how the forthcoming federal infrastructure spending plan must be 100 percent public.

When Democrats talk about the evils and corporatey-corporateness of letting (involuntary shudder) private companies finance and maintain stuff like roads and bridges and trains and tunnels and airports, know what they are defending: a system of money-sloshing shielded at all levels from the discipline of competition. You just want the one percent to get richer!, they will cry, as the status quo they defend continues to build bupkus while diverting taxpayer money to the millionaire friends of the Cuomo dynasty.

There is a better way. For those serious not about graft but about building and maintaining the best and most cost-effective transportation infrastructure at all levels, begin with the half-century’s worth of work put into this topic by Bob Poole and the Reason Foundation. Here’s hoping the infrastructure bill resembles Poole’s vision more than the corrupt swamp from which President Donald Trump emanated.

When it comes to online media, engagement—the minutes spent reading, watching, or listening—is the new likes.

With that in mind, I’m happy to share the 10 most-engaging stories from the thousands of articles we posted at reason.com this past year. They cover the waterfront in terms of topics, takes, and temperament, but they are all energized by our principled libertarian belief in “Free Minds and Free Markets.” A plurality involve some form of state abuse of power, including literal violence against unarmed and innocent citizens and coercive force via insane regulations and occupational licensing requirements. None of the stories is about Donald Trump, which is a tribute to you, our readers, although one article by Features Editor Peter Suderman broke the story of Trump’s IRS decision not to enforce Obamacare’s individual mandate. Our top story of the year, which pulled the equivalent of over 71,000 hours of reader engagement, is a profound analysis of how ongoing panic over the presumed psychological and emotional fragility of children and young adults is a grave disservice to American youth. In the best Reason tradition, it doesn’t simply diagnose a problem but offers concrete ways to improve things.

If you like what you read and watch here, please subscribe to the print or digital edition and consider making a tax-deductible donation to Reason Foundation, the nonprofit that publishes this website.

Here they are, in ascending order of “total engaged minutes” according our analytics program, Parse.ly.

10. Sen. Rand Paul Introduces Replacement for Obamacare: Paul’s bill equalizes tax deductibility on insurance whether obtained through employer or not, makes creating private group insurance easier, relies on Health Savings Accounts.

Brian Doherty|Jan. 25, 2017 7:14 pm

Total engaged minutes: 178, 846

9. Arizona Cop Acquitted for Killing Man Crawling Down Hotel Hallway While Begging for His Life: Body camera footage released after jury reaches verdict.

Scott Shackford|Dec. 8, 2017 11:40 am

Total engaged minutes: 183,960

8. Texas Cops Spent 11 Minutes Searching a Woman’s Vagina, Found No Drugs: Harris County deputies were initially indicted for the “offensive and shocking” search, but those charges were dropped last week.

Eric Boehm|Aug. 15, 2017 10:17 am

Total enaged minutes: 187,554

7. After Challenging Red Light Cameras, Oregon Man Fined $500 for Practicing Engineering Without a License: “Anyone should be allowed to talk about the traffic signals without being penalized,” says Mats Järlström. He’s suing the board.

Eric Boehm|Apr. 26, 2017 9:40 am

Total engaged minutes: 200,682

6. Absurd State Licensing Rules Could Send a Woman To Jail Just for Touching a Horse: Of course. State board says she has to go to veterinary school to learn something she already knows and the schools don’t teach.

Eric Boehm|Feb. 17, 2017 11:20 am

Total engaged minutes: 226,360

5. Every Cop Involved in the Arrest of This Utah Nurse for Refusing to (Illegally) Draw a Patient’s Blood Needs to Be Fired (UPDATED): The Supreme Court decision forbidding unwarranted blood collection is a year old.

Scott Shackford|Sep. 1, 2017 12:07 pm

Total engaged minutes: 239,241

4. Amherst Student Expelled for Sexual Misconduct Can’t Defend Himself—It Would ‘Impose Psychological Trauma’ on Accuser: John Doe says there’s evidence his female accuser assaulted him. But a judge won’t make her cooperate.

Robby Soave|Jan. 31, 2017 9:30 am

Total engaged minutes: 299,990

3. Moral Outrage Is Self-Serving, Say Psychologists: Perpetually raging about the world’s injustices? You’re probably overcompensating.

Elizabeth Nolan Brown|Mar. 1, 2017 8:45 am

Total engaged minutes: 307,402

2. Major Blow to Obamacare Mandate: IRS Won’t Reject Tax Returns That Don’t Answer Health Insurance Question: The tax agency has stopped requiring individual filers to indicate whether they maintained health coverage or paid the mandate penalty as required under the law

Peter Suderman|Feb. 14, 2017 9:44 pm

Total engaged minutes: 536,485

1. The Fragile Generation: Bad policy and paranoid parenting are making kids too safe to succeed.

Lenore Skenazy & Jonathan Haidt from the December 2017 issue

Total engaged minues: 4,284,023

• President Donald Trump sarcastically tweets about global warming and the cold weather in the northeast, and that becomes news.
• He also thinks the reason the United States Postal Service is losing money is because it’s not charging Amazon (and therefore his enemy Jeff Bezos) enough for delivering packages. In reality, package delivery is what’s keeping the United States Postal Service afloat at all and it’s what subsidizes postal delivery to less populated places.
• An apartment fire in New York City has killed 12 people and injured 14 more.
• At least 12 have been killed in Islamic State attacks on Coptic Christians south of Cairo in Egypt.
• South Korea is holding a Hong Kong-flagged ship accused of violating sanctions by delivering oil to North Korea.
• The Drexel University professor who famously tweeted last December “All I want for Christmas is White Genocide,” (which he insisted was a joke) has resigned.

Follow us on Facebook and Twitter, and don’t forget to sign up for Reason’s daily updates for more content.

Your money belongs to you, not the government.

Steven Greenhut writes:

An acquaintance who owns a large California business likes to talk about the negligible impact of the tax code on his personal life. As he puts it, well-off folks can afford the homes, cars and vacations they enjoy. Their lifestyle is static. When the government taxes them at a higher rate, that simply means they have less money to expand their business. It won’t force them to subsist on macaroni and cheese, sell the Tesla or feel any personal discomfort.

That’s a key point to consider when you listen to the rhetoric from Democratic leaders about the supposed evils of the recently passed Republican tax plan. The left wants to punish the rich, but defending higher taxes mainly punishes everyone else.

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