TAX POLITIX
The Politics of Taxes
Bernie Sander’s Tax Plan: Reduces Income and Hikes Taxes
With Bernie Sanders doing well against Hillary Clinton for the Democrat nomination, it's a great time to look at some of the specifics of his tax plan. The Tax Foundation studied the affects of the major changes (listed below). Their analysis found that Sander's plan will reduce typical income by more than 15% while simultaneously hiking taxes by the trillions and shrinking the GDP by nearly 10% over the next decade. First, Sander's plan highlights: Individual Income Tax Changes --Adds four...
Obama’s Budget: $4.1 Trillion
President Obama's final budget was submitted today, a $4.1 trillion millstone for American taxpayers. The budget was chock full of tax hikes in order to fund Obama's pet projects, and "proposed investments in infrastructure, cyber security, education, and job growth." The FY2017 budget has an $503 billion deficit, which would follow the heels of the projected budget deficit for the current FY2016, $616 billion. Highlights from the bill include: -- $11 billion for the Departments of Defense and...
PSA: IRS Suffers Hardware Failure
The IRS announced this morning that a hardware failure occurred sometime yesterday afternoon; because of this, tax processing systems are not currently not functioning correctly. As a result of the failure, the IRS is unable to accept tax returns filed electronically, and may also have difficultly processing refunds; however, they do not believe that "major disruptions" will occur long-term. By-and-large, 90% of taxpayers should still be able to get their refunds within 21 days. If you visit...
Congress and Public Mislead by Obama Administration During Debt Limit Crises
As the federal debt hits $19 trillion, the Daily Caller is reporting that the government misled Congress over debt limit solutions during 2011 and 2013. A new report has just been issued by the House Financial Services Committee the outlines the behind-the-scenes machinations. You can read the report in full here. The Daily Caller gives a full summary here; I've re-posted their article in its entirety below: "Federal Reserve Bank of New York officials secretly conducted real-time exercises...
US Drops To 11th Place on the Index of Economic Freedom
When President Obama took office in 2009, the United States ranked as the 6th best country in the world in terms of economic freedom. Now, in the last year of his term, the United States doesn't even rank in the top ten anymore. This year, the Index placed the United States as the 11th most economically free country. This is a significant loss. As noted by the Index, "Economic freedom is a crucial component of liberty. It empowers people to work, produce, consume, own, trade, and invest...
Obamanomics: Federal Debt Up $70,000 Per Household During Tenure in Office
I like CNSNews, because they provide straightforward number-crunching on fiscal minutia that is tedious yet important data. This week as we enter the 8th year of Obama's term, they have calculated that federal debt has increased more than $70,000 per household during the 7 years Obama has held office thus far. From CSNNews: "The debt of the federal government increased by $8,314,529,850,339.07 in President Barack Obama’s first seven years in office, according to official data published by the...
More Capital Gains Distortions
The article written by Josh Zumbrun of the Wall Street Journal on December 31, entitled, "Tax Rate for Top 400 Taxpayers Climbed in 2013," should have been fairly straightforward with interesting data on that particular tax demographic. Unfortunately, the author distorts some aspects of the tax code, which makes the article a bit suspect and disappointing. Zumbrun begins by gleefully announcing that "Tax rates on the 400 wealthiest Americans in 2013 rose to their highest average since the...
The IRS Admits to Erasing Another Important Hard Drive
The IRS is involved in another "erased hard drive" event -- and it's not a part of the IRS scandal of 2013. It is apparent that there is a pattern of destruction at the agency. This time, the hard drive that was erased belonged to "Samuel Maruca, former director of transfer pricing operations at the IRS Large Business and International Division." Maruca was also a top level employee at the IRS, and was also involved in a controversy; this time, the scrutiny involved the IRS's decision to hire...
Getting Ready For Tax Season? Here are the 2015 Rates You’ll Need
Tax season has begun. Normally, the deadline for filing your federal tax return is April 15. But because the Washington D.C. Emancipation Day holiday falls on April 15 this year, Tax Day is the Monday after, April 18th. Last spring, Forbes put together a nice, extensive list of all the tax rates and adjustments for 2015. I have posted below some of the most pertinent information. For an all-inclusive list, you should check out the article in its entirety. The standard deduction amounts are:...
More Minimum Wage Hikes Mean Future Woes
On Wednesday, January 6, Mayor DeBlasio proclaimed a $15/hr minimum wage for the public workers in New York City. The cost for such a plan is expected to be more than $200 million over the next five years. Both De Blasio and Gov. Cuomo seem intent on playing the role of wage-crusader during their respective terms -- but only for some New Yorkers. Just like DeBlasio, Gov. Cuomo announced in early January that "he would provide a $15-an-hour minimum wage to some 28,000 state university workers."...
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