Free Republic

Colorado will begin charging an Obamacare tax next month on all health insurance policies — even those obtained through private employers — to help prop up the state’s struggling health care exchange. ... Republicans have called the Obamacare tax unconstitutional, given that the state’s constitution requires voters to approve any tax increases, but exchange managers insist it’s a fee, not a tax.

The Tax Foundation posted the following map of gasoline taxes. The Tax Foundation says "Gas taxes are generally used to fund transportation infrastructure maintenance and new projects. While gas taxes are not a perfect user fee like tolls, they are generally more favorable than other taxes because they at least loosely connect the users of roads with the costs of enjoying them. However, some of our recent analysis shows that many states do not rely on gas taxes and tolls as much as they could, and instead fund substantial amounts of transportation from other sources like income and sales taxes."...

A rather wonky interstate commerce case has been granted a writ of certiorari and will be heard by the Supreme Court during the fall session. The reason this particular petition should interest you is that it has the potential to affect so many people, specifically those who derive income from any sources outside the state where they live. As explained in this Forbes article, the fundamental question being put to the court is as follows:Does the United States Constitution prohibit a state from taxing all the income of its residents — wherever earned — by mandating a credit for...

PLIMER: "Okay, here's the bombshell. The volcanic eruption in Iceland .. Since its first spewing of volcanic ash has, in just FOUR DAYS, NEGATED EVERY SINGLE EFFORT you have made in the past five years to control CO2 emissions on our planet - all of you. Of course, you know about this evil carbon dioxide that we are trying to suppress - it’s that vital chemical compound that every plant requires to live and grow and to synthesize into oxygen for us humans and all animal life. I know....it's very disheartening to realize that all of the carbon emission savings...

Anyone having issues with their California state tax refund.

The Internal Revenue Service ruled it will impose a tax penalty on employers of up to $36,500 per worker for dumping employees into the Obamacare exchanges. The New York Times, which broke the story, reports: When employers provide coverage, their contributions, averaging more than $5,000 a year per employee, are not counted as taxable income to workers. But the Internal Revenue Service said employers could not meet their obligations under the health care law by simply reimbursing employees for some or all of their premium costs. The IRS ruling is an effort by the Obama administration to stop employers with...

You can't really blame Attorney General Martha Coakley for not knowing how much the state tax on gasoline is. How could she? She hasn't paid it in years, at least since 2006 when she was elected attorney general. Since then, as the state's chief law officer, she has had a state car and a state driver, usually a state cop, driving her around. Consequently, although you might find the 60-year-old Democrat candidate for governor pumping iron to get in shape, you would never catch her pumping gas. Pumping iron, yes. Pumping gas, no. The state limo arrives with a full...

  SEE: Purging Out Pollock: The Constitutionality of Federal Wealth or Sales Tax By Calvin H. Johnson I have studied the above cited article and was astounded that one article could have so many misrepresentations and inaccurate conclusions which were apparently concocted in the author’s mind to promote a tax scheme contrary to the true intentions and beliefs under which our Constitution’s original tax plan was agreed to. Calvin writes:The apportionment clauses of the Constitution say that federal "direct taxes" must be apportioned among the states according to their population … Apportionment according to population is a hobbling requirement, somewhere between...

It’s nice to have someone looking out for you, even if you didn’t know that you had a guardian angel on your shoulder. For the majority of you, since you’re using some form of internet access to read this, you’ve been protected for the last fifteen years by the Internet Tax Freedom Act. It prevents most state and local governments from taxing your internet access fees. But unless Congress figures out something in the near future, that could all be coming to an end on November 1st. Millions of Americans could be threatened with new state taxes on their Internet...

A federal lawsuit is challenging Washington state’s authority to tax marijuana as long as marijuana remains illegal under federal law. The case arises from the state’s attempt to collect sales taxes from a medical marijuana dispensary. But lawyer Douglas Hiatt, who filed it late Thursday, said it could throw a wrench in Washington’s plans for collecting taxes on recreational marijuana, too. The author of Washington’s recreational pot law, Alison Holcomb, disagreed. She doesn’t expect the lawsuit to get very far. …

The U.S. corporate tax code has come under far more scrutiny than Pfizer in the wake of the giant drug maker’s announcement last week that it hopes to avoid billions of dollars in federal taxes by moving its legal address to London. “The quotes we’ve seen from the politicians so far don’t in any way seem to be criticizing Pfizer. They’re laying the blame on the tax system that Pfizer has to work with,” said corporate tax expert Robert Willens. “Historically the company itself got blamed,” Willens added. “There’s been a shift in that dynamic. Now the system seems to...

Is THE REPEAL 16 COLALITION really trying to end taxes calculated from incomes?  As stated at repeal 16.org, “The Coalition to Repeal the 16th Amendment (Repeal 16) is comprised of a broad range of individuals and organizations including the Tea Party Patriots, Americans For Fair Taxation, Americans for Limited Government, Competitive Governance Action and Free Market America.” According to REPEAL 16 ORG, its stated goal is to “end our corrupting tax system and the oppressive IRS”. They go on to ask “What is the Repeal 16 Bill?” And they answer the question as follows: ”Congressman Jim Bridenstine has introduced a bill...

Sick of the gas tax? What about a tax on every mile you drive? A new bill going through Sacramento would tax drivers for every mile they are on the road. The state gasoline tax of 52.9 cents per gallon could be replaced with a "miles driven fee" of $0.05 cents or so per mile driven, under state legislation proposed by a Bay Area lawmaker. State transit officials note that there's not nearly enough money available to fix the many bridges and roads in California that are in desperate need of repair. A federal highway fund, based on taxes on...

Allister Heath, the superb economic writer from London, recently warned that governments are undermining incentives to save. And not just because of high tax rates and double taxation of savings. Allister says people are worried about outright confiscation resulting from possible wealth taxation. It is clear that individuals, when at all possible, need to accumulate more financial assets. …Tragically, it won’t happen. A lack of trust in the system is one important explanation. People simply don’t believe the government – and politicians of all parties – when it comes to long-terms savings and pensions. They worry, with good reason,...

Claiming that the District of Columbia's ObamaCare exchange is just too darn small in size to pay for itself, Mayor Vince Gray (D) is proposing the city council "approve legislation granting the District's exchange board broad new power to tax any health-related insurance product sold in the city -- regardless of whether it's offered on the exchange," Washington Post staffer Aaron Davis reported this morning.

It’s a couple of weeks too late for this to help most people this year, but I’m sure many of you ran into issues filing your taxes. It’s a huge pain in the backside, isn’t it? Over at Redstate, Matthew Clark dredges up a brilliant scheme from Ezra Klein which should make all of your lives easier. Why not let the IRS do our taxes for us?Liberal wunderkind Ezra Klein (formerly of the Washington Post and now of Vox.com) was pushing this new idea a few weeks ago.Well it wasn’t really new. He’s been pushing it for years.The idea is...

Flint, Mich. — Earnest moralists lament Americans’ distrust of government. What really is regrettable is that government does much to earn distrust, as Terry Dehko, 70, and his daughter Sandy Thomas, 41, understand. Terry, who came to Michigan from Iraq in 1970, soon did what immigrants often do: He went into business, buying Schott’s Supermarket in Fraser, Mich., where he still works six days a week. The IRS, a tentacle of a government that spent $3.5 trillion in 2013, tried to steal more than $35,000 from Terry and Sandy that year. Sandy, a mother of four, has a master’s...

Apple will raise $12 billion in debt, paying a 0.77 percent premium over Treasuries on the component 10-year notes. The offering will contain seven parts, with maturities ranging from three years to 30. Apple’s recently enlarged shareholder return program is not cheap. By raising a fresh $12 billion via bond issuance, Apple is not forced to bring home foreign cash reserves, a process that the company previously stated would “incur significant tax consequences.”

The new legislation, known as “Senate Bill 1372,” would raise state corporation taxes not on profits. If passed, California’s already high current corporate tax of just less than 9% would shift to a new formula in 2015 based on the corporation’s median compensation of employees as compared to the highest employee, rather than to simply tax profits. According to the Sacramento Business Journal, if the corporation’s top paid executive made 100 times the median worker salary in the company, the company’s tax rate would rise 9%. Companies paying the top earner 400 times the average salary would pay a 13 percent tax...

  SEE: Tea Party Patriots Use Elections to Push 'Flat' or 'Fair' Tax Monday, 14 Apr 2014 06:05 PM The Tea Party Patriots are pushing a "flat tax" or a "fair tax" rate in the coming elections to stop the endless hiking of taxes on Americans, group President Jenny Beth Martin says. "A flat tax, a fair tax — either one is better than what we have now," Martin told Ed Berliner and Diane Dimond, guests hosts of "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV. "The tax code has grown and grown and grown. It's time to address the fact that...