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The President is a whirlwind of tax ideas these days. Last week, he proposed to punish individuals who were trying to save money for college by taxing the profits in Section 529 plans that were designed to encourage individuals to save for college. Last week, he also proposed to tax capital gains on death to go along with the current 40 percent tax rate on taxable estates. This change would subject hundreds of thousands of small business owners and savers currently exempt from estate taxes to a 28 percent tax on the increase in value of their assets over their...

To revoke the tax exempt status of all Islamic organizations in the United States. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

President Barack Obama calls his tax and spending plan ´middle-class economics,´ but most middle-income families would see little change in their tax bills. Obama is proposing a total of $1.5 trillion in new taxes over the next decade, mostly on corporations and high-income households. He would use much of that money--nearly $280 billion--to pay for targeted tax breaks for low- and middle-income families. Obama´s proposed tax cuts would benefit households with two wage earners, families with young children in child care and those with older children in college. One proposal would automatically enroll workers in individual retirement accounts, unless they

With the release of its 2016 spending blueprint Monday, the Obama White House officially signaled its intent to use retirement policy to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans. The proposed 10-year budget, which allots $4 trillion in spending for fiscal year 2016, will attempt to cap tax-deferred saving in 401(k) and Individual Retirement Accounts at about $3.4 million. That amount of savings generates more than $200,000 of income annually in retirement when annuitized, an income stream that should be sufficient for most, according to the Obama administration’s rationale behind the proposal. The vast majority of Americans would never feel the...

President Barack Obama’s budget will propose an ambitious six-year, $478 billion public works program of highway, bridge and transit upgrades, half of it financed with a one-time mandatory tax on profits that U.S. companies have amassed overseas, White House officials said. The proposal, one of the main components of the $4 trillion spending plan for the 2016 budget year that Obama will send to Congress on Monday, attempts to tap into bipartisan support for spending on badly needed infrastructure repairs and construction. The tax on accumulated foreign profits would be set at 14 percent and due immediately. Under current law,...

Obama’s version of “tax reform” is unrealistic and firmly rooted in his vision of middle class economics, wealth redistribution Obama has consistently talked about how he is for “tax reform” all during his presidency. But clearly, he has no idea what that even means. True tax reform is a mechanism that produces a cleaner and clearer tax code. A great example of this was the 1986 IRC reform, where Reagan set the highest rate at 28% in exchange for eliminating massive amounts of tax shelters and gimmicks. Obama’s cluelessness on the topic was evident during the State of the Union,...

Raising the capital gains rate will put a stranglehold on risk taking and available capital President Obama just told the country during his State of the Union address that he is going to increase the capital gains rate again in order to raise revenue for new spending programs. Given that Obama already knows that raising the capital gains rate actually REDUCES revenue, we are left with a President who believes that we can pay for increased spending by reducing revenue. He acknowledged this in 2008 during a televised debate against Hillary Clinton, but went on to state that rates should...

Here’s a refreshing change of pace for you. Normally when we have to talk about politicians caving in on a position they’ve staked out, it winds up being the Republicans. This week, however, the collapse took place in the White House. Barack Obama had been pushing for what amounted to another tax increase by eliminating the 529 college savings program whereby parents could set aside pretax money for their kids’ education and not pay taxes on it upon withdrawal provided the money was used to pay for tuition. But in the face of bipartisan opposition and negative feedback from...

First, the basics of the presidentÂ’s new tax proposal: Obama presented his 529 tax plan during his last State of the Union address. The plan consists of raising $1 billion over 10 years by taxing capital gains realized in withdrawals from 529 savings accounts. According to surveys cited by the White House, 70 percent of 529 account assets are held by families earning over $200,000 per year. But what exactly are 529 savings accounts -- and who usually invests in them? Glenn Reynolds explains: Though millions of Americans have been putting money into "tax free" 529 plans to save for...

With an increase in electric and hybrid vehicles along with better fuel-efficient vehicles, changing Bay Area drivers habit are posing a serious problem for state coffers. As motorists use less and less gas, gas tax revenues to pay for state highways, roads and bridges shrink. Meanwhile, as gas prices fall, so does the sales tax generated by fuel sales. In California, among the taxes collected on fuel is a 2.25% sales tax on gasoline and a 9.67 percent tax on diesel.

The president was a conservative's conservative. He had campaigned on reducing taxes and made it his legacy. But when a gas tax increase was proposed, it was a different story. In his weekly radio address, he said, "We simply cannot allow this magnificent (highway) system to deteriorate beyond repair." That was 1982. The president was Ronald Reagan. Unfortunately, the disrepair Reagan feared has come to pass. The federal gas tax of 18.4 cents hasn't been raised since 1993, and the Highway Trust Fund is severely underfunded. A 10- to 15-cent a gallon increase would provide enough money to meet the...

There are gong to be many millions of newly befuddled, fearful, and angry taxpayers this April, hit with the consequences of Obamacare’s social engineering when they try to file their taxes in April. Many will suffer unexpected financial penalties and costs, especially those accustomed to filing under the simplified tax forms applying to straight salaried people with standard deductions. H&R Block is warning that “[n]o one can understand” the New Obamacare tax code requirements for filing this year. In fact, millions of people accustomed to filing the postcard-sized 1040EZ form will now have to file extremely complicated and detailed forms,...

As the old saying goes, there are two things that are certain in life, death and taxes. Tomorrow night during his 2015 State of the Union speech, President Obama will announce that people paying taxes their entire lives just isn't good enough. The President wants the current 40 percent death tax rate increased to 60 percent. Americans for Tax Reform breaks down the details: 2. Stealth increase in the death tax rate from 40% to nearly 60%. Under current law, when you inherit an asset your basis in the asset is the higher of the fair market value at the...

Those Americans who didn’t get health insurance last year could be in for a rude awakening when the IRS asks them to fork over their Obamacare penalty — and it could be a lot more than the $95 many of them may be expecting. The Affordable Care Act requires those who didn’t have insurance last year and didn’t qualify for one of the exemptions to pay a tax penalty, which was widely cited as $95 the first year. But the $95 is actually a minimum, and middle- and upper-income families will actually end up paying 1 percent of their household...

 SEE: Cruz: Abolish the IRS January 13th , 2015 ”Republican Sen. Ted Cruz said Monday that Republicans should take advantage of their control of Congress to abolish the Internal Revenue Service. “We need to pass fundamental tax reform making our tax code simpler, flatter, fairer,” he said Monday at Heritage Action’s 2015 conservative policy summit. ”And I’ll tell you, the single most important tax reform, we should abolish the IRS.” What is discouraging is, the above article goes on to say that Senator Ted Cruz ”… acknowledged it’s not really possible to abolish the IRS or adopt a flat tax...

Now that the Republicans have regained the control of the Senate that they lost in the 2006 midterm election, conservatives are salivating about the prospect of “real” or “genuine” tax reform. Revenue-neutral tax reform is based on the suppositions that there is such a thing as a fair, just, or correct amount of taxation and that government revenue should not be decreased. The opposite, of course, is the case. Revenue-neutral tax reform masks the real problem — government spending. It shifts the debate from the amount of wealth the federal government confiscates from American taxpayers to the manner in which...

North Carolina recently offered Boeing $683 million in tax incentives to open a plant in North Carolina to build Boeing’s new 777X jetliner. The NC bid failed, as did those from some other states, when Boeing decided to build the 777X in its home state of Washington where there is no state, personal, or corporate income tax.

SEE: GOP targets budget process for tax reform 1/13/15 ”The quiet push, led by South Dakota Sen. John Thune, seeks to use the potent tool known as budget reconciliation to give both the GOP and President Barack Obama the sweeping victory on tax policy that business groups want, which could include a significant cut in corporate tax rates as well as provide funding for a long-term transportation bill.” This is what happens when Republican voters elect Washington Establishment candidates to office. They use their power to manipulate a corruptible system of taxation to meet the Chamber of Commerce’s demands rather...

While few Americans were fortunate enough to see a holiday bonus this year, there is one gift that American motorists have been enjoying of late; lower gas prices. Currently sitting at more than a dollar below the average price last year, U.S. drivers are projected to save somewhere between $380 and $750 dollars during 2015 if the prices hold. While wages have remained stubbornly flat for most workers, gas prices have provided a rare glimmer of hope for American workers, who have been struggling with an anemic job market, labor participation rates not seen since the 1970s, and median family...

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) promised reporters this week that his committee would not pass any new taxes – oh, sorry, “user fees” – on gasoline. Speaking to reporters at the GOP retreat in Hershey, Pennsylvania on Thursday, Ryan flatly asserted that his committee “won’t pass a gas tax.” He even had the gall to call it a “tax,” which is perhaps the best indication of his sincerity. The former Republican vice presidential nominee recently ruled out a 2016 White House bid and will instead pursue broad tax code reform as the chairman of...