Free Republic

Is Mayor Rahm Emanuel preparing to exempt some homeowners from his big new property tax? A series of fascinating signals is emanating from City Hall that suggest, to ease passage of his $500 million plan through the City Council, the mayor indeed is preparing a plan—being dubbed internally the "bungalow belt exemption"—to give a break to owners of middle-income residences. No figures are available as to exactly who would be covered. The Emanuel administration is in high message-control mode since word of the pending tax hike leaked out earlier in the week, with the mayor apparently trying to float ideas...

In 2013, more than 200,000 people on net fled states with Democrat governors for ones run by Republicans, according to an analysis of newly released IRS data by Americans for Tax Reform. "People move away from high tax states to low tax states. Every tax refugee is sending a powerful message to politicians," said ATR President Grover Norquist. "They are voting with their feet. Leaders in Texas and Florida are listening. New York and California are not." That year, Democrat-run states lost a net 226,763 taxpayers, bringing with them nearly $15.7 billion in adjusted gross income (AGI). That same year,...

Mayor Rahm Emanuel is set to call for the largest property tax increase in modern Chicago history to raise enough money to make a major pension payment for police and firefighters next year, the mayor's City Council floor leader and a City Hall source told the Chicago Tribune late Wednesday.. The mayor also plans to push a new garbage collection tax, a new per-ride fee on taxis and ride-hailing services such as Uber and a new tax on electronic cigarettes and smokeless tobacco products. ....The property tax increase Emanuel is mulling would far exceed what the mayor himself said during...

Not just one, but three Second Amendment groups have filed suit against the city of Seattle for adopting a “gun violence tax” on ammunition and firearms, “designed to help offset the financial toll of gun violence”: The complaint was filed Monday in King County Superior Court by the NRA, the Bellevue-based Second Amendment Foundation and the National Shooting Sports Foundation, along with two gun owners and two gun shops. It called the tax legally unenforceable because Washington state prohibits local governments from adopting laws related to firearms unless those local ordinances are specifically authorized by the state. More likely...

One out of four U.S. employers may soon face a steep new Obamacare tax on the insurance coverage they offer workers, unless they take steps to reduce overall spending on the plans. A new analysis released Tuesday by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 26 percent of employers offer health benefits that could be subject to the Affordable Care Act's "Cadillac" tax on high-cost plans when it starts in 2018. The tax kicks in when the total spending on a health plan — including the employer and employee premium contributions — exceeds $10,022 for an individual or $27,500 for a...

16 Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump declared, “I think flat tax is okay” on Friday’s broadcast of the “Matt Murphy Show” on Birmingham, AL’s WAPI. Trump said, “Who knows taxes better than me?” He continued, “You know, when they talk about fixing the tax, it’s so complicated, that people have to go and use H&R Block to do a $50,000 — a man who makes $50,000 has to spend money –.” Host Matt Murphy then cut in to ask Trump if he supports the fair tax. Trump answered, “Well, I think fair tax is okay. And I think flat tax...

SACRAMENTO -- State lawmakers on Wednesday took the first steps toward raising taxes and fees on motorists and further restricting Californians' tobacco use as the Legislature convened special sessions aimed at solving the state's transportation and health care funding crises. Members of a Senate committee tackling a huge backlog of roadway maintenance endorsed legislation that would generate $4 billion annually for repairs by increasing the gas tax 12 cents a gallon and boosting annual vehicle registration fees $35 for most cars. Fees for all-electric vehicles would go up $100.

 Well, I see Ben Carson, just like a number of our establishment Republican candidates, is supporting a continuance of the socialist experiment of laying and collecting a federal tax calculated from profits, gains, salaries and other lawfully earned incomes ___ and he even has invoked God in support of his proposed damnation! In addition to circumventing our Constitution’s command requiring all direct taxes to be apportioned among the States, Carson’s tax reform keeps a patently evil power in our federal government’s hands that has been used over and over by our federal government for nefarious purposes, and has proven to...

There isn’t a far-left issue that the Seattle City Council hasn’t passed or considered passing. So you just knew that they would get around to screwing gun owners in some novel and inventive way. How about a $25 tax on every firearm sold? Add to that a 5 cent tax on every cartridge and you have the typical liberal assault on law-abiding gun owners. But that’s only part of the package. There’s also a provision to require gun owners to report the theft or loss of any firearm within 24 hours. [Snip] The tax is expected to bring $300-500,000 a...

Obama is petty and vengeful. At this point, anything with the words "Green Energy" might as well be read as "Screw the Middle Class". After being shot down by the court, Obama's Green Energy plan has risen from the grave meaner and nastier than ever. First of all it's been retooled to hit Republican states hardest. ... Behind the euphemisms, the Thug-in-Chief is doing his usual petty bit by lashing out at opponents while seeking to punish them. And backed in is a Carbon Tax plan, which will save the planet by enriching a handful of billionaires and rip you...

The late, great Jack Kemp, an architect of the Reagan tax cuts, used to say, "Without capital, capitalism is just another ism." Capital is the plants, the machinery, the computers and trucks that businesses invest in to become productive and efficient providers of goods and services. So it's strange that last week Hillary Clinton declared war on capital with her plan to nearly double the capital gains rate for investments held less than six years. The capital gains tax rate fell to 15 percent in the George W. Bush years, was raised 23.8 percent under Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton...

The worst sectors of the worst recovery since World War II are business investment in new plants and equipment and new business start-ups. These are the biggest job-creators, and their slump is a key reason for the sub-par labor recovery, with low participation rates and high numbers of involuntary part-time workers. So if investment is the problem, what does Hillary Clinton go out and do? She proposes jacking up the tax on investment. It’s almost inconceivably stupid. In her latest economic speech, Clinton proposes doubling the capital-gains tax rate on the profit made from asset sales (stocks, bonds, real estate)...

St. Paul Public Schools employees are likely to see their health benefits curtailed as the school district looks to avoid financial penalties set to begin in 2018. The Affordable Care Act's "Cadillac Tax" provision will charge employers an excise tax on high-cost plans -- 40 percent on every dollar over $10,200 on individual and $27,500 on family plans. Jeni Simon, a consultant with Aon Hewitt, told school board members Tuesday that companies already are redesigning their health plans in order to avoid paying the tax. A survey found 92 percent of U.S. employers expect their health plans to change by...

This is both hysterically funny and frightening at the same time. Mike Dice, the merry trickster whose videos expose liberal stupidity (his most recent “petition” was to tear down Mount Rushmore for being “racist”), hit the jackpot with liberals signing on to promote a 1% “White Privilege Tax” on white people. Asked to sign the petition to support a 1% income tax on all white Americans in order to “even out the playing field” and redistribute the wealth amongst minority communities, the first man in the clip is incredulous that such a policy would pass but signs his name to...

Tax policy is thought by many in Washington to be one of the more effective tools in the battle against inequality. Indeed, presidential candidates like Bernie Sanders have implied they would raise taxes on the rich to correct for rising inequality, and according to the Wall Street Journal, Hillary Clinton is set to announce her plans to increase taxes on capital gains this week. Populist calls for higher taxes on the rich play very well on the stump, but the resulting policies always seem to produce unintended consequences. Two provisions of Bill Clinton's 1993 tax increase are good examples: The...

'Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem," may well be President Reagan's most oft-repeated quote. And the reason it's so frequently quoted is because it's so damn true. And no example fits this quote better than the government actions taken before and during the Great Depression. In 1929, the single largest tax increase on traded products was passed by both the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate. In May 1930, this so-called Smoot-Hawley tariff was signed into law by President Herbert Hoover, which precipitated massive retaliation on U.S. products by foreign governments. From that moment...

DE BEQUE — Most motorists cruising along Interstate 70 likely don’t realize De Beque has a downtown. To get there from the interstate, drivers follow a winding road over a broad stretch of the Colorado River and under a railroad bridge. A weathered welcome sign currently lists 501 residents, although those numbers have fluctuated over the years. Yet thanks to the 40-foot-high pillar adorned with a gigantic green cross and a yellow smiley face, Exit 62 off the interstate now is the first outpost for eastbound drivers in Colorado to purchase marijuana. The January opening of Kush Gardens, 4550 U.S....

In her highly anticipated speech on the economy Monday, Hillary Clinton was heavy on rhetoric and short on specifics, promising to reveal her actual policy proposals in the weeks ahead. But this week, she also dropped a not-so-subtle hint about a big one. In a questionnaire for the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), which endorsed her this week, Clinton noted that the so-called “Cadillac tax” levied under Obamacare is one area she is “examining.” The Cadillac Tax is a surcharge on expensive health care plans. It’s a crucial provision of Obamacare, bringing in much-needed revenue and trying to curb the...

Cook County Board today cleared the way for President Toni Preckwinkle's plan to raise the county's sales tax a penny on the dollar, mostly for pensions. The action came when the board's Finance Committee, which includes all board members, voted 9 to 7 to 1 to send the $474 million a year tax hike to the full board, which will consider it later today. The key votes came from Commissioner Luis Arroyo, a Chicago Democrat who voted "yes," and suburban Republican Elizabeth Gorman, who cast a "present" ballot and who is widely rumored to soon be headed to a new,...

Excerpt: ... The agency [ODOT] wants to move away from fuel taxes and instead charge drivers based on the distance they drive. ODOT officials have been conducting a decade long search for ways to do it—and it’s turned into an unfocused, meandering and expensive effort. The latest plan: Starting July 1, the state is seeking as many as 5,000 volunteers to pay the state a mileage-based rate rather than taxes at the gas pump. The pilot program, called OreGo, relies on drivers signing up with one of three companies that will supply plug-in devices to count the miles. But the...