Free Republic

Not only does the logic show that carbon taxes in the West will invariably increase global CO2 emissions, but so does the empirical evidence. To begin with, data from the World Bank reveals that China, and other developing countries, produce far more carbon per dollar of economic output (at purchasing power parity) than do Western nations. For example, China produced 0.6 kilograms of carbon dioxide per dollar of economic output in 2014, whereas America produced 0.3 kg of CO2, and Germany produced just 0.2 kg. On top of this, China shows no signs of decreasing its emissions any time soon:...

Despite being the object of a huge amount of media attention, few people seem to know that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tried to be an entrepreneur and fell flat on her face. Her media pals certainly have no interest in publicizing the fact the she embraced socialism after she proved to be utterly, embarrassingly  incompetent at  earning her way.  Monica Showalter asked the key question on these pages last summer: “Did Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's socialist fanaticism come from bitter failure in business? Now, thanks to digging by the New York Post, we know that: Brook Avenue Press, a company she founded in...

Key Points Normally you can’t take a tax break for your pet but, under select circumstances, you might be able to. The IRS once allowed an exotic dancer to deduct the cost of breast implants. Is your pet a social media influencer? You just might be considered a small business. ============================================================== You probably know by now that charitable deductions are tax-deductible. But how about the cost of caring for your pet? Or your kid’s clarinet lessons? In select cases, the IRS has permitted taxpayers to deduct off-beat expenses on their tax returns. Here’s the key: Those costs must meet certain...

I'm doing a New York Non-Resident Tax Return and it is the most unfair tax law on non-residents I have seen in over 40 years of doing taxes. New York, with one of the highest tax rates in the USA computes your NY Tax by applying their high rate to all your income on the Federal Return and then allocating the tax based upon the percentage of NY income to total Federal income. The effect of this is to tax your out of state income at the New York higher tax rate which is illegal. Example: $8,500 income from wages...

Nearly 11 million Americans nationwide would have been capped from deducting more than $323 billion in state and local taxes in 2017 because of changes enacted in the GOP's tax reform legislation, according to an audit released Tuesday by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration — and expect similar results for the 2018 tax year. The 28-page report offers a new window into the full scope of the $10,000 cap on SALT deductions, which is supported by the White House and top congressional Republicans but has been heavily criticized by the leaders of many high-tax Democratic states, including New...

The tax season appeared to be off to a slow start when it opened last month, with initial statistics showing fewer returns filed and smaller refunds issued. While the numbers from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) were down, expectations were still high. However, a few weeks later, the data is again raising eyebrows: across the board, fewer taxpayers have filed tax returns and refund numbers remain underwhelming. Tax season opened on January 28, 2019. Three weeks into the season (week ending February 15, 2019), the IRS has received 39,747,000 individual income tax returns. That compares with 41,738,000 individual income tax...

PHOENIX - A longtime advocate for immigrants in Arizona was sentenced Wednesday to 18 months in federal prison and ordered to pay $131,000 in restitution for a felony conviction stemming from his tax preparation business. Elias Bermudez had previously pleaded guilty to assisting in the preparation of false tax returns, acknowledging that he falsely added dependents, including three children who lived in Mexico, to his clients’ tax returns to maximize refundable credits. Bermudez, 68, led protests more than a decade ago against immigration laws and then-Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s crackdowns on immigrants. He is known for kneeling down in front of...

I don't care about Jeff Bezos, he can be buried with all his money stuffed into every orifice. (Besides, you can now get free shipping from Walmart, so, ha, ha, the best revenge is living well.) I care about the Matrix involved in the tax and Federal Reserve charade. In the 1970s, I saw an author on Tony Brown's Journal who claimed that the Federal Reserve, creating monies out of nothing, maintains a farm system of which the American tax code is a subsidiary, so that the Fed loans money to the Federal Government, they pay, obviously, welfare, but tax...

New York state’s income tax take is dropping rapidly, but its leaders don’t seem interested in truly facing the implications. Projected income tax revenues for the year just dropped $2.3 billion, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Comptroller Tom DiNapoli announced Monday — and that’s after falling $500 million in December. Cuomo partly gets what’s going on: “‘Tax the rich! Tax the rich! Tax the rich!’ We did. Now, God forbid, the rich leave,” he said. He noted that the top 1 percent of New York earners provide 46 percent of the state’s personal income tax revenues, and cited anecdotal evidence that...

Governor Cuomo blamed President Trump and the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act for a decrease of $2.3 billion in New York State tax revenues in December and January. He indicated that the revenue reduction was the result of the new federal tax law. He believes an unprecedented number of New York residents permanently moved from New York to Florida during 2018 because New York State taxes are essentially no longer deductible on federal income tax returns of wealthy taxpayers. Just a wild guess, but a loss of 11% in the Dow Industrial Average during the fourth quarter of 2018 might...

New Jersey residents could soon be hit with what Republicans are calling a "rain tax," if Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy signs newly passed legislation. The bill, approved by the New Jersey Assembly and the Senate, would allow municipalities to create utilities that can collect fees from homeowners and business owners that have large paved surfaces, like driveways and parking lots. During storms, rainwater mixes with pollutants on those surfaces before running into sewers and drains. The funding from the fees could be used for upgrades to reduce the impact on the environment.

The state of New York may be falling behind some states when it comes to quality of life issues. But there's one category where New York excels at; taxing its citizens. New York leads the nation in taxes, a dubious distinction not lost on wealthy residents of the state. So it's puzzling why the Governor would be surprised when expected revenues fall a little short; about $2.3 billion short. New York Post: Cuomo attributed the revenue drop in December and January largely to the new federal tax code, as well as volatility in the stock market and other uncertainties....

The American Revolution was sparked in part by unjust taxation. After all, the colonists in Boston rebelled against Britain for imposing “taxation without representation,” and summarily tossed English tea into the harbor in protest in 1773. Nowadays Americans collectively spend more than 6 billion hours each year filling out tax forms, keeping records, and learning new tax rules according to the Office of Management and Budget. Complying with the byzantine U.S. tax code is estimated to cost the American economy hundreds of billions of dollars annually – time and money that could otherwise be used for more productive activities like...

When people see the empty storefronts that have multiplied in San Francisco the past few years, they often blame competition from online vendors for the death of small retailers. Supervisor Aaron Peskin sees another culprit: landlords who intentionally keep their properties vacant until they can extract higher rents from potential tenants. Now he wants to repopulate those storefronts by taxing property owners with consistently empty units. “This is by no means meant to be a revenue generator,” Peskin said Tuesday. “It’s meant to be a behavior changer.” Under Peskin’s proposal, owners of commercial properties in Neighborhood Commercial Districts — areas...

by Jessica Huseman March 20, 2017, 1:22 p.m. EDT Daniel Acker/Bloomberg via Getty Images Here’s how preparing your taxes could work: You sit down, review a prefilled filing from the government. If it’s accurate, you sign it. If it’s not, you fix it or ignore it altogether and prepare your return yourself. It’s your choice. You might not have to pay for an accountant, or fiddle for hours with complex software. It could all be over in minutes. It’s already like that in parts of Europe. And it would not be particularly difficult to give U.S. taxpayers the same option....

This calculator provides a window into how the tax bill being passed by Congress could affect your after-tax income if your main source of income is a paycheck. It does not take into account the effects of the repeal of the health care individual mandate or the potential economic growth that may result from the bill's provisions.

Philadelphia’s outlandish soda tax is what Democratic-party politics looks like when it lets its freak flag fly. So many classic elements are there: (failed) social engineering and “think of the children!” on one side, paid for with a punitive tax on poor people and destroyed businesses, which means destroyed jobs, which in turn means lives upended. What lives? Greedy capitalists with monocles, maybe? No, they’ll be fine. Think of ex-cons trying to regain their footing in society. To review this debacle, in 2017 Philadelphia, seeking to fund a universal pre-K program, slapped mammoth sin taxes on Coke and Pepsi (and...

California Governor Gavin Newsom proposed his first budget for the state on Friday, and it includes a tax on drinking water. The budget, titled “California for All,” declares drinking water a “fundamental right,” and adds: “The Budget includes short-term measures to bring immediate relief to communities without safe drinking water and also proposes an ongoing sustainable funding source to address this problem into the future.” The San Francisco Chronicle notes: “The details of the proposed tax are unknown, but a similar proposal was abandoned by then-Governor Jerry Brown last year after failing to garner enough support in the legislature.”

Tackling what promises to be a controversial issue, Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed a tax on drinking water Thursday to help disadvantaged communities clean up contaminated water systems. Newsom’s plan for a “safe and affordable drinking water fund,” included in the new governor’s first budget proposal, attempts to revive an idea that died in the Legislature last year. A McClatchy investigation last year showed that at least 360,000 Californians rely on water that does not meet state standards for toxins. McClatchy also found that 6 million Californians have water providers that have violated state standards at some point since 2012. “That is a...

There’s one regard in which some fiscal liberals want us to return to the “good ol’ days” – insanely high tax rates, especially on the wealthy. While the top tax rate is 37% today (previously 39.6%), debating raising or lowering the rate a few percentage points is pale in comparison to the rates of 70-90% we had in the past, we’re told. “When radical, socialist Dwight D. Eisenhower was president, I think the highest marginal tax rate was something like 90 percent” Bernie Sanders informed us, speaking tongue in cheek in regards to that “socialist” quip. “That 90% top rate...