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Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) will press Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner this week on supporting a major overhaul of the tax system in 2010. Rangel told corporate executives attending a tax conference in Washington that he was trying to “persuade” Geithner and members of his committee that they would serve Congress and the country better “if we reform the tax system that we have.” “As a legislator, I can’t think of anything more important for my committee to do,” Rangel told the audience attending the PriceWaterhouseCoopers Global Tax Symposium.

(CNSNews.com) – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) endorsed the idea of a “global” tax on stock trades and other financial transactions, saying the estimated $150 billion in annual revenue from such a tax could be used to help fund more stimulus spending. At her weekly press briefing on Thursday, Pelosi said the financial transactions tax (HR4191) currently before Congress would have to be made “global” to keep U.S. investors from taking their business overseas and out of taxable reach. The House speaker said that a transaction tax could be imposed in conjunction with congressional efforts to divert funds from the...

Rep. Obey Warns President Obama He Will Ask Taxpayers to Pay for War, Should More Troops Be SentThe powerful chairman of the House Appropriations Committee has a stark message for President Obama about Afghanistan -- sending more troops would be a mistake that could "wipe out every initiative we have to rebuild our own economy." "There ain't going to be no money for nothing if we pour it all into Afghanistan," House Appropriations Chairman David Obey told ABC News in an exclusive interview. "If they ask for an increased troop commitment in Afghanistan, I am going to ask them to...

Read the full billRead the tax revenue score from the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) Read the budget and tax score from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) PDF of this DocumentIndividual Mandate Tax (Page 324/Sec. 1501/$8 bil): Starting in 2014, anyone not buying “qualifying” health insurance must pay an income surtax according to the following schedule (capped at 8 percent of income): ==============> Check out this important piece, at ATR.org...

One of the primary tenets of Medicine is Primum non nocere a Latin phrase that means First, do no harm. The Senate version of the Obamacare bill ignores that phrase and is poised to raise health care costs for all Americans, of all income groups, not only through taxes but via fees on health products that will be passed along to consumers. Below is an outline of the unlucky (for America) 13 New Taxes in Harry Reid's Bill:

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama's choice for a top job with the Treasury Department is having tax problems. A congressional report says Obama's nominee for undersecretary of the Treasury for international affairs, Lael Brainard, was late in paying real estate taxes in 2005, 2006 and 2007. The report by the Senate Finance Committee staff also challenges the accuracy of a deduction Brainard claimed for running an office from her home. The challenge led Brainard to reduce the deduction on her 2008 return. The committee's top Republican is unhappy that the committee staff had to submit 10 sets of questions...

Given the recent announcement that the government's measure of unemployment has hit 10.2 percent, and given that the official House version of Obama's healthcare plan, HR 3962, has now passed, a close examination of the effects of "Obamacare" on the labor market is important. It will be no surprise to readers of this site to learn that the Democrats' bill will seriously harm precisely those poor and uninsured citizens it is ostensibly designed to help. The harm will come by compounding mass unemployment and depriving these citizens of consumption choices. Obamacare as Labor Tax According to pages 269–273 of the...

A local architecture firm that recently won an $8.3 million federal contract to redesign a U.S. border crossing in California is being investigated by the Federal Election Commission for irregular campaign contributions to Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, who is up for re-election next year. Henderson resident Randy Spitzmesser prompted the FEC probe of his former employer, Tate Snyder Kimsey Architects. On behalf of the architecture firm, Las Vegas attorney Stan Hunterton told the Las Vegas Review-Journal by fax last month, "We do not believe that anything was intentionally done wrong" regarding campaign finances. Spitzmesser also thinks Henderson-based Tate Snyder...

Rep. Joe Barton of Texas, ranking Republican on the Energy and Commerce Committee, set out a startling scenario in floor debate Saturday before the House approved the health care bill pushed by Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The bill would slap an 8 percent tax on the payrolls of employers who do not provide health insurance to their workers and pay at least 65 percent of the premiums for an employee who has a family insurance plan and 72.5 percent of the premiums for an employee who has an individual insurance plan. Barton spelled out what he believes will happen if this...

Liberals are fond of calling Republicans “the stupid party.” That might need revision. It appears to me that Democrats have checkmated themselves. Here is the logic: If Obamacare makes it through the Senate, American small businesses will continue to shrink their payrolls to avoid the awful choice of paying higher health care insurance premiums or the 8% added payroll tax. Unemployment is sure to rise. The Dems will face the November 2010 elections with 12% unemployment ... closer to Depression levels of 20% by the so-called broader measures. If Obamacare fails to pass, the left-wing base will be so demoralized...

If Democrats were not worried by losing the New Jersey and Virginia governorships this month, Gallup has some data today that should put a deep chill in their bones. For the first time in years, the GOP has the lead in generic ballot preferences over Democrats. That is, if people are asked whether they’ll vote for an unnamed Democrat or Republican for Congress, 48% are saying they’ll back the Republican, versus 44% who will choose the Democrat. We’re not sure of the last time that was true, but 2002 was the last especially strong year for the GOP, and the...

Today, Ranking Member of the House Ways and Means Committee Dave Camp (R-MI) released a letter from the non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) confirming that the failure to comply with the individual mandate to buy health insurance contained in the Pelosi health care bill (H.R. 3962, as amended) could land people in jail. The JCT letter makes clear that Americans who do not maintain “acceptable health insurance coverage” and who choose not to pay the bill’s new individual mandate tax (generally 2.5% of income), are subject to numerous civil and criminal penalties, including criminal fines of up to $250,000...

House Minority Leader John Boehner appears with a copy of the Democrats’ version of the health care bill during a news conference on Capitol Hill on Thursday, Oct. 29, 2009. (AP Photo/Harry Hamburg) Washington - The health care overhaul bill produced by House Democrats would impose an array of new taxes, fees and government mandates on major players in the health industry, including insurers, doctors and drugs and medical devices makers. In most cases, the pain has been meted out with an eye toward raising the money needed to finance President Barack Obama's plan for reshaping the health system but...

When the historians finally finish sorting through the appalling decisions that have been made in the past two years, this one will probably be at the top of the heap. Last fall, as AIG began to realize how screwed it was, it started negotiating with the counterparties to all the credit default swaps it had written. One of the AIG's goals was to persuade these counterparties- These sorts of negotiations are exactly what should happen when a company gets in trouble. It goes to its creditors and says, look, we can't pay you everything, so here's your choice: Take something,...

RUNNING for a second term, New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine insists he's "fighting for what matters most." But for whom? Corzine's record plainly shows that the New Jersey taxpayer is among the least of his concerns. His decisions have yielded a toxic business climate, out-migration of entrepreneurs and a tax system that's falling apart. A second term would be disastrous. Perhaps Corzine's most fundamental error is to consistently try to fix public-policy problems by throwing more money at them -- funding the government largesse with tax hikes on individuals and businesses.

After King County Superior Court Judge Gregory Canova awarded Microsoft an $8.7 million judgment in a 2008 lawsuit involving unpaid software licenses, he might have been surprised to learn that Microsoft isn’t actually in the software licensing business in Washington – or at least that’s what it reports to the state Department of Revenue. For tax purposes, Microsoft reports that it’s earned its estimated $143 billion in software licensing revenue in Nevada, where there is no licensing tax. However, for legal purposes, Microsoft executes its licensing contracts so they are governed by and rely on the protections of Washington law...

Congressional Democrats are set to announce Tuesday legislation aimed at squeezing more information from foreign banks and U.S. citizens with offshore accounts to ferret out tax evaders. The bill from Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D., Mont.), and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel (D., N.Y.), includes some of President Barack Obama's proposals to fight offshore tax cheating. According to a summary of the bill obtained by Dow Jones Newswires, it is expected to raise $8.5 billion for the U.S. government over 10 years. Foreign banks with U.S. customers would face a 30% withholding tax on income from...

There's something the Democratic lawmakers who are pushing cap-and-trade legislation don't want the public to know. The controversial climate-change legislation winding its way through Congress will impose a massive new national gas tax on the American people. We discovered this by analyzing what the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill would do to gas prices and what Americans spend on gasoline, diesel and jet fuels. We found that cap-and-trade legislation will levy a $3.6 trillion gas-tax increase that will impact every American and important segments of our economy. Americans travel more than 200 million vehicle miles each month, and annually we spend nearly...

From Section 6002 on page 1435: INCLUSION OF COST OF EMPLOYER-SPONSORED HEALTH COVERAGE ON W–2The definition of taxable income is revised to include "the aggregate cost of applicable employer-sponsored coverage". . . "The amendments made by this section shall apply to taxable years beginning after December 31, 2009."

Pelosi: Democrats consider windfall tax on insurance Thu Oct 8, 2009 11:34am EDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrats are looking at the possibility of a windfall profits tax on insurance companies as part of healthcare reform, House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Thursday. Pelosi said she had asked House Ways and Means Committee chairman Charles Rangel to examine the possibility and report back to her.

WASHINGTON (AP) - House Republicans have failed for a third time to oust Rep. Charles Rangel as chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee. Despite the expected defeat Wednesday, the GOP did keep the spotlight on the New York Democrat's ethical problems, although the matter will be turned over to the House ethics committee for a long-term investigation.

More than half of all House Democrats will ask House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to reject proposals to tax expensive health insurance policies, as part of health legislation aimed at covering the uninsured and reining in health-care costs. The letter to Pelosi was signed by 154 House Democrats, led by Rep. Joe Courtney of Connecticut and senior members of the House Ways and Means Committee. The lawmakers plan to discuss their opposition to the tax at a press conference Wednesday, after delivering the letter to Pelosi. The tax on so-called Cadillac plans is a central feature of the health-care bill...

Pelosi says new tax is 'on the table' By Michael O'Brien - 10/06/09 10:59 AM ET A new value added tax (VAT) is "on the table" to help the U.S. address is fiscal liabilities, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Monday night. Pelosi, appearing on PBS's "The Charlie Rose Show" asserted that "it's fair to look at" the VAT as part of an overhaul of the nation's tax code. "I would say put everything on the table and subject it to the scrutiny that it deserves," Pelosi told Rose when asked if the value-added tax has any appeal to her....

New York State is quickly becoming the next California, as tax revenues drop 36% from 2008 levels, and a dejected governor expressing his frustration with policy measures that continue to not bear fruit. As a reminder the state most reliant on the financial sector, is struggling with a $2.1 billion budget deficit that is still looming despite tax increases, federal aid and spending cuts. New York State’s income tax revenue has dropped 36 percent from the same period in 2008, Governor David Paterson said, “frustrating” his attempt to close a projected $2.1 billion budget deficit. “We added personal income tax,...

A liberal think tank with close ties to President Barack Obama says the administration and Congress should consider raising taxes on Americans to help close federal budget deficits, an opening salvo in what is likely to be a protracted debate on tax policy. In a draft report, the Center for American Progress says the size of projected budget gaps requires considering options including tax increases as well as curbs on annual spending and entitlement programs supported by Democrats. Such ideas could pose problems for Mr. Obama, who pledged during the campaign to not increase taxes on families making less than...

House Democrats are considering an insurance tax to help pay for their health care overhaul plan, even though such a funding scheme is bitterly opposed by labor unions that are among the party's most loyal constituencies. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Friday a tax on high-cost health insurance plans is "under consideration" as Democrats search for consensus within their ranks before taking a bill to the House floor later this fall. "We just have to see how much money we need for what," Pelosi said. "And if we're taking the bill down in cost, there are other provisions in...

ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis told Fox News' Chris Wallace on Sunday that her group "absolutely pays its taxes." Not true: The IRS and Louisiana's taxmen have imposed nearly $2 million in liens against ACORN for failing to fork over taxes at its New Orleans national headquarters. The IRS recently filed a $548,000 lien against the group, and Louisiana state tax officials have slapped $334,000 in liens on ACORN since last October. Evidence that ACORN ignored its tax obligations may be less exciting than its branch offices' eagerness to help a self-professed pimp break multiple laws, or the voter-registration fraud for...

According to Webster's on-line Dictionary a Tax is a Charge against a citizen's person or property or activity for the support of government. According to President Obama, a Tax is anything he says it is (or isn't). Today the President did his tour of the Sunday News shows of all of the networks that show a bias toward Obama and his policies (meaning everyone but Fox). Most of the discussions were as lame as you would expect them to be, with one exception, George Stephanopoulos went off script and asked one tough question. In the Senator Baucus version of the...

Here is video of President Obama yesterday on "This Week" arguing with host George Stephanopoulos about the meaning of "tax increase." Stephanopoulos even read the definition of "tax" from the Merriam-Webster dictionary! That seemed to get under Obama's skin. He told George that the fact he looked it up in the dictionary showed he was "stretching a bit." Stephanopoulos had asked Obama how Obama's Health Plan is not a tax - including the requirement that people buy health insurance and levying a fine if you don't. I don't think Obama convinced him. . . . (VIDEO)

I don’t like soda pop. It’s bad for you, it’s a waste of money, it rots your teeth. I don’t like soda pop. So I don’t drink it. That’s how freedom works. If you like soda pop, you drink it. If you don’t like soda pop, you don’t drink it. It’s a great system. But Obama wants to screw with it. In an era in which the federal government seems intent on taking both your freedom and your money, the new target is soda pop. Get ready to get hosed. If you resist, you are a racist. This week, in...

It's not every day that you hear a Democratic senator charge that a fellow Democrat is proposing to raise taxes on the middle class, but that is what happened on Tuesday when Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., ripped into the health-care bill developed by Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mt., the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. The Baucus proposal would impose, starting in 2013, a 35 percent excise tax on insurance companies for "high-cost plans" -- defined as those above $8,000 for individuals and $21,000 for family plans. Health economists believe a tax on high-priced benefits could help slow the growth of...

The Obama administration has privately concluded that a cap and trade law would cost American taxpayers up to $200 billion a year, the equivalent of hiking personal income taxes by about 15 percent. A previously unreleased analysis prepared by the U.S. Department of Treasury says the total in new taxes would be between $100 billion to $200 billion a year. At the upper end of the administration's estimate, the cost per American household would be an extra $1,761 a year.

The liberal activist group ACORN rakes in millions of dollars in federal taxpayer dollars a year - at least $53 million since 1994 for its housing programs alone - but that largess is in jeopardy after a hidden-camera video showed one of its workers advising a supposed prostitute how to cheat on taxes and mortgage applications. House Republicans on Tuesday introduced the Defund ACORN Act that would sever all ties between the government and the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), a day after the Senate voted overwhelmingly to prohibit funding the group in the 2010 housing appropriations...

An ACORN affiliate has just submitted applications for over $6 million in government funding, despite the controversial videos of the organization’s workers aiding a child prostitution “promoter.” Employees with the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN) in Washington D.C., Baltimore and Brooklyn told uncover investigators posing as a pimp and a prostitute how they could circumvent the law. ACORN has already fired four of the workers. But it claims the tapes have been “doctored” and “edited.” A third video implicating the ACORN workers was released today. Meanwhile, the ACORN Institute, one of many ACORN affiliates, has applied for...

President Barack Obama can return the U.S. budget situation to a sustainable one without breaking his pledge to not raise taxes on Americans making less than $250,000, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Tuesday. "We can get our fiscal house in order. We can go back, as a country, to the point where we're living within our means without violating that basic commitment," Geithner told ABC's "Good Morning America" program. "It's his (Obama's) commitment and he's very committed to that." Geithner also said the government would work to unwind its investments in financial institutions and other companies as quickly...

I confess to having a soft spot in my heart for old-style, Tammany Hall pols like New York Democrat Charles Rangel, current chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee -- which is the same committee another loveable old rogue, disgraced Illinois Democrat Dan Rostenkowski, used to oversee back in the day. Both are from an era that's long past, and for good reason, too. Old Dan ended up doing time in the slam for a myriad of corrupt practices, including mail fraud, and Rangel could find himself going in the same direction, if current news reports are correct....

House Democrats are probing the nation’s largest insurance companies for lavish spending, demanding reams of compensation data and schedules of retreats and conferences. Letters sent to 52 insurance companies by Democratic leaders demand extensive documents for an examination of ‘extensive compensation and other business practices in the health insurance industry.” The letters set a deadline of Sept. 14 for the documents. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, signed the three-page letter dated Monday. An industry source replied when asked for comment:...

<p>Please listen to Hugh. Will have a gent on from Politico. Story breaking Axelrod has compensation that was not taken care of with health care legislation pending that is outright conflict of interest.. Hugh asked, where is the special prosecutor? Compensation numbers over 2 million. Please listen and correct me if I heard wrong.</p>

Please check out page 203 of the main House version of health care reform. It contains all the evidence you need that the entire bill is a nasty bait-and-switch. "The tax imposed under this section shall not be treated as tax imposed by this chapter. ..." Yes, it really says that. The tax shall not be considered a tax. Or at least not "... for purposes of determining the amount of any credit under this chapter or for purposes of Section 55." Gee, that really clears things up. It is especially helpful to know that the bill itself does not...

"It is critically important that Congress act before the limit is reached so that citizens and investors here and around the world can remain confident that the United States will always meet its obligations," Geithner said. Oh, thank God! Our leaders have finally - FINALLY! - recognized the critical need to bring in some semblance of fiscal sanity to our federal government. Treasury Secretary Geithner is at last demanding that Congress put its clown-shoe-clad foot down and insist that we finally begin coming to grips with our $11.6 trillion debt. I take it all back. Everything I said about these...

This footage was taken during than presidential candidate Obama's speech in Dover, NH. President Obama pledges not to raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year. This footage was taken during than presidential candidate Obama's speech in Dover, NH. President Obama pledges not to raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year.

To get the economy back on track, will President Barack Obama have to break his pledge not to raise taxes on 95 percent of Americans? In a "This Week" exclusive, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner told me, "We're going to have to do what’s necessary." Geithner was clear that he believes a key component of economic recovery is deficit reduction. When I gave him several opportunities to rule out a middle class tax hike, he wouldn't do it. "We have to bring these deficits down very dramatically," Geithner told me. "And that's going to require some very hard choices."

In a July 14 editorial titled “Picking on the Swiss,” the Wall Street Journal criticizes the Obama Administration for attempting to require the Swiss Bank, UBS, to turn over to the IRS the names of some 52,000 US taxpayers who currently maintain secret accounts with the bank. According to the Journal, “This sort of fishing expedition expressly violates the U.S.-Swiss treaty on sharing tax information. The original treaty dates back 30 years, and under the pact the Swiss regularly provide the IRS with information on specific cases. But what the IRS is attempting here is a mass search of U.S....

A review of Minnesota’s statewide database of registered voters revealed at least 2,812 deceased individuals voted in last November’s general election, according to a new report by the “traditional values” advocacy group Minnesota Majority. After obtaining the list of voters who participated in November’s election, the group hired an independent firm who specializes in “death suppression” for direct mailing lists to review the data. The process, which involved matching names and addresses to state death records, bore troubling results. According to Minnesota statute 201.13, the commissioner of health is to report monthly the name, address, date of birth, and county...

A majority of Minnesota voters want Republican Norm Coleman to concede so Democrat Al Franken can take Coleman's seat in the U.S. Senate, a new Rasmussen poll reveals.... 54 percent of respondents want Coleman to concede, and 41 percent are opposed to a Coleman concession. 63 percent say they expect Franken to eventually take the Senate seat, no matter what Coleman does; in December, 67 percent expected Coleman to win. If the Minnesota Supreme Court upholds a lower-court ruling that Franken won, 67 percent of respondents want Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty to sign an election certificate allowing the Senate to...

STEVEN Rattner, the auto industry adviser to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, is flagrantly thumbing his nose at President Obama's call for Americans to make sacrifices in the collapsing economy. Rattner is moving full-speed ahead with construction of a lavish, $15 million summer home in the Lambert's Cove area of West Tisbury on Martha's Vineyard -- a palatial mansion he's had in the works since 2006. It's caused a furor among wealthy Vineyard residents, who've called the planned 15,500-square-foot project far too big and gaudy, The Post's Mark DeCambre reports. Nonetheless, the town's Land Use Planning Committee greenlighted the scheme, which...

Al Franken asked the Minnesota Supreme Court on Monday to affirm his victory in the 2008 Senate race and hand down a ruling that would direct Gov. Tim Pawlenty to certify him the winner. “We think the law is clear,” said Franken's lead attorney, Marc Elias, pointing to a state Supreme Court ruling on the matter in February that he said indicated “that the certification would issue after the state court process ended.” The Minnesota “Supreme Court is the end of the state court process,” Elias noted. The request came as part of Franken’s reply brief to Republican Norm Coleman’s...

He owes Uncle Sam nearly $12,000 for unpaid income taxes, recently filed records show. The Internal Revenue Service slapped a $11,668.10 lien on Stroger and his wife earlier this year. The Strogers have yet to fully pay that debt, meaning the federal government could hold up a sale of the Strogers' house or other property if payment terms aren't reached.

<p>President Barack Obama wants to end $26 billion in oil and gas industry tax breaks, calling them ''unjustifiable loopholes'' in the tax system that other companies do not get.</p> <p>Obama's proposed fiscal 2010 budget, details of which were released Thursday, also more clearly spells out his intention to shut down a proposed nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain in Nevada and calls for ending a government subsidy that helps utilities license and plan for new nuclear power plants.</p>

Some days you have to ask yourself, my God, what if these people were Republicans? Democrats took back Congress in 2006 and the presidency in 2008 in no small part because of their ability to bang their spoons on their high chairs about what they called the Republican "culture of corruption." Their choreographed outrage was coordinated with the precision of a North Korean missile launch pageant. And, to be fair, they had a point. The GOP did have its legitimate embarrassments. California Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham and lobbyist Jack Abramoff were fair game, and so was Rep. Mark Foley, the...