Free Republic

Studies consistently find that the 2017 law cut taxes for most Americans. Most of them don’t buy it. If you’re an American taxpayer, you probably got a tax cut last year. And there’s a good chance you don’t believe it. Ever since President Trump signed the Republican-sponsored tax bill in December 2017, independent analyses have consistently found that a large majority of Americans would owe less because of the law. Preliminary data based on tax filings has shown the same. Yet as the first tax filing season under the new law wraps up on Monday, taxpayers are skeptical. A survey...

The very concept of privacy seems to be under attack (except, of course, as a justification for abortion, as laid out in Roe v. Wade — that is considered sacrosanct by the Left, including academia and the media). Now, from a member of the New York Times editorial board, comes the suggestion that not just President Trump's but your and my income tax records should be publicly available.  I'm not kidding.  Binyamin Applebaum wrote in the Sunday edition — the one with the biggest readership: … disclosure could help to ensure that people pay a fair share of taxes.  Americans underpay their taxes by more than $450 billion each year, more than...

A new statewide poll shows two-thirds of Illinois voters support Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s top policy priority, amending the state constitution to allow a graduated-rate income tax. The poll, from the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, did not ask participants specifically about the governor’s proposal. But the poll showed that a system under which higher earners are taxed at higher rates is popular throughout the state among both Democrats and independents.

It wasn’t that long ago, in 1980, that America had a top income-tax rate of 70% for individuals, nearly double the current top rate of 37%. And it wasn’t unusual. From 1940 through 1980 the top rate for the highest earners never dipped below 70%. During most of the 1950s, when the U.S. economy dominated the world, the top rate was 91%. It kicked in at $400,000 of taxable income, or roughly $3.7 million in today’s dollars. This history is relevant given New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s recent call for higher tax rates on what she called the “tippy-tops” to...

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.

... A large and growing literature continues to support the claim that high marginal tax rates and big tax hikes are harmful to economic well-being. See the work of the Dallas Fed’s Karel Mertens and colleagues, or the Romers’ own 2010 work finding a “highly contractionary” effect from postwar tax hikes. The theoretical cases for towering “optimal” tax rates that Mr. Krugman cites always tend to trip up over political realities if nothing else. Politicians may find it politically handy to be seen dinging the rich, but they also find it useful to placate the rich by dishing out loopholes....

The incoming chairman of the House Rules Committee, Rep. Jim McGovern (D., Mass.), confirmed to colleagues on Wednesday that he would not honor the three-fifths supermajority requirement to raise income taxes, as reported by the Washington Post. The change comes after a standoff between Pelosi and her moderate allies in the Democratic conference, such as incoming Ways and Means Committee chairman Richard Neal (Mass.), and younger, more progressive members like Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.). In November Pelosi and Neal initially proposed keeping the three-fifths supermajority rule for income tax increases "on the lowest-earning 80 percent of taxpayers." That notion, however,...

This would create a first class bargaining chip when dealing with a Democratic-controlled House of Representatives. Withholding taxation and estimated taxation for calendar years after 2019 would have to be ended too. The Democrats would soon realize that restarting 1040-style taxation would be a hard sell politically since people have a natural affinity for the money they worked hard to get. Their bargaining chip would be military funding. The Constitution provides that "no appropriation of money" for army funding "shall be for a term longer than two years". But since military people tend to be highly employable in the private...

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Wednesday that new tax forms, designed to make the filing process clearer and simpler for Americans, will be released next week. “Next week we will be unveiling the new 1040 and it will be a postcard as we promised,” he said during a press conference celebrating the six-month anniversary of the passage of tax reform. “Hardworking taxpayers won’t have to spend nearly as much time filling out their [tax forms].” The 1040 form is the U.S. individual income tax return. Republicans promised to simplify the filing process for taxpayers, famously claiming the forms...

I think the time is coming for an idea that is so old that it is new again: cutting the Federal government in half. The idea is: cancel all Federal welfare-type programs, including all means-tested welfare programs (apparently there are over 150 of them), all healthcare-related programs including Medicare and Medicaid, all education-related, arts-related and housing-related programs, and anything else of this sort -- in short, most everything except for the military, national parks, and maybe some public works. Social Security could eventually be reformed to a system of private retirement accounts, known as a "provident fund" system and in...

The federal government recorded a $160.3 billion surplus in April as revenues for the month jumped to an all-time high. But even with a flood of tax receipts, the deficit so far this year is running 37.7% higher than a year ago. The Treasury Department reported Friday that the deficit for the first seven months of the budget year that began Oct. 1 totals $530.9 billion, compared to a deficit of $385.5 billion for the same period a year ago. The Trump administration projected in March that this year’s deficit will hit $1.1 trillion, up from last year’s deficit of...

For those of you who survived the Great GOP Tax Cut Massacre, things are finally looking up. The unemployment rate fell to 3.6 percent last month, the lowest level since 1969. We've now experienced over a full year of unemployment at 4 percent or lower. The economy beat projections, adding another 263,000 jobs in April. Wages are rising. It was Larry Summers, Bill Clinton's former treasury secretary and Barack Obama's White House economic adviser, who warned that tax reform would lead to over 10,000 dead Americans every year in December of 2017. Summers, considered a reasonable moderate by today's political...

Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden threatened to raise taxes during a speech in Colombia, South Carolina this past Saturday....“First thing I’d do is repeal those Trump tax cuts,” said Biden. Biden also repeated a lie he made during his campaign kickoff speech, claiming only high-income households received a tax cut. The Washington Post gave this claim four Pinocchios, noting it was “clearly false.” The Post also stated: “Most Americans received a tax cut.” “Joe Biden is not Methuselah. He is Walter Mondale part deux,” said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform. In 1984 Mondale famously promised to raise...

Next week is National Small Business Week, but owners aren’t likely to spend it celebrating — they’ll be too busy trying to hire workers or keep the ones they have from defecting to bigger firms. With a 3.6 percent unemployment rate, the lowest since December 1969, the labor market continues to thrive. “This is a worker’s job market,” said Moody’s Analytics Chief Economist Mark Zandi. But Zandi adds that this is less-than-good news for the small companies that comprise the vast majority of U.S. businesses. “The risk or the concern would be at some point that businesses start to come...

Did you happen to catch this moment from Joe Biden’s campaign rally in Pittsburgh? As he worked to gin up the crowd and convince them that the Bad Orange Man wasn’t doing anything to help the little guy, he decided to take a swing at the 2017 tax cuts. Here’s what he said: There’s a $2 trillion tax cut last year. Did you feel it? Did you get anything from it? Of course not. Of course not. All of it went to folks at the top and corporations. Huh. That doesn’t seem to comport with what most reports have been...

Monday is “tax day,” as many of you know, and it’s the perfect opportunity to remind readers just how dishonest the so-called “mainstream media really is. If you read anything much about tax season before today, it was probably negative: More Americans paying more in taxes, not less; fewer Americans getting tax refunds; the bulk of cuts have gone to ‘wealthy corporations’ instead; etc. But as usual, the Left-wing Trump hate media is being so disingenuous about the tax cut and reform law passed by the president and Republicans that even The New York Times has had to admit it’s...

This Tax Day, most Americans will end up paying less to the federal government, but many of them are convinced they're actually paying more. Liberals have leveraged their power in the media to pull off an impressive and terrifying misinformation campaign, and even The New York Times had to admit it. The benefits of the Trump tax cuts have been powerful and broad. A whopping 82 percent of middle-class Americans saw a tax cut last year, with an average savings of more than $1,260. A full 90 percent of workers saw an increase in pay after the IRS adjusted withholding...

France’s prime minister has called for quick tax cuts to respond to the anger expressed through the yellow vests protests across the country. Prime Minister Édouard Philippe on Monday unveiled the results of a three-month “grand debate” launched by President Emmanuel Macron in response to the protests so ordinary people could express their views on France’s economy and democracy. Philippe says “the debate clearly indicates the direction: we must cut taxes and cut them more quickly.” At the same time, however, he said the government must cut public spending. …

With the Mueller report collapsing around his ears, Joe Scarborough is in desperate need of a new Trump-bashing shtick. Over the last two days, it looks like Joe is test-marketing a new line of attack: attempting to tie President Trump to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.Of all the millions of people who have benefited from the Trump tax cuts, on yesterday's Morning Joe and again today, Scarborough singled out Epstein, throwing in Bob Kraft as another beneficiary. Get the rest of the story and view the video here.

Right before Congress passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in December 2017, President Trump proclaimed: “It’ll be fantastic for the middle-income people and for jobs, most of all ... I think we could go to 4%, 5% or even 6% [GDP growth], ultimately. We are back. We are really going to start to rock.” A year later, it’s very clear that the tax cuts boosted gross domestic product and jobs a bit — and just for one year. Its effects are fading as U.S. GDP growth appears likely to weaken in 2019. The only thing that “rocked” were corporate...