Free Republic

With a week to go before tax season opens, taxpayers were already bracing for a potentially “miserable” filing season. It turns out that it could live up to the hype. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Commissioner Koskinen has advised employees that the budget cuts will result in reduced services to taxpayers. In an email to employees sent earlier today, Commissioner Koskinen advised that “realistically we have no choice but to do less with less.” What does that mean for taxpayers? * Identity theft could increase. Despite the need for increased taxpayer protections against identity theft, the implementation of additional measures will...

Democrats, fresh off a resounding stomping last November, are convinced that the reason they lost is because they’re not giving away enough of your money.

A senior U.S. House Democrat unveiled this week an aggressive agenda to boost workers' paychecks by shifting significant tax breaks from the wealthiest Americans to the middle class. The plan from Representative Chris Van Hollen has almost no chance of passage by the Republican-controlled Congress but is aimed at shaping Democrats' policy vision for the 2016 presidential election. The Maryland Democrat's plan calls for an annual 'paycheck bonus' tax credit of $1,000 for individuals making less than $100,000 a year and $2,000 for married couples making less than $200,000 and would be funded through a new fee on financial transactions.

Coming this tax season from the IRS: More identity-theft risk, longer hold times and refund checks that take a WEEK longer to arrive The IRS, long Americans' least-favorite government agency, is likely to be a lot less popular this tax season - refunds will be slower, the risk of identity theft will be higher and there will be longer hold times to reach customer service. By some estimates, fewer than half of the taxpayers who call the IRS will be able to speak to a representative. IRS Commissioner John Koskinen revealed to the changes to employees in a memo -...

Maryland Gov.-elect Larry Hogan (R) announced eight more senior members of his administration Tuesday, including a new transportation secretary whom he introduced as “the best highway builder in the entire country.” Hogan’s nomination of Pete Rahn, who has held top transportation jobs in New Mexico and Missouri, comes amid great uncertainty over the future of the light-rail Purple Line in the Washington suburbs and other proposed mass-transit projects. The governor-elect has strongly signaled that he will emphasize roads over rail after he takes office Jan. 21. Hogan, who made tax cuts a rallying cry of his campaign, also pledged to...

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.” “The last two years have fundamentally changed the dynamics of this debate [on the tax code],” he said. “As we have seen the weaponization of the IRS, as we have seen the Obama administration using the IRS in a...

Gas prices are plunging across the country, a product of surging U.S. energy production that has put the country in the same company as Saudi Arabia and Russia. However, in a strange twist of fate, that same dynamic is bringing to the fore a topic once thought to be anathema, especially in a Republican-dominated Congress: higher gas taxes. The drop in fuel prices has occurred for a record 102 consecutive days, according to the AAA, putting more than $14 billion of disposable income in consumers' pockets. However, the federal gas tax has been lodged at 18.4 cents for more than...

Taxes: Democrats unveiled a plan Monday that — surprise — would boost taxes on the rich. But new IRS data show these soak-the-rich campaigns are based on total falsehoods. 'Our tax code today is stacked in favor of people who make money off of money and against those who make money off of hard work," Rep. Chris Van Hollen, the top Democrat on the Budget Committee, said Monday. The plan he announced — which to be sure has no chance of being enacted — would boost taxes on the top 1% and hand out checks to the middle class each...

Earlier this week, the Missouri Legislature began its 2015 session which saw the introduction of House Bill 75. Introduced by state Representative Brandon Ellington (D-22), HB 75 seeks to impose an additional tax on all retail sales of handguns and ammunition in the state of Missouri in order to finance video cameras to be worn by uniformed law enforcement officers in the state. Forcing law-abiding Missourians to pay an additional tax on firearm and ammunition purchases is unmerited. Gun owners and purchasers should not be responsible for funding these projects.

**SNIP** Requiring employees to shoulder more of the cost burden may undermine public support for Obamacare just as Congress, now firmly under Republican control, considers new ways to gut the law. The tax takes effect in 2018, and employers are already laying the groundwork to make sure they don’t have to pay the 40 percent surcharge on health-insurance spending that exceeds $27,500 for a family or $10,200 for an individual. Once envisioned as a tool to slow the nation’s growing health-care tab, the tax has in practice meant higher out-of-pocket health- care costs for workers. “I don’t think there’s any...

Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley said Thursday that he’s still “seriously considering” a run for president but admitted that he was rattled when voters rejected his hand-picked Democratic successor in favor of Republican Larry Hogan. “I can tell you my feelings were hurt,” Mr. O'Malley said in a speech at the University of Chicago, CNN reported. “We had done a lot of really good things in Maryland and in the end, you did not hear much about it during the campaign,” Still, he acknowledged, “I was on the ballot.” Mr. Hogan won a stunning upset victory over Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown,...

Nearly $1 in $3 in state revenue comes from the federal government, according to a new analysis. While taxes are responsible for most state general revenues, the federal government is responsible for about 31.5 percent of the total, according to the nonprofit Tax Foundation.

Governor Dayton wants to build billions of dollars worth of roads and bridges during the next 10 years, but he's not doing much bridge-building with House Republicans. At a news conference, he slammed their $750 million transportation plan that doesn't call for any new taxes. "The panel of experts I convened said there's a $6 billion shortfall over the next 10 years and their response yesterday was $200 million from the general fund and $550 million from la-la land," Dayton told reporters at a news conference Friday morning. Dayton also accused Republicans of not even wanting to solve the problem.

Democrats for over a century were associated with the American middle class. Working-class voters once believed that Democratic-inspired intervention into the economy – minimum-wage laws, overtime pay, Social Security, Medicare, workers’ compensation – protected their interests better than unfettered free-market capitalism. Republicans often had trouble selling the argument that an unleashed economy and new technology would relegate poverty to a relative, not absolute, condition – something like suffering with a cheap outdated iPhone 4 while the better-off afforded an iPhone 6. Why, then, have Democrats lost the working class – especially white, lower-middle-class voters? There are several obvious reasons. For...

One of the first agenda items on the to-do list for the new Congress is redefining the definition of full-time work under Obamacare's employer mandate, which goes into effect this year. Under the healthcare law, companies have cut hours in order to avoid reaching the Obamacare threshold requiring businesses to provide health insurance if they employ more than 50 full-time workers at 30-hours per week. As a result, the economy is seeing an substantial shift from full-time to part-time workers with fewer benefits as a result of the law. Republicans have long expressed the need to re-establish the definition of...

With the new calendar year upon us it is time to remind lawmakers about sound public policies. One overlooked area the new Legislature needs to take up is large, across-the-board tax cuts. Center analysts have recommended a personal income tax cut from 4.25 percent to at least 3.75 percent. There are four major reasons why a tax cut is necessary. First, the money legally confiscated from Michigan residents belongs to them, not Lansing politicians or their hangers-on. Second, the Legislature has owed us a tax cut since its members hiked personal income taxes by 11.5 percent in 2007. Third, other...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)The complicated process of signing up for Obamacare is now being matched by IRS instructions to help Americans figure out how much in healthcare taxes they owe Uncle Sam. The agency has issued 21 pages of instructions, complete with links to at least three long forms and nine tip sheets. It is geared to those who have Obamacare or who owe a fine, dubbed “shared responsibility payment,” for refusing to get health insurance. The IRS warned that everybody must have health insurance or pay the tax. “While the vast majority of tax filers — over three quarters — will just...

The President is set to announce plans to increase the welfare gravy train. This time he wants to make two years of community college free. The cost is unknown at this time though the administration acknowledges it would be significant. After spending $10,000 or more a year per student per year on mediocre government schools, Obama wants taxpayers to further fund mediocre community colleges. College tuition at four year schools has increased dramatically because of the influx of free money via student loans. The cost of “free” community college may be low today but once schools stop chasing students around...

Record-low gas prices across the U.S. have given rise to fresh talk in Washington of raising the federal gas tax for the first time in over 20 years, with leading Republicans now saying a hike must not be ruled out. The GOP has long resisted calls from business leaders and others to boost the 18.4 cent-per-gallon tax as a way pay for upgrades to the nationÂ’s crumbling roads and bridges. Yet in recent days, senior Senate Republicans have said they want to keep options open and that "nothing is off the table" when weighing the best mechanisms to pay to...

Wondering how Obamacare affects your tax return? Relax: You just need to know your NABPP and SLCSP from your SRP, MEC and ECN – and follow the IRS's 21 PAGE guide - Lengthy and impersonal 'Publication 5187' is now available as Americans grapple with Obamacare's impact on their annual tax returns - Includes 4-page glossary of terms and acronyms taxpayers need to understand because of the Affordable Care Act - Boiled down: Get medical insurance, prove you aren't required to, or pay a new tax - Some example scenarios in the IRS manual are more than 150 words long, use...