Free Republic

Michigan business owners are running into problems with the state’s new online system for filing sales, use and payroll taxes, and some are worried that if they can’t make timely payments, they will be stuck with fines and interest charges. Asked if the state would waive penalties, Michigan Department of Treasury spokesman Terry Stanton said the “penalty and interest waiver will be accomplished systematically on a case-by-case basis.” The Treasury Department has also changed its stand on mail-in tax payments. Before the system went online, businesses were told the electronic system was mandatory. Now, Treasury is only requiring it for...

Let's take a look at some freebies and deals offered on Tax Day. Pizza Hut is getting creative with their P-2 form. Customers will fill out the P-2 form that asks questions like "how many pizzas did you order in 2014?" and "how many different combinations did you try in 2014?" ....Head over to McDonald's for the ultimate Big Mac deal. Buy one Big Mac or Quarter Pounder on Tax Day and receive a second sandwich for just one penny... Boston Market is offering a free dinner with a purchase of an individual meal.... Staples knows that after customers have...

...Some people are hard up and can’t afford to pay their taxes. But others simply choose not to pay. When traditional enforcement strategies, like charging above-market interest rates on the debt, don’t work, the government uses a number of tools to collect these taxes. But traditional collection methods don’t always work. In a recent study, we used another strategy that got results: publicly shaming tax delinquents. It should be a key part of government efforts to increase the collection of tax debts, and thanks to the Internet and social media, the government has the means to make it even more...

One can’t help but be impressed by the seemingly great strides solar energy has been making of late. Bullish reports abound of added capacity, aggressive expansion, technical advances and a solar jobs boom. Industry elites engage in bold financial maneuvers that would make Gordon Gekko proud. But don dark enough shades to see through the media-generated glare, and the picture looks less sunny -- and sometimes maybe a little shady. The boom -- some might even call it a “bubble” -- America’s solar energy industry is enjoying stems neither from overwhelming competitive-market success nor from long-promised technological breakthroughs that finally...

BRIGHTON, Mich. (WXYZ) - Is Proposal 1 the right solution for our crumbling roads? It has the support of Republicans in Lansing, but one local GOP group is breaking with their party on this vote. Three weeks from today, voters across the state will have the final say on Proposal 1. In the meantime, there's no shortage of opinions on this proposed "fix" for Michigan's crumbling roads. "I'm like everyone, I'm for getting the roads fixed and I don't want taxes to increase," says voter Jim Johnson. "I want it to go to what they actually are saying it's supposed...

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, expected to soon announce his candidacy for president, plans to steal Democrats' thunder and target income inequality by campaigning on a tax plan that he promises will "reward families with children while slashing levies on business and investment income but keeping a top rate personal income rate of 35 percent," according to Politico. Rubio’s plan, a joint effort with Utah Sen. Mike Lee, pares down tax brackets to just two — 15 percent and 35 percent, while also creating a new child tax credit worth $2,500 and eliminating the estate tax, Politico reports. For corporations, the...

Back in the 1980s, I was an associate minister in charge of the children's ministry at a church in upstate New York – not far from Buffalo. The church had a children's worship that met on Sunday mornings separate from the adult's traditional morning worship. The children's church service featured special characters that would share the Gospel in ways that resonated well with kids. There was, "Tick-Tock the Grandfather Clock," "Jack, the Pirate," "Moe, the Hobo," and "The Old Circuit Rider," who actually rode a real horse to church on the Sundays he visited. The youngsters loved it and attendance...

CNSNews.com) - The U.S. Justice Department issued a stern reminder on Monday that when it comes to income taxes, "no one is above the law or below the radar." And to reinforce that message, the DOJ news release listed 23 cases where the government successfully prosecuted tax cheats. In one case, a California man was sent to prison for 55 months for selling fraudulent tax products; other cases involved the under-or concealing of income, the skimming of cash receipts, failure to pay tax due, filing false returns, and transferring assets to avoid taxes. The people named in those 23 cases...

Abolish the Internal Revenue Service? IRS Commissioner John Koskinen has said the government must have an IRS to collect the taxes to fund the government. Mr. Koskinen is right that no matter what kind of tax system we have, there needs to be a tax collection bureau. But those in favor of abolishing the present IRS are correct in that the United States certainly can get along perfectly well without the politicized, abusive and rights-trampling tax agency the IRS has become. Mr. Koskinen and others who defend the IRS claim the problem is with the tax law, which is written...

U.S. spending on prescription medicines jumped 13 percent to $374 billion in 2014, the biggest percentage increase since 2001, as demand surged for expensive new breakthrough hepatitis C treatments, a report released on Tuesday showed. Demand for newer cancer and multiple sclerosis treatments, price increases on branded medicines, particularly insulin products for diabetes, and the entry of few new generic versions of big-selling drugs also contributed to the double-digit spending rise in 2014, the report by IMS Health Holdings Inc found.

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren appeared on one of the late night talk shows last week, beating the class warfare drum and arguing for billions of dollars in new social programs paid for with higher taxes on millionaires and billionaires. In recent years, though, blue states California, Illinois, Delaware, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland and Minnesota adopted this very strategy, they raised taxes on their wealthy residents. How did it work out? All of these states lag behind national average in growth of jobs and incomes. So, if income redistribution policies are the solution to shrinking the gap between rich and poor, why...

Florida Gov. Rick Scott is the latest state leader on a jobs-poaching trip to California. Scott will visit a jobs forum in Los Angeles on Monday, where he will discuss why California businesses should move their operations to Florida.

At least 15 Fortune 500 companies, many of them worth north of a $1 billion, paid zero income taxes in 2014, says a report out last week from the Citizens for Tax Justice. According to the report, household names like CBS, General Electric and Mattel all successfully manipulated the U.S. tax code to avoid paying taxes on their massive profits. Even more shocking: some of them even received tax rebates in the tens or even hundreds of millions

The average household in Michigan will pay as much as $525 more in taxes in 2016 if Proposal 1 is approved by voters on May 5, according to a study by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. The study estimated that increasing the sales tax from 6 percent to 7 percent would cost a typical Michigan household $389 and the change in the fuel tax would cost between $88 and $136. “Policymakers chose to fix the roads with a tax hike instead of budget cuts,” said James Hohman, the author of the study and the assistant director of fiscal policy...

A precautionary lockdown of the U.S. Capitol was lifted after about two hours Saturday following a suicide by a man carrying a sign demanding taxes for the '1%'. The man died after shooting himself on the west front of the Capitol building just after 1 p.m., Capitol Police spokeswoman Kimberly Schneider said. No one else was hurt. Capitol Police Chief Kim Dine said the man had a backpack and a rolling suitcase, triggering an hours-long lockdown, and a sign that said something about 'social justice.'

Sanders blasts U.S Corporations for Dodging Taxes BURLINGTON, Vt., April 9 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the Senate Budget Committee ranking member, today issued the following statement on new data showing the extent to which some American companies are avoiding taxes: “I applaud Citizens for Tax Justice for releasing new data today revealing the unfairness of our tax system and the fact that a number of the biggest and most-well known corporations in America continue to pay little or nothing in taxes. At a time when we have massive wealth and income inequality, and when corporate profits are soaring, it...

Buried in that 8,000 (!) word NYT magazine article about Obama’s economic plan that I mentioned yesterday, is this bit flagged by Geraghty at Campaign Spot: “If you talk to Warren [Buffet], he’ll tell you his preference is not to meddle in the economy at all — let the market work, however way it’s going to work, and then just tax the heck out of people at the end and just redistribute it,” Obama said. “That way you’re not impeding efficiency, and you’re achieving equity on the back end.” He continued by saying that he thought there was some merit...

Government documents obtained by a top "Inside the Beltway" watchdog group and released on Thursday reveal that Internal Revenue Service's Lois Lerner was strongly urged by Sen. Carl Levin, D-Michigan, and Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, her assistance in attacking certain non-profit political groups. The organizations they selected for targeting by Lerner were part of the Tea Party and conservative movements. Newly released documents revealed that Sen. Levin (left) and Sen. McCain both urged the IRS to target conservative groups in the wake of the Citizens United decision. The group that investigates and exposes government corruption, Judicial Watch, released newly acquired...

IOWA CITY, Iowa - Sen. Rand Paul called Friday for college tuition to be a tax writeoff in his first direct pitch to young voters of his presidential campaign. Paul used the power of the pocketbook, along with calls for electronic privacy and reforming the criminal justice system, to appeal to what he called the "Instagram generation," a constituency he sees as vital to his nascent presidential campaign. Paul blasted President Obama's plan for free community college, telling the crowd of a few hundred people, mostly students, that it won't work because someone has to pay for professors and facilities....

President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, paid $93,362 in federal taxes last year with an earning of $477,383, which is a lower income than in the past few years due to a decline in the sales of the president's biographies. They gave $70,712 to 33 charities. The Obamas paid taxes at an effective rate of 19.6 percent, according to 2014 tax returns released by the White House, The Associated Press reports. "In January 2013, the President signed into law legislation that extended tax cuts to middle-class and working families and helped improve the country's fiscal health by asking the...