Free Republic

Illinois' 859 local school districts consume nearly two-thirds of the $27 billion in local property taxes collected across the state each year. Illinois has nearly 7,000 units of local government. That’s the highest count of any state in the nation, and the runner-up is not even close. One of those units of government is the Naperville Township Road District, where seven employees maintain less than 20 miles of road at a cost of $116,000 per mile. City officials have said they could maintain the same distance at half the cost, and have moved to take over the road district’s duties...

Ted Cruz claims that his tax plan would supercharge economic growth, boosting GDP by as much as 5% a year for a decade or more. That’s, umm, an ambitious goal to be sure. However, there is actually good reason to believe that he’s right. As long as we’re careful about how we define GDP growth and also as long as we consider all the ways in which his plan will change the economy. This does mean being a little perverse in our assumptions: but also correct in our assumptions. The basics of the plan are that income taxes will be...

Over the course of the 86 full months that President Barack Obama has completed serving in the White House—from February 2009 through March 2016--the U.S. Treasury has collected approximately $18,764,164,000,000 in tax revenues (in non-inflation-adjusted dollars), according to the Monthly Treasury Statements issued during that period. (President Obama was inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2009.) That equals approximately $124,003 for each of the 151,320,000 persons who, according to the Bureau of Labor

Taxes may be as certain as death, but they've changed a lot. Over the centuries, governments have levied taxes on everything from facial hair to the right to cover up—and officials accepted payments of beers, beds, and even broomsticks. Here, from history, are a few taxes we’re glad to not have to pay anymore: Rome's Toilet Tax Ancient Romans valued urine for its ammonia content. They found the natural enemy of dirt and grease valuable for laundering clothes and even whitening teeth. And like all valuable products, there was a scheme to tax it. Emperor Vespasian (r. A.D. 69-79) earned...

Make no mistake here. Cruz is proposing a VAT add-on to the existing personal income tax system.

There is a vast turnover in jobs in Michigan’s economy — more than one out of 20 are added and lost every three months. This means that there’s always someone being left behind during an economic recovery and there’s always someone finding new opportunities in a recession. Yet, the overall direction of the economy still matters and things are going well in Michigan. In a recent article in Bridge, Ted Roelofs points out that, even though Michigan’s unemployment rate has fallen to a 15-year low, the state still has a relatively high “underemployment” rate and interviews a few people who...

In a typical year, April 15 would be the red-letter day for taxes. This year, however, April 15 has been pushed aside by April 18. April 18 is this year's deadline to file taxes or apply for an extension. Usually, when April 15 falls on a weekend the tax deadline is moved to the following Monday. April 15 falls on a Friday this year but another event, Emancipation Day, is pushing back the deadline three more days. Emancipation Day – set aside to commemorate the signing of the Emancipation Act by President Abraham Lincoln – is celebrated in Washington, D.C....

Monday, April 18 is the filing deadline for federal income taxes. ItÂ’s a day where we all are reminded how much of a pain our 70,000+ page tax code inflicts upon us every year. For those of you who hire accountants, alla salute youÂ’re done and you donÂ’t have to go through the headache of filing your own taxes. Of course, thatÂ’s dependent on whether you gave your accountant all the proper documents and receipts. To those who wanted to file on their own, youÂ’re gluttons for punishment. Regardless, theyÂ’re due next Monday, and every identity thief out there...

In 1980, Ronald Reagan campaigned on a four point economic recovery plan. First, reduce tax rates, to increase incentives for job creation, investment, business start-ups and expansion, and wage growth due to the resulting increased demand for labor and increased productivity. Even liberal Keynesian economics holds that tax cuts are pro-growth. Two, reduce regulatory costs and barriers to business, which can act as further tax cuts. Three, reduce federal spending, to reduce the government’s drain on the private sector. And four, restrain monetary policy to restore a stable value for the dollar. After Reagan led adoption of those policies in...

Bono understands your plight. He knows you pay a lot in taxes. He wants you to pay more: Tuesday on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, U2 frontman and anti-poverty activist Bono called for the U.S. to send more assistance to Europe to shore up the European Union as it buckles under the Third World migrant crisis, even though Americans are struggling to bear their own tax burdens. “I know the American taxpayer is really hurting at the moment and the same in Europe,” Bono said. “But I think between Europe and America there is a consensus building that, you know, the corruption...

A new proposal to pay for fixing Illinois' roads could use devices to track how far Illinois drivers have traveled and tax them by the mile. The plan from Senate President John Cullerton, a Chicago Democrat, is aimed at gasoline tax revenues that have fallen as drivers have bought more fuel-efficient cars. Cullerton says cars that get better mileage still create the same wear on roads, so the state needs to find a better way to collect taxes and pay for those repairs. "If all the cars were electric, there would be no money for the roads," Cullerton said. Drivers,...

During an interview with the editorial team of the New York Daily News, Hillary Clinton admitted her tax proposals will increase taxes on the American people by at least $1 trillion over the next ten years. Here is the key exchange from the meeting, according to a transcript released by the Daily News: Clinton: I have connected up my proposals for the kind of investments I want to make with the taxes that I think have to be raised. So on individual pieces of my agenda, I try to demonstrate clearly that I have a way for paying for paid...

IT WOULD BE overstating the case to claim that nobody disliked Barbara Anderson, the irrepressible "tax-cut tigress" who for nearly 40 years was the best-known taxpayer activist in Massachusetts. The longtime director of Citizens for Limited Taxation, who died of leukemia on Friday at 73, had an amazing gift for friendship that even diehard political foes found hard to resist. Jim Braude, a liberal's liberal who used to campaign as ardently for raising taxes as Anderson did for reducing them, always said that he liked Anderson as much personally as he disagreed with her politically. The two faced off in...

Inflation-adjusted federal tax revenues hit a record $1.48 trillion for the first half of fiscal year 2016, but the federal government still ran a $461 billion deficit during that time, according to the latest monthly Treasury Department statement. Treasury receipts include tax revenue from individual income taxes, corporate income taxes, social insurance and retirement taxes, unemployment insurance taxes, excise taxes, estate and gift taxes, customs duties, and other miscellaneous items. In the first half of fiscal 2016, which included the months of October, November, December, January, February, and March, the amount of taxes collected by the federal government outpaced the...

The release Tuesday by the National Archives of a fresh trove of documents detailing the Clinton administration's dealings with billionaire Donald Trump could become the latest fuel for flame-throwing in an already incendiary 2016 presidential race. ADVERTISEMENT The documents include: a signed copy of Trump's “The Art of the Deal,” delivered to a top aide to then-President Clinton; logs of Trump’s invitations to the Clinton White House; and an entry about a Trump Towers photo-op with the president. The files come at a sensitive time in the Republican presidential race, and could be used by Trump’s top rival Texas Sen....

Trump 2012 on how we'll be paying for his massive,  far-to-the-left-of-Obama, BIG-government HC plan: But much like the Mexicans 'paying for the wall', all such taxes and levies will eventually fall in the lap of the American consumer -there's no such thing as a free ride, as some confidence trickster might propose to you. The Gipper knew that better than anybody... a lesson lost on much of today's detached-from-logic 'alt/right' conservatives: 'The most dangerous myth is the demagoguery that business can be made to pay a larger share, thus relieving the individual. Politicians preaching this are either deliberately dishonest, or...

WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) — A statewide, month long initiative to put the clamps on a Senate bill is underway. Senate Bill 463 is aimed at redirecting highway money to the state general fund. This weekend, the Kansas Contractors Association is running ads targeting lawmakers to get them to just say no. It’s called Detour Greenlight and it’s pointed to 24 legislators they believe detour, or normally vote against protecting road and bridge funding. It also names some who they say are for strong spending on roads. “To redirect the little bit of sales tax that goes into the pot to...

One man could cause a budget crisis in New Jersey — by moving out of the state. Billionaire David Tepper has moved from New Jersey to Florida, and the loss of his income tax could leave a $140 million hole. The 58-year-old founder of the hedge fund Appaloosa Management — who Forbes estimates is worth $11.4 billion — registered to vote in Florida in October, listing a Miami Beach condo as his permanent address, and he filed a court document in December declaring himself a resident of the tax-friendly state. He also opened a branch of ­Appaloosa in South Beach,...

The legislature in the Mariana Islands moved to impose a $1,000 excise tax on all handguns sold in the U.S. territory on Wednesday. The legislation comes after a federal court struck down its handgun ban late last month. . . . The bill also included a number of other gun control measures including establishing a number of gun free zones, gun storage requirements, and waiting periods

The Treasury Department issued two new rules Monday to make it much more difficult for American companies to leave the country. Technically, what the companies do is a "tax inversion," taking over a foreign firm and adopting its target's address as its headquarters. By doing this, it can pay only the foreign tax rate on the profits it makes abroad. This is attractive because taxes in other developed nations are invariably lower than those in the United States. Yes, ours are the highest in the world. Monday's two rule changes were President Obama's third attempt to end corporate inversions and...