Free Republic

Sky-high property taxes are perpetuating an affordability crisis, as Texas Gov. Greg Abbott pointed out. Abbott told the Rotary Club of San Antonio, “One thing that is driving up the cost of housing and the cost of living is skyrocketing property taxes—skyrocketing property taxes that are beginning to force people out of homes they’ve lived in for virtually their entire lives.” And of course, he’s right. Texans everywhere are struggling to hold onto their homes because of soaring tax bills. That’s especially true in places like Travis County, where local officials are hitting homeowners hard. In fiscal year 2015, the...

A federal judge on Friday issued a stay of House Democrats' lawsuit aimed at obtaining President Trump's tax returns, after an appeals court agreed to rehear a different case that touches on some of the same legal issues. Judge Trevor McFadden, a federal district court judge in Washington, D.C., and a Trump appointee, said in a court filing that the tax-return case is on hold "pending further order of this Court." McFadden had initially put the case on hold in January, until the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled in a separate lawsuit over House Democrats' subpoena...

At @realDonaldTrump’s direction, we are moving Tax Day from April 15 to July 15. All taxpayers and businesses will have this additional time to file and make payments without interest or penalties. https://twitter.com/stevenmnuchin1/status/1241002750483324930 

axpayers will get a three-month reprieve to pay the income taxes they owe for 2019, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Tuesday at a news conference. As part of its coronavirus response, the federal government will give filers 90 days to pay income taxes due on up to $1 million in tax owed, Mnuchin said in Washington. The reprieve on that amount would cover many pass-through entities and small businesses, he said. Corporate filers would get the same length of time to pay amounts due on up to $10 million in taxes owed, Mnuchin said. During that three-month deferral period,...

WASHINGTON - The Trump administration says individuals and businesses will be allowed to delay paying their 2019 tax bills for 90 days past the usual April 15 deadline. The extension announced Tuesday is an effort to inject up to $300 billion into the economy at a time when the coronavirus appears on the verge of causing a recession. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said individuals will be able to delay paying up to $1 million in payments. Corporations will be able to defer payment on up to $10 million. Taxpayers will still have to file their tax returns by the April...

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released an assessment of the cost of a college education and advised recent high school graduates planning on getting one to "save your money. You're going to need it to help pay down the student debt of those foolish enough to have already incurred the cost of earning a degree." The CBO report found that "a glut of graduates without marketable skills has led to a crash in the salaries many of them counted on to repay the loans they took out to be able to afford going to college. What America needs now is...

Friday night's deal includes every Democratic wish except taxpayer-funded abortion and not a single Republican proposal. Those will come later, we're told. We're always told that, and it almost never happens. WASHINGTON, DC — Washington politicians appear poised to fail the country once again, agreeing Friday evening to a one-sided and partisan coronavirus bill disguised as compromise. It’s not a shock to any conservatives in Washington and probably isn’t surprising to Republican voters either. They’re used to betrayal. But the suffering men and women who run America’s small and mid-sized businesses might have hoped they wouldn’t be abandoned in a...

White House Director of Trade and Manufacturing Policy Peter Navarro confirmed Wednesday the administration is working on an executive order to eliminate the government’s reliance on foreign-made medical supplies. The “Buy American” order comes on the heels of concerns expressed by senators during their Tuesday meeting with President Donald Trump on Capitol Hill. [snip] The order would prevent federal agencies from purchasing medical supplies, including face masks, gloves and ventilators, from China. [snip] China has prevented the export of surgical face masks, severely limiting supplies in the U.S. and countries around the world. “China has managed to dominate all aspects...

... According to the IRS, the top 0.01% of earners—those with incomes above $10 million—paid a 24.8% effective federal income-tax rate in 2018. This isn’t very different from the 25.3% the group paid in 2017, and is higher than the average rate of 22.5% on the same group during the George W. Bush administration. As these rates only encompass federal income taxes, most filers can expect to add another 8% to 12% of income from other forms of taxation, placing their total burden well above the Saez-Zucman numbers. How does that affect the claims of regressivity? It’s true the remainder...

Jim Cramer has a radical plan to fight the economic toll of the coronavirus: suspend federal tax collection. “The federal government should not be taking in any money whatsoever from any major companies, so the major companies can have the cash flow. Also with individuals, so individuals can have the cash flow,” the CNBC anchor said on Thursday morning. “There’s no need for the federal government to take any money in right now. Print the darn money.”

It’s starting to look like a classic standoff between Capitol Hill and the White House: Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Democrats insist that a Coronavirus stimulus bill primarily address paid sick leave while President Donald Trump and some Republicans hold strong for a payroll tax cut. On Tuesday, Trump came to the Capitol to sell Senate Republicans on his plan to temporarily suspend or reduce the payroll tax ― a 12.4% levy evenly split between employees and employers. Some Republicans have floated the idea of eliminating the payroll tax for 90 days to help the economy deal with the fallout...

veryone knows that living in California comes with a price: Its residents pay some of the nation’s highest taxes on the money they earn, the gas they pump and the clothes they wear. But for the moment, at least, it appears voters have had enough. The defeat Tuesday of the largest borrowing proposal in the history of California schools — $15 billion for repairs — has opened the question of whether Californian voters put a temporary halt to the growth of government debt because of the unsettled political scene, or because they are on the cusp of a tax revolt...

“Escape from New York” is a 1980s film that takes place in a dystopian world of crime and violence. The science fiction movie portrays crime running rampant across the country — forcing the island of Manhattan to be reconfigured into a maximum-security prison. When the president of the United States crash-lands on the island, forces are deployed to get him out. Although the situation in present day New York has not devolved to that level, residents are becoming increasingly determined to leave. According to recent U.S. Census and IRS data, a net 180,000 people fled the state in 2018 — the largest...

In an end run around Republican legislators, Oregon’s Democratic governor ordered the state on Tuesday to lower greenhouse gas emissions, directing a state agency to set and enforce caps on pollution from industry and transportation fuels.

Virginia Democrats agreed to a deal raising gas taxes in the state by a total of 10 cents over the next two years, a move party leadership said would give people "more time with their families." . . . "This is a historic agreement that will give Virginians more time with their families and less [time] stuck in traffic," Virginia House of Delegates speaker Eileen Filler-Corn (D.) said.

Following increased interest in expanding access to paid family and medical leave, Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D–Conn.) joined forces with Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D­–N.Y.) to promote the Family and Medical Insurance Leave, or FAMILY, Act. If we believe the act's supporters, it would cost close to nothing and provide essential benefits to employees who don't currently receive them. Unfortunately, these claims are bogus. Under the FAMILY Act, the federal government would offer 12 weeks of paid time off to enable workers to care for infants, recover from major illnesses, and care for severely ill relatives. During that time, employees would receive...

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) recently released its preliminary report on the revenue effects of the first two pillars of its anti-base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) project. The topic may be dense, but the results are not — implementation of the OECD’s plan would result in a $100 billion tax increase on mostly American businesses. The OECD began its BEPS project in 2013 in response to concerns about corporations avoiding taxes with offshore accounts. Since then, it has released a 15-point action plan, encouraging member countries to comply with the points in order to maximize revenue...

For the third year in a row, NJ Gov. Phil Murphy has proposed big increases to more than a dozen gun fees in New Jersey. Murphy’s push for higher fees in his proposed state budget follows a series of bills he’s signed adding new restrictions to gun laws that were already some of the toughest in the nation. Murphy is asking lawmakers to raise the cost of a $2 gun application to $50, and a firearm ID card from $5 to $100, according to the state’s treasury department. The Democratic governor also proposed a 2.5% tax on firearms and a...

Scandinavian countries are well-known for their broad social safety net and their public funding of services such as universal healthcare, higher education, parental leave, and child and elderly care. High levels of public spending naturally require high levels of taxation. In 2018, Denmark’s tax-to-GDP ratio was at 44.9 percent, Norway’s at 39.0 percent, and Sweden’s at 43.9 percent. This compares to a ratio of 24.3 percent in the United States. So how do Scandinavian countries raise their tax revenues? A first breakdown shows that consumption taxes and social security contributions—both taxes with a very broad base—raise much of the additional...

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders just introduced legislation that’s raising alarms in Silicon Valley. But this time, it’s start-up workers, not Big Tech executives, who may be concerned. Sanders and Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., introduced a new tax bill Thursday that would tax nonqualified stock options of more than $100,000 at vesting for private company employees making at least $130,000 a year. This means that instead of being taxed once they exercise their options, employees would be taxed on shares when they vest, even though they still wouldn’t be liquid assets. Employees who meet the tax threshold would be taxed...