Free Republic

Tax Reform: The good news is Americans are fed up with the current code. The bad news is most think the biggest problem is that corporations and the rich don't pay enough.

Republican Sens. Mike Lee of Utah and Marco Rubio of Florida have released a blueprint for federal tax reform called “The Economic Growth and Family Fairness Tax Plan.” First, we should not embrace the language of progressive socialism in believing tax reform should have as a goal to advance “family fairness.” The plan should simply be entitled “The American Growth and Opportunity Plan.” That said, the Lee-Rubio plan is a great improvement over the current system. For the individual tax structure, the plan introduces a two-tier system to replace the current seven tax brackets. This plan moves America from a...

State Rep. Jay Morris, R-Monroe, recently sent an email out to his supporters criticizing Gov. Bobby Jindal's approach to closing Louisiana's projected $1.6 billion budget gap, accusing the governor of being too beholden to a national anti-tax group. "I'm no psychologist or psychiatrist but in my opinion what is going on as we approach session is insane. The insanity has its roots in the Governor's pledge to the Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), the taxpayer advocacy group based in Washington, DC headed by its founder, Grover Norquist," wrote Morris in a mass email. Morris said administration officials made it clear...

Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) president Grover Norquist has written a letter to several members of the NRA’s board of directors fervently denying allegations of his ties to Muslim Brotherhood leaders as “conspiracies.” Norquist is currently facing re-election for his position on the NRA’s board of directors, all while these accusations against him have come under renewed attention—and could dominate discussion of his NRA role in the coming weeks. In the letter obtained by Breitbart News, Norquist accuses Center for Security Policy (CSP) president Frank Gaffney, a former official in Ronald Reagan’s Pentagon, of being a “stalker” he has had...

WASHINGTON—Highway funding, tax reform and tire registration were the big issues tire dealers, repair shop owners and association officials discussed with Capitol Hill staffers during the Tire Industry Association’s Federal Lobby Day on Feb. 5. Approximately 55 representatives of the tire retailing and auto repair industries participated in the event, which began with speeches from current and former members of Congress and progressed to one-on-one meetings with key staff persons in the offices of several top Washington lawmakers. With the Highway Trust Fund set to run out of money in May, passage of a multi-year transportation funding bill was the...

With a few strategic policy proposals, King George encouraged Americans to sign a document that later became known as the “Declaration of Independence”… Indirectly, of course. In the year of 1765, the King of England managed to do the Obama equivalent of signing Obamacare. With a stunning amount of short-sighted arrogance, the Kingly gentleman from England thrust America into a frenzy of anti-English sentiment. (Racist colonists!) On November 1st, in the year 1765, Britain implemented the Stamp Act. Defending the American colonies during the French and Indian War, as well as the Pontiac’s Rebellion (no-one liked Pontiac then either, apparently),...

The Swiss arm of HSBC Holdings Plc private banking division has been accused of helping wealthy international customers avoid taxes and conceal millions of dollars from local revenuers… So, when I make my millions, remind me to bank with HSBC.Information leaked (read: stolen) by a former IT employee of HSBC’s private banking division in Switzerland has already been used by authorities to track down potential tax dodgers; and now it is being used to cast partial blame on the financial giant. France is anxiously combing through the illegally obtained information, and has even forwarded the information on to other countries… The...

The Huffington Post is beside itself with indignant rage over companies moving their headquarters overseas to avoid paying the highest corporate income tax in the industrialized world. Feeling that Secretary Jack Lew was onto something when he accused companies of being economic traitors for reducing their tax burden, the HuffPo let loose a string of economic illiterate ramblings about the indecency of corporate profits.…the drug firm Mylan stomped on the Stars and Stripes as it ditched America for the Netherlands. Then, the drug company AbbVie similarly renounced America. For 30 pieces of silver, it will become Irish. Medical device maker...

It takes a very specialized economic ignorance in order to come up with some of the policy prescriptions proposed by the folks at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. In what I can only assume is a plan to continue his pattern of proposing budgets that get soundly rejected by Congress, Barack Obama is proposing a slew of new business taxes to fund (a portion) of his $4 trillion budget.Concerned over the rate at which businesses have been fleeing high US corporate tax rates, Obama has proposed a plan: Tax companies a little more. (Only a Democrat would think we could solve the...

After the 2014 midterm elections, a lame-duck session of lawmakers got together to strike one final blow against the citizens of Michigan who voted them out. They are pushing for a new tax reform that would tie Michigan for having the second-highest state sales tax in the country at 7 percent. The lawmakers claim that the revenue is needed to fund government services like and local schools and roads despite the fact that it would also double Michigan’s fuel tax, making it the highest in the country. For the sake of the Great Lake State’s economy, Michiganders should reject such...

First, the basics of the presidentÂ’s new tax proposal: Obama presented his 529 tax plan during his last State of the Union address. The plan consists of raising $1 billion over 10 years by taxing capital gains realized in withdrawals from 529 savings accounts. According to surveys cited by the White House, 70 percent of 529 account assets are held by families earning over $200,000 per year. But what exactly are 529 savings accounts -- and who usually invests in them? Glenn Reynolds explains: Though millions of Americans have been putting money into "tax free" 529 plans to save for...

 SEE: Cruz: Abolish the IRS January 13th , 2015 ”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.” What is discouraging is, the above article goes on to say that Senator Ted Cruz ”… acknowledged it’s not really possible to abolish the IRS or adopt a flat tax...

House Democrats, fresh off massive election losses, say the problem is they didn’t make a bold enough case for tax increases and wealth transfer to the poor. They rectified that Monday with a speech by Rep. Chris Van Hollen proposing tax increases on the wealthy with the money going straight to tax cuts for the poor and middle class. The plan uses tax laws to encourage employee wage increases, reduce tax breaks for Wall Street and slap another fee on financial transactions. The government would dole out $1,000 tax credits for most workers and increase a slew of other tax...

President Barack Obama says he will try to undertake an overhaul of the tax system with the new Republican majorities in Congress. He says the “devil is in the details.” He says the tax system needs to be simpler and fairer. He says some corporations engage in tax avoidance while others pay full freight. He also says he would like to combine tax changes with money for capital works projects. …

European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker has indicated he will try and get around member states’ veto powers over fiscal issues when he proposes new laws to clamp down on tax avoidance. In an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, he said he may use a majority vote to get a forthcoming law on the automatic exchange of tax rulings (letters that give companies favorable tax conditions) passed. “I have not excluded that we change the rules using a qualified majority (of member states). I will leave the technical and legal aspects aside now, but it would affect aspects of administrative...

’ve complained over and over again that America’s tax code is a nightmare that undermines competitiveness and retards growth.Our aggregate fiscal burden may not be as high as it is for many of our foreign competitors, but high tax rates and poor design mean the system is very punitive on a per-dollar-raised basis.For more information, the Tax Foundation has put together an excellent report measuring international tax competitiveness.Here’s the methodology. The Tax Foundation’s International Tax Competitiveness Index (ITCI) measures the degree to which the 34 OECD countries’ tax systems promote competitiveness through low tax burdens on business investment and neutrality through...

Harry Reid is in love with one of the easiest tax dodges out there. He’s been buying –-gasp!!—municipal bonds, which of course every investor knows denies federal income tax from being paid to the patriotic hardworking citizens of the United States via the U.S. Treasury on the income created from the interest rate carried on the debenture. I don’t know how long the government will put up with this loophole whereby the federal government allows some citizens, like Reid, to make really stupid investment choices in the name of tax-free investment, but I can say this: If you have reasonable...

WASHINGTON - There's a much bigger, largely untold story behind the renewed debate over U.S. corporations who merge with foreign firms to reduce their federal tax bills. The latest chapter in the story concerns Walgreen, the nation's largest drugstore chain, which plans to go ahead with a cash and stock purchase of a Swiss company that could have resulted in a big tax cut on its corporate profits. Walgreen, however, decided against moving overseas, saying it plans to keep its corporate roots in the U.S. But the back-story involves far more fundamental issues that the news media either played...

At 74,000 pages, the IRS code is a mind-boggling ode to lobbying, pork-barrel spending and graft. These are the only good things that I can say about the IRS. Ode may be too friendly a word, however. Let’s instead call it an incantation for our country. Because the code holds a country in thrall like the winged monkeys in Dorothy’s Oz were held. And until the witch is dead, we monkeys must do her bidding. Politicians, economists and ordinary citizens can’t follow the tax code, which has tripped up cabinet nominees, majority leaders and others who ought to know...

Recently, Republican leaders in Congress unveiled a "tax reform" plan that they claimed would provide the American people with a simpler, fairer, and more efficient tax system. While this plan does lower some tax rates and contains some other changes that may make next April a little less painful for Americans, there is little in it to excite supporters of liberty. Taxes may even increase under this plan for some Americans, as it eliminates some of those tax deductions labeled “loopholes.” When I served in Congress I opposed bills that “closed loopholes” because closing loopholes is just a fancy way...