Free Republic

Under the Chicago Federal Reserves new program to cover underfunded pensions, the residents of Illinois are basically being asked to buy their homes all over again.

Sales Tax: $0. Online shoppers have gotten used to seeing that line on checkout screens before they click "purchase." But a case before the Supreme Court could change that. At issue is a rule stemming from two, decades-old Supreme Court cases: If a business is shipping to a state where it doesn't have an office, warehouse or other physical presence, it doesn't have to collect the state's sales tax. That means large retailers such as Apple, Macy's, Target and Walmart, which have brick-and-mortar stores nationwide, generally collect sales tax from customers who buy from them online. But other online sellers,...

They Are Going To Make It Nearly Impossible To Pass On A Farm Or A Business To Your Children By Michael Snyder on November 20th, 2012 If you have a farm or a small business, would you like to pass it on to your children when you die? Well, unless Congress does something, it is going to become much, much harder to do that starting next year. Right now, there is a 5 million dollar estate tax exemption and anything above that is taxed at 35 percent. But on January 1st, the exemption will go down to 1 million dollars...

The U.S. Postal Service wants small businesses to send more direct mail, a.k.a. junk mail, to help the beleaguered agency expand its revenue stream by hundreds of millions of dollars. In a campaign called "Every Door Direct Mail," the Postal Service is touting a year-old online tool to help small businesses micro-target direct mail. The Web tool allows firms to tap customers by neighborhood or zip code without names or addresses. The Postal Service reported a $5.1 billion loss for the year ended Sept. 30. The loss was caused by an ongoing decline in its core revenue driver, regular letters...

An article in the Wall Street Journal last week points out what happens when public officials depend upon the continued bad behavior of Americans to fund their projects. Under the headline: "Fuel-Efficient Cars Dent States' Road Budgets," reporter Robert Guy Matthews writes that drivers, answering the call to conserve energy, are driving cars which use less gas. Less gas used means less gas purchased. Less gas purchased means fewer tax dollars collected. Way fewer. According to Matthews: The Federal Highway Administration estimates that by 2009 the tax receipts that make up most of the federal highway trust fund will be...

While the media continues to blame the big oil companies for gouging U.S. motorists as they collect record breaking profits, the windfall profits raked in by the government in the form of energy tax revenue actually dwarf the oil companies' jackpot. The press sounded the alarm last year when the largest U.S. oil company, ExxonMobil Corp, announced profits of $36 billion. But according to the Tax Foundation, the biggest price gouging profiteer was the U.S. government, cashing in to the tune of $54 billion in oil and gas taxes. "Tax collections on the production and import of gasoline by state...

Even before the US supreme court 'legislated' their opinion that our constitution allows government entities to take property from one citizen and profit on the 'exchange' of that property to another private individual or group, our own Texas leaders (some elected and many non-elected-TxDOT personnel) have been working overtime to assure that toll roads and the Trans Texas Corridor (TTC) are forced on Texans before too many of us become aware, stand up, and protest. Probably due to many groups protesting the TTC and toll projects allowed by law in 2003 with HB 3388, our Texas leaders came up with...

<p>Facing a skeptical legislature, Gov. Mark R. Warner recommended tax and budgetary remedies yesterday that he believes will deliver on the state's commitments to public education, transportation, health care and fiscal integrity.</p> <p>A confident Warner, some of whose marquee programs have been mutilated by a GOP-dominated General Assembly, called for tax increases and major spending to enable state government to live up to its promises to Virginians.</p>

Here's a thought: The next time you hear a political candidate promise, "I will never raise your taxes. No way. Not in a million years," make a pledge of your own: I will never vote for this boob, no way, not in a million years. Are you as sick of this anti-tax pandering as I am? What has become of political discourse when it has sunk to such a point where candidates who have voted to raise taxes in the past -- or, God forbid, suggest they might have to raise taxes in the future -- have become public enemies?...