Free Republic

President Barack Obama released his recent personal finance records in 2008, which included his 2004 U.S. Individual Income Tax Return and Senate Annual Finance Report. President Obama's records for 2004 do not reconcile with the State of Illinois Comptroller's Office. There are inconsistencies in the total compensation received as an Illinois State Senator. The largest error likely is President Obama's omission of a "Leadership Stipend" of over $8,000. This stipend should have been recorded as income. According to the Illinois Comptroller's office, then-State Senator Obama received: 2004 State of IL compensation: $ 52,817.38 (salary) $ 8,040.01 (leadership stipend) Stipends of...

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Americans report spending $151 on food per week on average. One in 10 Americans say they spend $300 or more per week and, at the other extreme, 8% spend less than $50. Gallup has asked a version of this question as far back as 1943, but has not asked it since 1987. In 1943, an average of $15 per week was spent on food. The final 1987 estimate was $106. But the increases in weekly food spending over time largely reflect the impact of inflation. On a relative basis, after adjusting prior years' data for inflation to...

On this day in 1861, Lincoln imposes the first federal income tax by signing the Revenue Act. Strapped for cash with which to pursue the Civil War, Lincoln and Congress agreed to impose a 3 percent tax on annual incomes over $800.

that the gap is growing between America’s richest and poorest are built on a foundation of flawed research, according to a report published today by the Laffer Center for Supply-Side Economics. “The principal research supporting claims of dramatic income inequality in America is unsound and misguided,” said Laffer Center Senior Fellow Brian Domitrovic, Ph.D. “This focus on ‘the 1 percent’ takes no account of any absolute increase or decrease in living standards on the part of the lower classes. Studies have shown that in every recent interval of American history, and certainly from 1980 to the present, living standards and...

There must be something in the water in Oslo: Nobel laureates, from our president to Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz, all agree that high levels of inequality are a serious problem, if not the problem, facing our weak economy. According to this liberal thesis, either the 2008 financial crisis and its attendant recession, or the sluggish recovery — and maybe both — can be attributed in large part to the high level of economic inequality in the United States. Further, in this view, inequality is an economic malady on its own, even in times of prosperity. Liberal commentators, of course,...

Economy: A Bloomberg poll out this week purports to find that "Americans say they're better off since Obama took office." Don't believe it. Fact is that by most measures, Americans have fallen behind under Obama.

The Democrats in Mudville were ecstatic when they took control of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate in 2007. But since 2007, family incomes and net worth has both declined. According to The Federal Reserve Board’s Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) for 2010 provides insights into changes in family income and net worth since the 2007 survey. The survey shows that, over the 2007–10 period, the median value of real (inflation-adjusted) family income before taxes fell 7.7 percent. The decline in median income was widespread across demographic groups, with only a few groups experiencing stable or rising incomes. Median...

Mitt Romney has been citing an interesting economic statistic lately about the economy under Barack Obama: “Well, let’s look at what happened. What you’re not going to hear is that during his term median income in America has dropped by $3,000.” Here he is on “Hannity,” repeating the same number. That’s a pretty striking figure. Is it true? The answer depends somewhat on what numbers you use — there are more and less charitable options available — but the answer is arguably yes.

Each year in the United States, an estimated 6.1 billion hours are spent complying with the federal tax code. I'm pretty sure at least half of those hours are spent by me. With less than two weeks remaining before this year's tax returns are due, I've barely made a dent in my stack of forms, receipts, and instructions. Each year the prospect of doing my taxes looms more daunting and dismal than the year before. Each year I wonder where I'll find the time, never mind the patience, to get it done. Each year's tax ordeal seems to require more...

The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) released the Personal Income and Outlays report for February. The Good: Personal income increased $28.2 billion, or 0.2 percent in February and Personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased $86.0 billion, or 0.8 percent (mostly consumer durables like autos and computers). Real Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) increased 0.5 percent in February, compared with an increase of 0.2 percent in January. Personal income rose 0.2% in February. The Bad: REAL personal income fell 0.1% in February. So, personal spending increased 0.5% while personal income FELL 0.1%. That means that households … are boarding the Debt Train again!...

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney said on Fox News Sunday that he wants to maintain “the progressivity” of the tax code so that as Americans make more money they are required to surrender increasing percentages of their earnings to the federal government in taxes. Romney has a long record of opposing a flat tax--even investing more than $50,000 of his own money during the 1996 presidential campaign to run newspapers ads attacking then-presidential candidate Steve Forbes’s flat-tax proposal as a “tax cut for fat cats.”

The Sacramento Bee website is reporting that the number of top-income taxpayers in California has declined by a third. In an article in its Capitol Alert section, the Bee says that those Californians with $500,000 and up taxable incomes have declined from almost 150,000 in 2007 to slightly under 100,000 in 2009. The article also notes that the 100,000, representing just over a half percent of the 14.6 million returns, accounted for 18.8 percent of total income reported, but paid 32 percent of all income taxes in 2009. If Governor Jerry Brown wonders where a whole bunch of those making...

According to a Jan. 31 Associated Press report, the notion of eliminating or dramatically reducing state income taxes is gathering steam. The AP reported that in Idaho, Kansas, Maine, Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma and South Carolina — all but one of which elected a Republican governor in 2010 — this idea is getting a serious look. Currently, only nine states lack an income tax. Until 1991, Connecticut was income-tax-free as well. Considering what has happened in the Constitution State since then, one really can't blame those considering repeal. In '91, Gov. Lowell P. Weicker Jr. and the legislature enacted Connecticut's first...

In 2010, the median household income in the United States was $49,445, which was down from the $49,777 that had been recorded in 2009. Meanwhile, average household income in the U.S. was $67,530 for 2010, which was likewise down from 2009's figure of $67,976. Both figures for 2010, along with the rest of the cumulative distribution of household income in the United States for 2010, are presented in the following chart, which shows the U.S. household income distribution in terms of percentiles:

Obama and other Democrats are constantly harping on taxing the "rich" or the "wealthy," but their proposals are all about taxing income. Well, income is not wealth, and the wealthy often have little income. The reality is that all income taxes do is punish the productive and job creators. Income taxes also are very useful for the wealthy and powerful to keep their club exclusive by making it nearly impossible for most people to become wealthy.In other words, income taxes are class warfare by the mega-wealthy against the middle and upper middle class. They want to keep their club exclusive.As...

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and his wife Michelle gave $10,772 of the $1.2 million they earned from 2000 through 2004 to charities, or less than 1 percent, according to tax returns for those years released today by his campaign. The Obamas increased the amount they gave to charity when their income rose in 2005 and 2006 after the Illinois senator published a bestselling book. The $137,622 they gave over those two years amounted to more than 5 percent of their $2.6 million income. Romney charitable contributions Tax year Taxable income Charitable donations Donations as % of income 2010 $21.7...

So Mitt Romney thinks his effective tax rate is about 15%. That prompts many people to express disbelief: "What?! Most people pay a higher rate than that, don't they?" ,,,, But assuming he's correct, here's why his effective rate is probably higher than most people's: The effective tax rate is always going to be lower than one's top income tax rate. And the top rate for roughly four-fifths of Americans is 15% or less, said Roberton Williams, a senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center. In other words, 80% of Americans have an effective rate below 15%.

Washington (CNN) - Former president Bill Clinton enjoyed his most lucrative year ever on the speaking circuit in 2010, capping a decade of paid speaking events that has earned him $75.6 million since leaving office in 2001, according to a CNN analysis of federal financial records. Clinton received $10.7 million for 52 paid speaking engagements last year, a sizable increase from the 36 paid speeches he delivered in 2009 for a total of $7.5 million. The most the former president had previously earned in one year was in 2006 when he earned $10.2 million for 57 events. His 2010 speaking...

For years, the Left led by President Obama and aided by the robots in the media have continued to say there is a growing income gap in America. They say the rich are getting richer and the poor are being left behind. President Obama recently stated in his weekend address to the nation, “Over the past three decades, the middle class has lost ground while the wealthiest few have become even wealthier.” The recent flurry of news stories came as a result of a new Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report that concluded: “From 1979 to 2007, real (inflation-adjusted) average household...

Barack Obama is entirely predisposed to claiming that he inherited a an economic mess, and it in truth, he did. He did assert that he could fix the economy in three years and implied that he perhaps ought to be limited to one term if he did not deliver. [VIDEO AT SITE] Back then he said he should be held accountable but today wants to be accountable for absolutely nothing save for killing Bin Laden. As democrats controlled the entire Congress for the first two years of Obama's term and were able to shove pretty much anything they wanted...