Free Republic

The May jobs report shows that the American economy added 175,000 positions. Positive employment growth is welcome news, of course. But May's gains weren't big enough to make a dent in the national joblessness rate, which actually ticked up to 7.6%. Meanwhile, revenue at most U.S. companies continues to grow as firms expand operations and accumulate capital. Yet this progress hasn't precipitated a proportional expansion in hiring. This lag has long been a source of frustration on Capitol Hill. Perhaps yet another month of anemic job growth will actually jolt policymakers into action. The best way for Congress and the...

Jay Leno told his studio audience the other night that President Obama should forget his plans to close the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay and instead close the IRS. The applause was instantaneous and the laughs were loud and genuine. Most ordinary Americans would have whooped and hollered in favor of Leno's idea long before they learned the IRS has been caught targeting conservative political groups and wasting millions on moronic employee-training conferences. But the IRS is no joking matter. The average working American -- poor or rich or in-between -- hates and fears the IRS for good reason. Able...

As usual, the Congress is all over a scandal after the fact. The hearings on the IRS fiasco are good theatre and admittedly necessary; but where were the Republicans, not only over the past three years that the IRS was targeting conservative groups, but over the past three decades as the more and more power was granted to this same agency -- an agency with the potential to be transformed into a de facto secret police. The Republicans were, by consistently agreeing to more complexities in the tax code and the need for stringent tax enforcement due to ever expanding...

If the sluggish U.S. economy wasn’t reason enough for tax reform, the ongoing IRS scandal demonstrates how a devilishly complex tax code enables government mischief. But the flat tax — a longtime policy goal for many on the right — isn’t the realistic answer to either problem. Flat-tax advocates see headlines about an out-of-control IRS as a chance to put the idea back on the public-policy radar in way it hasn’t been since the 1990s. “This is why you need a flat tax,” Wall Street Journal economics writer Stephen Moore told Fox News recently. “If you get rid of two-thirds...

On Tuesday, KY Sen. Rand Paul launched a spirited defense of Apple, whose tax strategies were subject to a hearing of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. "I frankly think the committee should apologize to Apple," Paul said. Paul went on to accuse the committee of "bullying" one of America's greatest companies, prompting Sen. John McCain to quickly defend the inquiry and say that Paul's remarks were "frankly, offensive."

This week, I had a piece in the magazine arguing that retirement is trouble. That's a golden oldie for those of you who've been reading a while; my favorite evergreen topic is haranguing my readers to save 15-20% of their income, or fer goshsakes at least 10%, towards retirement. (I mean it guys. You need to save more.) But this piece had an interesting peg: Republic Services, Inc. is in the middle of an epic battle with the Teamsters International over the pension plans that cover their workers. Up until recently, Republic teamsters have been covered by the rather notorious...

As the Monday, April 15, tax-filing deadline mercilessly approaches, millions of Americans will cry as they calculate what they owe Washington and then fork it over. But, amid those tears, there will be plenty of laughs. The U.S. Tax Code is so tangled and twisted that University of Florida law professor Steven J. Willis speaks amusingly about “tax humor.” While not exactly the stuff of stand-up routines, America’s surreal tax code is a masterpiece of dark comedy.When UF started its Graduate Tax Program in the College of Law, Willis recalls, “one requirement of the graduate school was knowledge of...

Throughout our population, experts and non-experts alike, the verdict is nearly unanimous. The U.S. tax code is a hopelessly complex mess, antithetical to growth, and is crammed with conflicting incentives, which screams for reform. But there is little agreement on how to repair it. My preferences are necessary, just, and ordained in heaven. Your preferences are unnecessary, unjust and counter-productive. Tax reform is the most difficult and complicated piece in the U.S. budget battle. It is integral to both the Republican House and the Democratic Senate budgets. As in every budget item, there is a conservative vs. liberal confrontation, but...

This isn't news because it's novel for a Paul to be saying such things --- his dad once called for getting the government out of marriage on a GOP presidential primary debate stage --- but because of Rand Paul's growing prominence in the GOP. If he could rally a hawkish party to oppose the president's power to use drones against terrorists in certain circumstances, can he rally a socially conservative party to find an accommodation on gay marriage? Paul says foreign policy is an instrumental way to expand the GOP, but itÂ’s not the only way. Social issues are another...

WASHINGTON - President Obama has been pleading with House Republican leaders lately to raise government revenues by overhauling the tax code to erase loopholes and other income exemptions. It wasn't an idea he campaigned on last year, though the chairmen of his deficit reduction commission proposed doing just that in a report he shelved. But they also wanted to use the higher revenues to offset lowering the tax rates in order to boost economic growth, jobs and investment, which in turn would boost tax revenues and reduce the deficits. But cutting tax rates doesn't play well with Democratic voters or...

It would be the ultimate fiscal cliff. A group of House Republicans wants to put an expiration date on the 75,000-page U.S. tax code. The Tax Code Termination Act would require the repeal of the entire code in 2017 — except for the bits dealing with Social Security and Medicare — with a new system ready to go for the following year. Of course, the U.S. economy would benefit from major tax reform that eliminated the current bias against investment, axed crony-capitalist tax breaks, and lowered marginal rates on individuals and business as much as possible. But Republicans can put...

Every year, I sit down with families who made a particular financial move, and as a result, some unforeseen -- and unintended consequence -- kicked in. This could be an unexpected tax event, it may have been a broken relationship, or a business failure. (All of which and more, by the way, is why you should be sure to ask us about tax PLANNING this year, rather than tax "reporting" -- which is what the tax return preparation process really is.) But sometimes these consequences are because of the tax code itself. Take marriage, for example. The foundations of most...

Hey, let's just simplify the tax code and eliminate loopholes.It's hard to think of any statement that on its surface sounds less controversial. Eliminating loopholes means more revenue. Everyone likes simplification. Efficiency!So why doesn't it happen?This fantastic chart from Credit Suisse's Neal Soss is the answer. It shows the top 20 biggest "Tax Expenditures" which cost the government over $900 billion in the 2012 fiscal year. Credit SuisseSo you want to simplify the tax code, what are you going to get rid of?Are you going to eliminate the incentive to provide employers health insurance? Are you going to get rid...

Realistic Republicans understand that President Obama and the Democrats head into fiscal-cliff negotiations in a far stronger bargaining position now than in 2011. When voters were asked on November 6 whether they favored raising taxes to reduce the deficit, a total of 60 percent said yes (47 percent favored increasing taxes for those who earn $250,000 or more, and 13 percent approved tax increases for all). So taxes will be going up. As a matter of political strategy — not to say survival — Republicans will have to agree to raise taxes on those defined as rich. It’s more than...

Obama and his fellow Democrats grow louder and more frequent for the top 5% (really the top 20%) who pay most of the federal taxes to ‘pay their fair share’ meaning even more taxes. But what about the 45 percent or so of our fellow citizens and legal residents who pay zero federal income taxes which that money is dedicated to pay for everything it does and that it gives away except retirement entitlements? With the government running the enormous deficits it is and candidates especially Dems promising more and more ‘free stuff’ to voters as Romney put it, this...

Beautiful. Emphasis mine:CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO A competitive business environment is just as essential to innovation as well-functioning markets. In the enterprise states study, we have fresh evidence of how states are fostering economic growth and jobs through their innovation. What do successful states have in common? A tax and regulatory climate that allows companies to continuously innovate, unshackled by needless delays and burdensome costs. And states that maintain a good legal reform environment can also expect hundreds of millions of dollars or more in economic activity & tens of thousands of new jobs according to our study....

Barely a day goes by that President Barack Obama doesn’t harangue us with complaints that we’re not all paying our “fair share.” Considering the fact that 47 percent of American households pay no federal income tax whatsoever, and that the top 5 percent of wage earners pay almost 59 percent of the total tax revenue, I agree with the president: There are those who are taking advantage of the Internal Revenue Code’s complexity. But it’s not the people the president has in mind each time he delivers his class warfare address. Indianapolis NBC affiliate WTHR recently uncovered a growing segment...

What percent of all tax revenues do high-income households pay?   Income Tax All Federal Taxes Top 1% ($344,000 +) 39.5% 28.1% Top 5% ($155,000 +) 61% 44.3% Top 10% ($112,000 +) 72.7% 55% Lower Half ($32,000 -) 2.4% 2.6% Middle Quintile ($65,000) 4.6% 9.2% All Households 100% 100% What is the average tax rate paid by high-income households?   Income Tax All Federal Taxes Top 1% ($344,000 +) 19% 29.5% Top 5% ($155,000 +) 17.6% 27.9% Top 10% ($112,000 +) 16.2% 26.7% Lower Half ($32,000 -) 1.9% 9.6% Middle Quintile ($65,000) 3.3% 14.3% All Households 9.3% 20.4% IRS Statistics...

"April is the cruelest month. . . ."--T. S. Eliot, The Waste LandRonald Reagan said it back in 1983: "Our federal tax system is, in short, utterly impossible, utterly unjust and completely counterproductive . . . (it) reeks with injustice and is fundamentally un-American . . . it has earned a rebellion, and it's time we rebelled." But what politician today would speak so eloquently, and all too accurately, about the country's irrational, insufferable, infernal Internal Revenue Code? (Except maybe for purely ceremonial purposes during an election year.) Those in Congress who have made distinguished careers sneaking tricky little passages...

Glen Beck Called the Tax Code Something This Past Week and It was Perfect, Do you Remember the Word? Were you listening? He said this was the term that his accountants use to describe the tax code. The word was not: Evil or dispicable. It was a word that meant entrapment or get you. Please help out if you listened!