Free Republic

Kristalina Georgieva, the new managing director of the International Monetary Fund, applauded the Trump administration's "bravery to use a tax reform to spur more growth" in an exclusive interview with "Axios on HBO." Why it matters: Georgieva vowed that she would be able to persuade the U.S. to commit more money to the fund during the course of her five-year term. "I will get my quota increase," she said — in the face of reported U.S. opposition and a U.S. veto over any changes. Georgieva comes to the IMF from the World Bank, where she was CEO and where she...

President Donald Trump is an “exaggerator” who knew his policies wouldn’t generate the 5% growth he had promised while campaigning, according to Stephen Moore, who served as a campaign advisor to Trump and was a prospective Fed nominee. In an interview with Mehdi Hasan, columnist at The Intercept, Moore stopped just short of calling the president a liar, but did say Trump hurts himself with falsehoods. “He should stop saying things that are untrue,” Moore says in a clip from Al Jazeera English television show that Hasan provided on his Twitter feed. “I think Trump is an exaggerator, and I...

With a sturdy job market, healthy consumer balance sheets, and low inflation, the economy is probably not headed toward a recession. But to continue America’s prosperity and guard against a potential economic slowdown caused by the ongoing trade war with China, President Trump should lower one of the most oppressive of all federal taxes — the payroll tax. The payroll tax is imposed on both employees and employers to fund Social Security, Medicare, and other social-insurance programs. Since 1955, the basic payroll tax has nearly quadrupled from 4 percent to 15.3 percent. Today, almost 70 percent of taxpayers pay more...

Top White HouseOpens a New Window. officials are considering a temporary payroll tax cutOpens a New Window. to boost the U.S. economy amid mounting concerns about a possible economic downturn, according to multiple reports on Monday. Internal talks on a payroll tax cut are in their early stages Monday and are one of several potential measures under consideration, the Washington PostOpens a New Window. reported, citing three sources familiar with the matter. White House aides have yet to determine whether to push Congress for approval. “As [National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow] said yesterday, more tax cuts for the American...

While the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and other experts routinely underestimate the costs of government spending programs by huge amounts, they severely underestimate receipts and economic results when there are across the board tax cuts.  The data are readily available, and they show that after the Reagan and Bush major tax cuts, the economy improved rapidly — and tax receipts shot up.  Yet in all projections, the CBO assumes that receipts will go down and the economy won't expand much because of the cuts. The CBO said the Trump tax cuts would cost the government $1.5 trillion over ten years, but...

In the 1970s, Americans were told we were in a global cooling crisis and if something wasn’t done, we’d enter a new ice age. When that didn’t happen, a few decades later we were told that entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend was not reversed by the year 2000. Despite the consistent failure of these apocalyptic warnings, that hasn’t stopped climate change alarmism. We’re now being told we only have 12 years to combat climate change, and the solution is to fundamentally dismantle the system of...

Former Vice President and current presidential candidate Joe Biden promised Saturday that on "Day One" of a Biden presidency he would repeal President Trump's 2017 tax cuts and close $500 billion on tax loopholes. Speaking at the South Carolina Democratic Party Convention, Biden said that "Income inequities are at an all-time high and made worse by Trump's tax cuts and enormous giveaways to the top one-tenth of the 1 percent ... and it's time we start to reward work over wealth." Outlining his policy proposals in this visit to the early primary state, Biden said the GOP-backed tax cuts, which...

One sure sign the Democratic primary race is getting more heated: Those 23 wannabe presidents are promising to take more of American workers’ income in taxes to pay for some of the free stuff they’re offering simultaneously. Such a deal!We’re sure to hear more about their vast spending hopes next week during the first pair of Democratic debates. They’ll play down the tax angle, except to claim falsely Trump’s tax cuts were really tax hikes. Fact Checker to Aisle 3 please!Bernie Sanders, a socialist who owns three homes, isn’t a Democrat. But he plays one every four years before...

ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, a 2020 Democratic presidential hopeful, said the governing philosophy of Republicans such as former President Ronald Reagan, who signed across-the-board tax rate cuts to grow the economy, should not be repeated in the future. "What we've seen is that the rising tide rose, right? GDP went up. Growth went up. Productivity went up -- big numbers went up and most of our boats didn't budge. For 90 percent of Americans, you start the clock right around the time I'm born. Income didn't move at all -- so lower to middle income, really,...

The Treasury Department reported a $208 billion deficit for the month of May — which is $61 billion higher than May 2018. To put that in perspective, the deficit for the entire year of 2007 was $161 billion. In the first eight months of the current fiscal year, red ink has already reached $738 billion. Even adjusting for inflation, the total annual federal deficit has exceeded that only six times in the nation’s history (five of them under President Obama). Not surprisingly, the Republican tax cuts are taking the blame for this year’s extraordinary deficits. But wait a minute. Overall...

You may remember all the glowing predictions made for the December 2017 tax cuts by congressional Republicans and the Trump administration: Wages would soar for the rank-and-file, corporate investments would surge, and the cuts would pay for themselves. The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service has just published a deep dive into the economic impact of the cuts in their first year, and emerges from the water with a different picture. The CRS finds that the cuts have had virtually no effect on wages, haven’t contributed to a surge in investment, and haven’t come close to paying for themselves. Nor have they...

If Congress doesn’t act, Americans’ taxes will automatically increase in the coming years. The 2017 tax cuts are temporary, and some of those taxes are scheduled to start increasing in three years’ time. Last year, American families of four saw their taxes cut by an average of $3,000. The typical taxpayers benefited from getting to keep about $1,400 more of their hard-earned money. One of the most important parts of the tax cuts, which support new business investments for workers and jobs, begins to expire after 2022. Three years after that, taxes increase on personal income. As deficits increase to...

As an increasing number of residents are looking to leave high-tax Opens a New Window. states, such as California and New York, some of these state and local governments Opens a New Window. are not making the process easy. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act introduced a number of reforms, including a $10,000 cap on state and local tax deductions, which have caused Americans to look into establishing legal primary residences in states where they can limit their liabilities. But some states give taxpayers a hard time when they are trying to change their domicile – thereby establishing their permanent...

RUSH: It’s amazing. The Drive-By Media now understands the concept of tax cuts and tax increases, but it took tariffs and a tariff war with the ChiComs for the Drive-Bys to understand it. I’m being ironic and a little sarcastic. They know it and understand it. It’s just that since the Republicans own mantra of tax cuts, since that is a Republican owned belief… Democrats don’t believe in cutting taxes; Republicans do, and the Democrats know it. So whenever the concept of tax cuts comes up, the Democrats and the media have to destroy it, as they did the latest...

Workers in Johnson County could have hundreds of additional dollars taken out of their paychecks annually to help pay for roadwork in the county and an expansion of the county jail — work expected to cost more than $130 million in the next five years. The Johnson County Council unveiled an income tax increase proposal to fund $110 million in road, bridges and infrastructure improvements across the county, mainly due to the construction of Interstate 69, and an estimated $20 million jail expansion project that would address a frequently overcrowded jail that the state has ordered the county to fix....

Studies consistently find that the 2017 law cut taxes for most Americans. Most of them don’t buy it. If you’re an American taxpayer, you probably got a tax cut last year. And there’s a good chance you don’t believe it. Ever since President Trump signed the Republican-sponsored tax bill in December 2017, independent analyses have consistently found that a large majority of Americans would owe less because of the law. Preliminary data based on tax filings has shown the same. Yet as the first tax filing season under the new law wraps up on Monday, taxpayers are skeptical. A survey...

The very concept of privacy seems to be under attack (except, of course, as a justification for abortion, as laid out in Roe v. Wade — that is considered sacrosanct by the Left, including academia and the media). Now, from a member of the New York Times editorial board, comes the suggestion that not just President Trump's but your and my income tax records should be publicly available.  I'm not kidding.  Binyamin Applebaum wrote in the Sunday edition — the one with the biggest readership: … disclosure could help to ensure that people pay a fair share of taxes.  Americans underpay their taxes by more than $450 billion each year, more than...

A new statewide poll shows two-thirds of Illinois voters support Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s top policy priority, amending the state constitution to allow a graduated-rate income tax. The poll, from the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, did not ask participants specifically about the governor’s proposal. But the poll showed that a system under which higher earners are taxed at higher rates is popular throughout the state among both Democrats and independents.

It wasn’t that long ago, in 1980, that America had a top income-tax rate of 70% for individuals, nearly double the current top rate of 37%. And it wasn’t unusual. From 1940 through 1980 the top rate for the highest earners never dipped below 70%. During most of the 1950s, when the U.S. economy dominated the world, the top rate was 91%. It kicked in at $400,000 of taxable income, or roughly $3.7 million in today’s dollars. This history is relevant given New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s recent call for higher tax rates on what she called the “tippy-tops” to...

This calculator provides a window into how the tax bill being passed by Congress could affect your after-tax income if your main source of income is a paycheck. It does not take into account the effects of the repeal of the health care individual mandate or the potential economic growth that may result from the bill's provisions.