Free Republic

When will I get my check? Checks are supposed to be produced “as rapidly as possible,” but it’s been suggested that could take up to two months. If you use direct deposit, it will be faster. How big will my check be? Checks will be $1,200 per adult - or $2,400 for married couples filing jointly - and an additional $500 per child. Today In: Taxes Are there income limits on checks? The amount of the checks would start to phaseout for those earning more than $75,000 ($150,000 for joint returns and $112,500 for heads of household). This is adjusted...

About 120 million U.S. taxpayers will qualify for direct payments from the government under the historic $2.2 trillion economic relief bill to combat the impact of the coronavirus, according to a conservative advocacy group’s analysis. Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin has said checks of up to $1,200 per person and $500 per child will go out within three weeks of President Trump signing the legislation, which could come as early as Friday. The IRS will send the money by direct deposit to taxpayers who have set up that capability; otherwise checks will be mailed. Individuals with income up to $75,000...

...The relief for small businesses is not adequate. A tax credit for some small businesses for 50% of wages paid to employees during the coronavirus crisis is absurd. Most have been ordered to be closed so there were no wages and they had to fire employees so they could collect unemployment. They need business loans suspended and property taxes. That will put pressure on states to lift the absurd closures.

President Trump is calling for Republicans and Democrats to unite behind his American independence agenda to defeat the spread of the Chinese coronavirus. During a Tuesday press conference, Trump detailed the “critical” need for American independence in manufacturing, the energy sector, and territorially at the nation’s borders to stop the coronavirus crisis: "We should never be reliant on a foreign country for the means of our own survival. I think we’ve learned a lot. This crisis has underscored just how critical it is to have strong borders and a robust manufacturing sector. For three years, we’ve embarked on a great...

The scope of the I.R.C. never targeted all individuals in the union. Only for a brief period, and under war powers, were all individuals made subject to taxation of income. The repeal of the Victory Tax means the scope of what is taxed was restored to its original intent, and individuals in the states of the union do not have to pay taxes on their incomes. And as the Victory Tax was the only act to have levied any such tax, the scope of taxation has never again expanded to include the whole of The United States of America.

Mitt Romney called on the federal government to send every adult $1,000 immediately to help cope financially with the economic damage caused by the spread of the coronavirus. “Every American adult should immediately receive $1,000 to help ensure families and workers can meet their short-term obligations and increase spending in the economy,” Romney, a Utah Republican senator and 2012 presidential nominee, said in a statement.

The Federal Reserve, saying “the coronavirus outbreak has harmed communities and disrupted economic activity in many countries, including the United States,” cut interest rates to zero on Sunday and launched a massive $700 billion quantitative easing program to shelter the economy from the effects of the virus. Facing highly disrupted financial markets, the Fed also slashed the rate of emergency lending at the discount window for banks by 125 bps to 0.25%, and lengthened the term of loans to 90 days. The Fed also cut reserve requirement ratios for thousands of banks to zero. In addition, in a global coordinated...

I will be addressing the Nation this evening at 9:00 P.M. (Eastern) from the Oval Office. https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1237841878889840642

President Donald Trump proposed eliminating federal payroll taxes altogether for the rest of the year, according to a report from CNBC Tuesday. The proposal would include eliminating both the employer and employee payroll taxes on Social Security and Medicare, according to the report. “There was also discussion of making the payroll tax rollback permanent,” CNBC reported.

The Trump administration plans to delay the April 15 tax deadline for most individual taxpayers as well as small businesses as part of an effort to mitigate the effects of the spread of the novel coronavirus, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Wednesday. Mr. Mnuchin said the delay would apply “to virtually all Americans, other than the super rich,” and said officials would likely announce a decision quickly...

WASHINGTON - As part of a forthcoming package of proposed tax cuts, the White House is considering ways to incentivize U.S. households to invest in the stock market, according to four senior administration officials familiar with the discussions. The proposal, one of many new tax cuts under consideration, would see a portion of household income treated as tax-free for the purposes of investing outside a traditional 401(k). Under one scenario, a household earning up to $200,000 could invest $10,000 tax-free, although officials noted these numbers are fluid. "Nothing's ruled out," said one senior administration official. "Nothing's been ruled in, either."...

Chicago's weekend began with a girl reportedly shooting her 11-year-old brother, who had to be rushed to the hospital. By the time Monday morning rolled around, 25 people had been shot, 11 of them minors, police said. Three died in the weekend violence, all of them adults, according to police. The shootings occurred between Friday at 6 p.m. local time and 6 a.m. Monday morning, according to CNN's review of the Chicago Police Department's major incident reports.

... The steady exodus of African Americans has caused alarm and grief in Chicago, the nation’s third largest city, where black people have shaped the history, culture and political life. The population of 2.7 million is still nearly split in thirds among whites, blacks and Latinos, but the balance is shifting. Chicago saw its population decline in 2018, the fourth year in a row. Since 2015, almost 50,000 black residents have left. They have been driven out of the city by segregation, gun violence, discriminatory policing, racial disparities in employment, the uneven quality of public schools and frustration at life...

What are Pete Buttigieg’s politics?If you read CBS, The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Guardian, and a host of their friends, the former mayor is decidedly a moderate. According to The Washington Post and a few more, he’s “a traditional centrist” who embodies “the Democratic primary’s rightward drift.” And if you listen to the left-wing activists trailing him around, he’s “Wall Street Pete” and “will kill us.”His supposed moderation and support (almost solely) among white liberals torments Lucy, a white liberal who graduated high school more than a decade ago but writes for Teen Vogue. “Why I’m Not...

President Trump wasn’t called a racist until he ran against Hillary. That’s how liberals operate. Play the race card every time. They’ve done it for decades. Fortunately, minorities aren’t falling for it as much as they used to. The black people no longer think they are victims – but free men – to do and achieve as they can. Just like all should be able to do. In November, two polls found that President Trump’s approval rating among black likely voters had reached 34%. An Emerson poll found that Trump has a 34.5% approval rating among black likely voters and...

Tariffs were once a mainstay in U.S. trade policy. Constituting the main source of federal revenue from 1790-1914, and at one point providing over 90% of government income, they were a pivotal component of U.S. fiscal and foreign policy. Their main motivation in those times: protect U.S. industry from foreign opposition. It wasn’t until colossal industrial growth coupled with the introduction of the income tax rendered them less critical to the government balance sheet, and their use declined. Post-World War II, tariffs took on the negative connotation you see today. The West largely eschewed them in favor of free trade...

Today, the Bureau of Economic Analysis released its advance estimate for United States GDP for the fourth quarter of 2019 and the entire calendar year of 2019. The release estimates that real GDP grew 2.1 percent at an annual rate in the fourth quarter of 2019 and 2.3 percent over the four quarters of 2019. Consumer spending and residential investment posted notable gains, propelling GDP growth and setting the stage for future economic expansion. These results show that the economy remains resilient despite a slowdown across the rest of the world and the continuation of the longest expansion in American...

President Trump signed the SECURE Act this week (January 8, 2020) as part of the government’s spending bill and it will inevitably affect most retirement savers, for better or worse. The SECURE legislation — which stands for “Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement” — puts into place numerous provisions intended to strengthen retirement security across the country. Part of the bill addresses the grim outlook for many workers who don’t have access to workplace retirement accounts. It offers small businesses tax incentives to set up automatic enrollment in retirement plans for its workers, or allows them to join multiple...

WASHINGTON - The U.S. economy will grow at a “solid” rate of 2.2% this year, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office forecast on Tuesday, but with federal budget deficits hitting $1.015 trillion. While the economy will be on good footing during this presidential election year, CBO also noted that conditions will lead to “higher inflation and interest rates after a decade in which both remained low, on average.” The inflation and interest rate rises will be noticed this year and continue through 2022 before settling down beginning in 2023, under the forecast. In its updated budget and economic outlook spanning the...

Christopher Caldwell’s new book, The Age of Entitlement, offers a striking revision of recent American history that has the advantage of being readily summarized. The polarization of political opinion and the dissolution of the American fabric, he argues, has its roots in the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which represented a sharp break with the past. “The changes of the 1960s, with civil rights at their core,” he explains, “were not just a major new element in the Constitution. They were a rival constitution, with which the original one was frequently incompatible.” The common narrative surrounding civil rights,...