Free Republic

A sanctimonious liberal like any other respectable 16-year-old, I made a seminal lurch to the right the first time I opened a pay slip. I was manning the register weekends for the Ice Capades Chalet in Atlanta and made about $40 a week. Or so I imagined. Then where the hell was it? The significantly lighter payment was my rude introduction to taxation at source. Indignation at being fleeced at a minimal income persisted into my adulthood. I lived on a wing and a prayer for decades, and having to pitch anything whatsoever in the communal pot was consternating. I...

Planned Parenthood just announced a $47 million budget for their midterm election blitz. The ACLU is spending $25 million specifically to push pro-abortion propaganda. And, Reproductive Freedom for All (formerly NARAL) is spending $23.5 million. That’s nearly $100 million, all aimed at one goal: flipping the U.S. Senate for Chuck Schumer, his pals at the DSA (Democratic Socialists of America), and the Abortion Lobby this November. Last week we got proof their plan may be working. A new poll out of Texas shows Democrat James Talarico jumping to a 5-point lead over Attorney General Ken Paxton in the race for...

While many pro-lifers focus on preserving the Hyde Amendment to keep federal tax dollars from funding abortion, many Americans don’t realize that their state taxes are already funding it. A new report from Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) highlighted that 21 states are funding abortion through Medicaid. “Twenty-one states currently use their own funds to cover abortion services for Medicaid enrollees beyond the limits imposed by the federal Hyde Amendment, which bans federal funding of abortions in cases other than pregnancies that result from rape, incest, or are a life threat,” reports KFF. Using state taxes to pay for abortions, this...

Dem Michigan Senate hopeful Abdul El-Sayed on Sunday refused to break ties to notorious hate streamer Hasan Piker — while hinting he wants to sock the middle class with the bill for his Medicare for All plan. El-Sayed even left the door open to continuing to campaign with Piker in the pol’s general election matchup against Republican Mike Rogers — despite arguing that the notorious Twitch streamer’s 2019 comment, “America deserved 9/11” was dumb. “It was a dumb statement,” El-Sayed told NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “He disavowed it. So yes. America didn’t deserve 9/11. “But to sit here and play...

A trio of Big Apple homeowners has filed suit to delay the state’s controversial new tax on luxury second homes — claiming Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration bungled the rollout and unfairly put the burden on homeowners. The disgruntled owners charge that City Hall is unfairly burdening them by forcing them to prove they are full-time New Yorkers if they do not want to pay the pied-à-terre tax, according to the suit filed Friday in Staten Island Supreme Court. The city Department of Finance “has arbitrarily and capriciously foisted onto New York City residents the burden of proving they are not...

A Southern California nonprofit that runs domestic violence shelters has paid its longtime chief executive officer, a Hawaii resident, more than $1.6 million in salary and vacation over two years — far more than local peers. Experts in nonprofit oversight say 1736 Family Crisis Center CEO Carol Adelkoff’s out-of-state residency and compensation raise questions about board governance and ‘reasonable’ pay. Adelkoff said her compensation grew significantly over the last couple of years because she was paid unused vacation time that had accrued over the 40 years she has worked at the nonprofit. As public spending on homelessness has come under...

Missouri voters rejected a ballot measure in Tuesday’s primary election that would’ve abolished state income taxes. While nine states have phased out individual income taxes, Missouri voters apparently feared an increase in other forms of taxation to make up for the revenue loss. The measure, Amendment No. 5, was rejected by an 84%-16% vote, with about a fifth of the ballots tallied. Missouri GOP Gov. Mike Kehoe backed eliminating the income tax. Opponents of the change claimed that the state’s highest earners would’ve benefitted the most, while public areas like schools, prisons and social services would’ve been directly impacted. Concerns...

Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman vowed to undo Gov. Kathy Hochul’s “oppressive” and “reckless” pied-à-terre tax if elected – as it was revealed the Big Apple plans to hire dozens of employees just to process the new fee. Blakeman, who’s currently serving as the elected Nassau County executive, issued a dire warning Thursday saying state Democratic Party policies will drive more New Yorkers out of the city, which already carries a 12.5% local tax burden, the third highest in the country. “This reckless tax will drive even more families, jobs, and investment out of our state, and middle-class New Yorkers...

No one will be shocked to learn that New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani's pied-a-terre tax is more expansive than he let on. Mamdani said the tax only applied to wealthy people who owned secondary homes in the Big Apple that are worth more than $5 million. But if you read the actual tax, that $5 million value only applied to one-, two-, and three-family homes. Condos and co-op units that are secondary homes are also taxed, and starting at a value of $1 million, or more. That explains why there are 31,000 properties subject to the tax. HOLDUP. Zohran’s...

New York City business leaders aren’t inclined to go to war with Zohran Mamdani – but his latest stunt surrounding the controversial pied-à-terre tax is forcing them to reconsider, On The Money has learned. This week, our Marxist mayor released the names of taxpayers who are being subjected to his idiotic levy on owners of apartments worth $5 million or more that are not their primary residences. It’s idiotic partly because these wealthy out-of-state residents don’t use our services, but nevertheless already pay plenty of state and city taxes – the lion’s share in fact. They might decide to buy...

California Democrat starts by targeting billionaires, ends article demanding taxes on $50-million net worth — that threshold will keep dropping until it hits your 401(k)New York’s socialist mayor campaigned on taxing billionaires, immediately pivoted to hitting millionaires — same playbook progressives used with income tax over a century agoEvery dollar seized in wealth taxes gets ripped out of businesses like Walmart and Tesla, destroying jobs and innovation to fund left-wing NGOs and handouts for illegalsIf you ever wished you could be counted among billionaires, your wish might come true soon if the socialists get their way. Of course, it’s not...

Key takeawaysSocial Security income continues to be subject to federal income tax.A new senior deduction means only about 12% of seniors will pay taxes on their benefits.Nine states impose some income tax on Social Security.Is the income you receive from Social Security taxable? With the recent tax law, Social Security income continues to be taxable, but an additional deduction for seniors may help offset what is owed.Under the recent law, taxpayers age 65 or older—and their spouses, if filing jointly—can each claim a $6,000 deduction for tax years 2025–2028. This senior deduction is reduced by 6% (but not below zero)...

New York has spent years aggressively taxing its wealthiest residents in the name of fairness, and the results are now in. Suffice it to say, they’re not pretty.A new study released Monday by the Citizen Budget Commission (CBC) reveals the state’s share of America’s millionaires has dropped sharply since 2010, triggering a nearly $11 billion shortfall in tax revenue in a single year as high earners quietly packed up and left for lower-tax states.The analysis shows New York’s share of millionaires fell from 12.7% in 2010 to just 8.7% in 2022 — the steepest decline of any state in the...

If we play this right, we can attack China with the fiercest enemy known to man: The IRS, and that's no joke. here are times when the obvious hits you between the eyes with such force that you just can’t take two aspirin and wait for dawn. Trump v. Barbara did just that. There are supposedly about a million Chinese “birthright citizens” who can now vote in US elections. That also means that they are US taxpayers. Hmmm… Time for a little thought experiment. These US citizens in China are subject to the Internal Revenue Code. That means that they...

VIDEO AT LINK........... Last night, it became certain that a wealth tax would be placed on the November ballot in California. I’m voting no. And I’m going to spend the rest of this piece telling you why, and what we should be doing instead. When 10% of the people in this country own two-thirds of the wealth, when we have minted the first trillionaire in human history, and yet your wages have stagnated, and your healthcare costs have skyrocketed, something is fundamentally broken. Over the decades, the American economy has been engineered for the very top, a story as old...

An investigation by the House Oversight and Accountability Committee has found that 571,000 federal employees and retirees have failed to pay their share of income taxes, depriving the U.S. Treasury of more than $6.3 billion in revenues. The number of tax scofflaws working for Uncle Sam is continuing to surge, with tax debt among federal workers growing 32% since 2021. And the number of current and former government employees who aren’t paying taxes has increased by 43% in three years, according to House Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., who serves as chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform....

California seems determined to prove out that old saying of President Reagan's, about government: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it. California has become a veritable tax-a-palooza, and they have already driven many of the productive residents out of the state—those being the people who work, who invest, who start and run businesses, and who create jobs. From the impeccably coiffed Governor Gavin Newsom, he of the questionable finances, on down, nobody in California's government seems to understand the notion of incentives, or how they work. Now, California is...

A wave of investigators descended on comedian Carlos Mencia’s Encino mansion Thursday as officers moved methodically through the property, hauling out boxes, sealed cases, and bags of materials tied to a sweeping tax fraud investigation. Photos from the scene show a heavy presence from the California Franchise Tax Board enforcement team, with officers posted across the driveway and front entrance as they carried evidence containers from inside the home to waiting vehicles. Multiple images capture officers actively removing stacked banker-style boxes and hard cases from the residence, staging them outside the property in organized piles. Black duffel bags and additional...

A proposal to impose a one-time 5 percent tax on the assets of California billionaires has qualified for the November ballot. The California Secretary of State’s office announced Wednesday that supporters had gathered enough signatures to place the measure before voters after months of maneuvering and opposition from influential political and business leaders. The proposal, backed by a health care union, would levy a one-time tax on the assets of the state’s wealthiest residents. Advocates of the measure claim the increase in revenue would help offset the effects of federal spending reductions and provide resources to prevent hospital closures and...

Just yesterday, it was reported that Hollywood insiders fear the city is turning into the next Detroit. Movie and TV productions are talking their business to other, more attractive locations with fewer rules and better tax rates. In response to this, Adam Schiff and other lawmakers want to give Hollywood a federal tax subsidy. In other words, they want taxpayers to bail out Hollywood.