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According to a report from the Tax Foundation, Americans spent $409 billion (2.2 percent of GDP) on tax compliance in 2016. This works out to 8.9 billion man-hours wasted preparing tax returns, which is the equivalent of roughly 4 million full time jobs. The Tax Foundation’s figure includes time spent by individuals preparing and filing their taxes, and money spent by individuals and corporations on tax services provided by accountants and lawyers. Essentially, it is wasted money. The billion dollar question: why does America waste so much money doing taxes? Because of complexity. The US Tax Code is so inordinately...

TRENTON, New Jersey — Republican Gov. Chris Christie on Wednesday touted an anti-tax crusader's endorsement of a proposed 23-cent- per-gallon gasoline tax hike along with a sales tax cut, sweeping aside objections raised by Democratic leaders in the state Senate and voicing confidence that the measure would be passed in that chamber. Christie all but dared lawmakers not to act on his plan during a statehouse news conference, a day after the Assembly passed the plan to pay for a $2 billion a year transportation trust fund for eight years. The fund runs out of borrowing authority Friday, and Christie's...

...our model shows more growth from the Rubio and Cruz plans than the Trump plan, even though Trump proposed a larger cut: While Donald Trump largely opted for big rate reductions across the board, Rubio and Cruz made improvements to the structure of taxes, while cutting taxes by less overall. Senators Rubio and Cruz both put thought into the nature of the taxes that businesses pay. They noticed that the current way businesses are asked to calculate taxes creates a bias in the code. When a business builds something new, like, say, a new industrial lathe, that decision actually has...

The cost of mobile phone service has been steadily declining over the past decade, as cellphone companies fiercely compete for business. But customers aren't seeing it in their phone bills, thanks to revenue-hungry federal, state and local governments.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie conflated statistics when he claimed Sen. Rand Paul’s “pork-barrel spending” is the reason Kentucky receives more federal funds than New Jersey for every tax dollar it sends to Washington. The figures cited by Christie are affected very little by pork-barrel spending.Moreover, Senate Republicans have imposed a voluntary ban on earmarks — otherwise known as pork-barrel spending — since the Kentucky senator took office in 2011. So Paul hasn’t brought any of the traditional pork-barrel spending to Kentucky.Paul also added some confusion to the issue when he seemed to suggest that Kentucky’s ratio was the...

... Our analysis finds that in the post-WWII era, there is a very strong connection between nonpayers and federal government transfer payments. Transfer payments are programs that give direct assistance to people such as unemployment insurance, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and food stamps. In fact, our model suggests that a 1 percentage point increase in the share of tax filers who are nonpayers (from 40 percent to 41 percent, for example) is associated with a $10.6 billion per year increase in transfer payments. Since the number of nonpayers has increased by 20 percentage points over the last two decades, our...

Tax Freedom Day® 2012 arrives on April 17 this year, four days later than last year due to higher federal income and corporate tax collections. That means Americans will work 107 days into the year, from January 1 to April 17, to earn enough money to pay this year’s combined 29.2% federal, state, and local tax bill...

MANCHESTER, Conn. -- The Washington-based Tax Foundation found that when one calculates the average tax burden for people in each state, Connecticut ranks No. 1. The calculation includes federal, state, and local taxes. New Jersey and New York follow Connecticut close behind. States with the lowest tax burden states are South Carolina, Tennessee and Mississippi. ... The Tax Foundation calculated that two hours out of an eight-hour workday goes toward paying taxes.

GO TO THIS SITE : http://mytaxburden.org/ 2011 INCOME TAX CALCULATOR Fill out the left-hand column and click Calculate to estimate your 2011 income tax under three scenarios: (1) Congress allows all of the Bush tax cuts to expire; (2) Congress acts to extend into 2011 all of the Bush tax cuts; and (3) Congress passes the tax laws suggested in President Obama's budget, letting some tax cuts expire, extending some, and enacting some new tax laws.

A record number of the 142 million tax returns filed in 2008 resulted in no tax payment, according to a Tax Foundation analysis of IRS data. That means the tax filers got back every dollar that had been withheld from their paychecks, and often more. Roughly 51.6 million tax returns, or 36.3 percent, were filed by such "nonpayers," people whose exemptions, deductions and credits wiped out any federal income tax due. A family of four earning more than $50,000 can have no income tax liability after taking the standard deduction and the child tax credit. "Two records were set in...

Fiscal Policy: The latest data show a record number of people with no tax obligation. We also have the highest-earning nontaxpayers ever. With more riding the wagon and fewer pulling, it should soon break down. A record number of the 142 million tax returns filed in 2008 resulted in no taxes owed, according to the Tax Foundation's analysis of the latest IRS data. About 51.6 million returns, or 36.3%, were filed by those whose deductions, exemptions and tax credits wiped out any federal income-tax obligation. These aren't people who have overpaid their taxes or had so much withheld from their...

State Changes to Individual Income TaxesIncreasesCalifornia in May added 0.25% to each income tax bracket, retroactive to January 1, 2009 and expiring December 31, 2010. Connecticut in September added a new top bracket of 6.5% on income over $500,000, retroactive to January 1, 2009. Delaware in June added a new top rate of 6.95% on income over $60,000 retroactive to January 1, 2009. Hawaii in May added three new brackets retroactive to January 1, 2009: 9% on income over $150,000; 10% on income over $175,000; and 11% on income over $200,000. New Jersey in June added three new brackets retroactive...

Fiscal Fact No. 196 Introduction Sales taxes are paradoxically transparent and non-transparent. A taxpayer can easily see how high the tax is by looking at the receipt for any purchase. It's hard to imagine a more transparent tax.

Robert Barro, Professor of Economics at Harvard University, criticizes the recently passed federal stimulus package as a "terrible piece of legislation," and calls for permanent changes to the tax structure to spur economic growth. In a discussion with Tax Foundation Vice President for Economic Policy Robert Carroll in this week's edition of the Tax Policy Podcast, Barro strongly disapproves of both the expenditure and tax provisions within the stimulus legislation. "What they call tax reductions in this bill are really transfer payments, particularly redistribution of income from the rich to the poor," says Barro. "I don't think it's really attractive...

Politics: Democrats say Rush Limbaugh is running the Republican Party. Better Rush than George Soros, who is running the Democrats. At least Rush believes in freedom, capitalism and letting you keep what you earn.The cover of the March 7 issue of Newsweek shows a picture of conservative icon Limbaugh with a piece of tape covering his mouth and the word "Enough!" So much for disagreeing with what you say but defending to the death your right to say it. Voltaire could never be a contributor to Newsweek. But David Frum is, and his inside cover story, "Why Rush Is Wrong,"...

High corporate income taxes are often justified by the rhetoric that businesses—and their high-income investors—should "pay their fair share." In Tax Foundation Special Report No. 169, "The Corporate Income Tax and Workers' Wages: New Evidence from the 50 States," Senior Fellow Robert Carroll, Ph.D., finds that states with high corporate income taxes have likely depressed their workers' wages over the long term, while states with low corporate taxes have boosted worker productivity and real wages. "These findings are not only consistent with a growing body of research on international corporate income taxes and wages, but they get to the heart...

With the expiration of the Bush tax cuts and the implementation of a proposed health care surtax, in 2011 the top federal individual income tax rate will rise to more than 46% and over 50% for those living in many states. This sharp increase in tax rates can be expected to reduce the size of the tax base and may raise substantially less revenue than the casual observer might think—perhaps only 60 cents on the dollar. In Tax Foundation Fiscal Fact No. 182, "The Economic Cost of High Tax Rates," Senior Fellow Robert Carroll explains that for every 1% decrease...

...Charged with the unenviable job of implementing the gas-cap program, Hawaii's Public Utilities Commission says local industry expects the caps to increase prices by an estimated 30 cents a gallon, with costs on Oahu rising from the current price of $2.68 a gallon to more than $3.... So why bring back price controls more than 30 years after Nixon tried them and failed miserably, causing shortages, rationing, inflation and an economic crisis? It's hard to find a reason, other than to retaliate against the big oil companies, namely Chevron, which many Democrats tried to punish unsuccessfully in court. Made up...

Oregon ranks 34th total state and local taxes? Oregon as one of the top ten states in terms of favorable business climates? State and local taxes account for less than one percent of the cost of doing business? Come on! Who are the lying liars, here? Can anyone substantiate the claim that these Tax Foundation guys are "nonpartisan"? Sounds like a lot of typical Oregon liberal hooey to me!

Politics: The president had hardly put down his pen after signing the tax cut Wednesday when class warfare broke out again. As usual, the demagoguery doesn't comport with reality.According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a hard-left Washington think tank, many families whose yearly incomes are between $10,500 and $26,625 — a number that's nearly 12 million — won't be getting the additional $400 per-child tax credit that was part of the tax cut.While we're not challenging the findings, we object to the misleading nature of the argument. A significant fact is being left out.The Tax Foundation tells...