Free Republic

After the Internal Revenue Service issued several releases warning about potentially lower tax refunds this filing season, some analysts say that it could put strain on some families who may have anticipated an expanded child tax credit. Analysts Sound Off.. Financial expert Lynnette Khalfani-Cox told NPR on Jan. 22 that there are “four main reasons” that cause will cause 2022’s returns to be smaller. “The first is: no more stimulus checks. The second is that what was called the enhanced child credit—that’s gone,” she noted. A third reason is that a pandemic-era tax break for charitable deductions was killed for...

Elon Musk has attacked a draft plan under consideration in California that critics say disincentivizes the use of rooftop solar panels.The Tesla founder was responding to changes proposed by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to the state's Net Energy Metering (NEM) program.Under the program, the estimated 1.3 million homeowners and businesses in the Golden State who have installed rooftop solar panels can sell back surplus energy to the grid and receive credit on their bills.But last month the CPUC released a proposal calling for a number of changes, one of which is how much customers are paid when they...

If you’re at the Seattle Mariners season opener Monday you might run into some folks with clipboards, gathering signatures for a newly-announced initiative for 2016 that would tax carbon emissions. The circulation of petitions to put Initiative 732 on the 2016 ballot signals a new strategy that may come into play if Gov. Jay Inslee and fellow Democrats in the Legislature are unable to pass their own carbon cap-and-trade proposal. The Initiative would phase in a $25-per-ton tax on carbon dioxide emissions from certain fossil fuels and fossil fuel-generated electricity, starting in July, 2017. The proceeds would go into the...

When Congress passed an economic-stimulus package giving hefty rebates to most taxpayers, it tried to make sure that illegal immigrants didn't get any of the cash. But in doing so lawmakers inadvertently penalized hundreds of thousands of legal U.S. residents - and tens of thousands of U.S. troops stationed overseas - simply because their spouses lack a Social Security number. --snip-- Because illegal immigrants don't have Social Security numbers and instead routinely use "tax identification numbers," Congress banned rebates for taxpayers who use the IRS-issued numbers. If a married couple files jointly and one spouse doesn't have a Social Security...

Gas, video games, meditation, booze. What, you were planning on paying bills? As if -- Here's the bad news: Your little recession-deflecting tax rebate? No rebate at all. Not even close. It's more like this: You've been continuously mugged and beaten and robbed blind for the past seven years straight, and as you lay there on the cold, hard economic ground, bleeding and gasping and wondering what the hell happened to your vacation time and your health care plan and your mortgage payment, your attackers scoff and leer and toss a couple of bloodstained nickels on your pulverized face and...

WASHINGTON - United for urgent action, the White House and Congress raced toward emergency steps Thursday to rescue the national economy from a possible recession, including tax rebates of at least $300 a person — and maybe as much as $800. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke endorsed the idea of putting money into the hands of those who would spend it quickly and boost the flagging economy. All the talk of rescue efforts failed to soothe Wall Street. The Dow Jones industrials plunged 306.95 points, underscoring deepening concern about the country's economic health. The sudden scramble to take action came...

Jefferson City, MO (LifeNews.com) -- Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt signed a bill allowing donors to crisis pregnancy centers to be eligible for state tax breaks provided the donations go to groups that do not perform abortions or refer women to abortion centers. The legislation will help pregnant women, but Planned Parenthood opposes it because it would likely lose money as a result.The legislation allows a tax write-off of half of the value of a donation made between $100 and $50,000. The state would limit the tax write-offs to a total of $2 million in donations annually."These are resource centers that...

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS.MW) - Almost half of Americans who've received tax-rebate checks have used the money to pay off their debt -- not spent it in the mall, according to a recent CBS News/MarketWatch poll. Thirty percent of those surveyed said they've received their rebate checks and of those, 46 percent said the money went to pay bills. Another 29 percent said they've saved or invested the rebates, while just 18 percent said they spent it. The results are at odds with the Bush Administration's hope, and possibly that of retailers, for the tax rebate: that Americans would spend the...