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Taxes Tag

Posted by Mike LaChance on September 17, 2014 46 Comments
For the last few years, liberals have been trying to re-brand the War on Poverty as a fight against income inequality, but that effort may have come too late. According to a new report from Robert Rector at the Daily Signal, the writing is on the wall:
The War on Poverty Has Been a Colossal Flop Today, the U.S. Census Bureau will release its annual report on poverty. This report is noteworthy because this year marks the 50th anniversary of President Lyndon Johnson’s launch of the War on Poverty. Liberals claim that the War on Poverty has failed because we didn’t spend enough money. Their answer is just to spend more. But the facts show otherwise. Since its beginning, U.S. taxpayers have spent $22 trillion on Johnson’s War on Poverty (in constant 2012 dollars). Adjusting for inflation, that’s three times more than was spent on all military wars since the American Revolution. The federal government currently runs more than 80 means-tested welfare programs. These programs provide cash, food, housing and medical care to low-income Americans. Federal and state spending on these programs last year was $943 billion. (These figures do not include Social Security, Medicare, or Unemployment Insurance.)
Michael D. Tanner of the Cato Institute made a similar point in January of this year:
War on Poverty at 50 — Despite Trillions Spent, Poverty Won Fifty years ago today, President Lyndon Johnson delivered his first State of the Union address, promising an “unconditional war on poverty in America.” Looking at the wreckage since, it’s not hard to conclude that poverty won.

Posted by Amy Miller on August 27, 2014 30 Comments
The world's third-largest fast food chain is just a signature away from reality. Burger King Worldwide, Inc. announced on Tuesday that it has made a deal to buy popular Canadian coffee chain Tim Hortons for a cool $11 billion. The decision to move the combined corporate headquarters to Canada, however, has left some questioning whether or not this is simply a tax-dodge masquerading as a corporate merger. Predictably, the left is having a complete meltdown over the move, forcing Burger King to go on offense to defend their business decisions. Via USA Today:
Burger King CEO Daniel Schwartz, who will become group CEO of the new company and handle day-to-day management, said that "the company is going to continue to be managed out of our Miami office." "We are going to continue to pay U.S. taxes as we have been doing," he said in a conference call with media after the deal's announcement. The deal was not about taxes, Schwartz said, noting that the corporate tax rate paid by Tim Hortons in Canada is in the mid-20s percentage-wise and Burger King's "blended" tax rate it pays globally, including U.S. taxes, is also in the mid-20s. "So when we look at the combined company we don't expect there to be meaningful lower or higher tax rates than we had before," he said. Instead, he said, "What is going to add value and drive growth for the long run is ... more restaurants around the world and growing sales and profits."
Twitter exploded this week with a resurgence of the "#BoycottBurgerKing" hashtag, prompting some scathing (and in some cases downright amusing) posts from the left:
Good to know.

Posted by Amy Miller on August 08, 2014 15 Comments
Voter advocacy organization True the Vote hit a roadblock Thursday when a federal judge denied its request to have an independent forensic expert search for Lois Lerner's "missing" e-mails. Judge Reggie Walton of the U.S. District Court in Washington ruled that True the Vote's attorneys failed to provide evidence showing that the IRS had either already intentionally destroyed e-mails, or would do so in the future. Judge Walton also cited privacy concerns, saying that taxpayer data, as well as the ongoing investigation by an inspector general, could be compromised. Judge Walton also denied True the Vote's request for an injunction forcing the IRS to preserve all documents related to the lawsuit. He said that True the Vote failed to show “irreparable harm” in its request, and that “the public interest weighs strongly against the type of injunctive relief the plaintiff seeks.” From the court memorandum:
Accordingly, despite the general distrust of the defendants expressed by the plaintiff, the Court has no factual basis to concur with that distrust, not only as to the defendants but seemingly every component of the Department of the Treasury (and presumably of every component of the Executive Branch of the federal government), and therefore concludes that the issuance of an injunction will not further aid in the recovery of the emails, if such recovery is possible, but will rather only duplicate and potentially interfere with ongoing investigative activities.
True the Vote attorney Cleta Mitchell has downplayed the ruling, saying that the judge merely denied their request for expedited assistance. True the Vote filed suit against the IRS last year after the agency denied True the Vote's application for tax-exempt status. True the Vote is seeking immediate recognition as a 501(c)(3), and more than $85,000 in damages; they claim that they IRS targeted their organization because of their openly conservative agenda:

Posted by Bruce Carroll on July 16, 2014 23 Comments
First it was Vice President Joe Biden who said paying higher taxes was "patriotic." Now, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew has resurrected the taxes-as-patriotism meme for the Obama White House. Secretary Lew used the phrase "economic patriotism" this morning on his interview on CNBC to discuss the Administration's new plans to regulate the corporate marketplace.
"Congress should enact legislation immediately," Lew told a business conference in New York hosted by cable television channel CNBC. "We should have some economic patriotism here." Lew's remarks came amid a wave of corporate deals known as inversions, in which a U.S. company shifts its tax home base to a lower-tax country by combining with a company based in that country. Popular destinations are Ireland, Britain, Switzerland and the Netherlands. The deals are still rare, but a flurry of them in recent months has prompted concern in Washington. Medical technology group Medtronic Inc plans to buy Dublin-based rival Covidien Plc and shift its tax home base to Ireland. Drugstore chain Walgreen Co is weighing a possible inversion. Drugmaker Pfizer Inc's bid in April to buy UK rival AstraZeneca Plc was structured as an inversion. That deal fell through, but it drew attention to inversions.
According to the letter Secretary Lew sent to Congress today, he urged them to pass legislation to "prevent companies from effectively renouncing their citizenship to get out of paying taxes."

Posted by RedDawn on June 24, 2014 17 Comments
Yesterday, President Obama announced America should aspire to be more like France when supplying employee benefits. The Washington Examiner reports:
“Other countries know how to do this,” Obama said. “If France can figure this out, we can figure it out.” “Many women can't even get a paid day off to give birth,” Obama said. “There is only one developed country in the world that does not offer paid maternity leave, and that is us. And that is not a list you want to be on, by your lonesome.”
On the surface, this sounds like a fair enough argument, but then so does raising the minimum wage... until you consider the numeric reality. Unlike the United States, France's unemployment rate clocks in at a steady 10% for workers over 25. Under 25, the rate is closer to 25% unemployed. For perspective, the US and the UK both hover around a 6% unemployment rate. But that's not the only factor worth considering. Remember the infamous 75% tax? That was France, all France. Take a look at where France ranks in taxation comparable to the United States: [caption id="attachment_90228" align="aligncenter" width="639"]Source: Tax Policy Center Source: Tax Policy Center[/caption] Tax conditions in France are so horrid, that entrepreneurs are fleeing to countries with more agreeable taxation rates. The New York Times discussed this phenomenon. This aspiring entrepreneur left for the UK:

Posted by Mike LaChance on May 31, 2014 9 Comments
You would think a state with such dire financial problems couldn't even consider spending such a large sum of tax dollars on something that's usually built with private money. Luckily, the Illinois House has backed off the idea for the moment. USA Today reported...
Illinois shelving $100M gift to Obama library A plan to offer $100 million in tax dollars to lure Barack Obama's presidential library to Illinois is on the shelf, with lawmakers prepared to wrap up their spring session without advancing the idea. Democrats in the president's home state pushed the proposal to compete against rival bids from Hawaii and New York. But it faced opposition from Republicans wary of an expensive and precedent-setting gift — with no immediately identified funding source — for a mostly private endeavor when the state faces serious financial difficulties. Not all Democrats were on board either, and the Illinois House adjourned Friday without calling for any final votes on the measure.

Posted by Mike LaChance on April 12, 2014 22 Comments

The debt in question wasn't incurred by the woman, it was another member of her family and it was the result of an overpayment. The blame lays with the Social Security administration. Marc Fisher of the Washington Post reported this week...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 04, 2014 10 Comments
This all was predicted. Obamacare subsidies decrease the incentive to work harder because as one's income increases, the subsidies vanish. It's what we call the implicit marginal rate which takes into account not only tax marginal rates, but also loss of government benefits. In the key 30-50,000 range, the implicit marginal rate has exceeded 100% even before Obamacare (see Featured Image above) -- meaning that it is economically irrational to earn an extra dollar because you will lose more than one dollar through taxes and loss of benefits. Obamacare makes that problem even worse because of the high cost of Obamacare health insurance which depends on subsidies to render it even somewhat "affordable." Lose those subsidies and the cost of mandatory health insurance becomes onerous. The CBO is predicting a loss of 1-2% of employee hours because workers choose not to lose the subsidies, as reported by Reuters (h/t Bryan Preston)(full report embedded at bottom of post):
A historically high number of people will be locked out of the workforce by 2021, according to a report by the Congressional Budget Office released Tuesday. President Barack Obama's signature health-care law will contribute to this phenomenon, the CBO said, citing new estimates that the Affordable Care Act will cause a larger than-expected reduction in working hours—eliminating the equivalent of about 2.3 million workers in 2021 versus a previous estimate of an 800,000 decline. "CBO estimates that the ACA will reduce the total number of hours worked, on net, by about 1.5 to 2 percent during the period from 2017 to 2024, almost entirely because workers will choose to supply less labor—given the new taxes and other incentives they will face and the financial benefits some will receive," said the report.
The CBO Report states (in Appendix C):

Posted by David Gerstman on April 28, 2013 12 Comments

Not in Maryland where it's just starting Former senate candidate, Dan Bongino, discussed the "rain tax" on Fox and Friends. One of our blessings in Maryland is that the legislature is only in session for three months. It limits the amount of damage our legislators can do....

Posted by David Gerstman on March 09, 2013 7 Comments

In late February, the Washington Post ran an editorial Solution Politics in Virginia that began: IN VIRGINIA, A REPUBLICAN governor and a GOP-dominated legislature have joined forces with Democrats to enact the first long-term increase in transportation funding since the Reagan administration — and the state’s...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 20, 2012 35 Comments

Just flashed across the screens was that the final vote on the tax portion of so-called Plan B had been cancelled tonight because John Boehner did not have enough votes. What a mess. You don't go there unless you are certain you can get there. Plan C, The...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 18, 2012 21 Comments

It is very frustrating to watch John Boehner and House Republicans twist themselves into contortions in a futile attempt to appease Obama. Plan B failed before it was swallowed because Obama believes that he can shift the blame to Republicans based on the arbitrary deadline for...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 17, 2012 24 Comments

Locked in trillion dollar tax revenue increase. Promises, promises on spending cuts. According to the frequently wrong but always wonkish-proclaiming Ezra Klein, this is where the Boehner-Obama negotiations are heading: Boehner offered to let tax rates rise for income over $1 million. The White House wanted to let tax...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 12, 2012 11 Comments

I am going to keep repeating The Christmas Strategy until someone in Republican circles listens: I say call his bluff. If a deal which tackles deficits from both revenue and spending can be reached this month, great. If not, pass a 90 day extension of current tax...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 11, 2012 32 Comments

From DrewM at Ace of Spades HQ, What Does Let It Burn Mean? (h/t Hot Air), : As one of the first, if not the first, people to say Let It Burn, I’m clearly thrilled with the growing chorus of voices joining the movement. Like any movement,...

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