Archive for the ‘Taxation’ Category
Monday, July 27th, 2020
This is the powerful subject from yesterday’s Life, Liberty and Levin show of July 26, 2020. This needs to be one of top subjects during the election. Americans living in the suburbs need to be made aware of this threat of losing their local control over their suburbs. Please share with your email lists. Nancy
VIDEO TARGETING THE SUBURBS – Federal control over the suburbs MARK LEVIN AND STANLEY KURTZ – LIFE, LIBERTY AND LEVIN
Posted in Administrative State, Agenda 21, Big Government, Constitution, Democracy, Democrats, Demographics, Diversity, Donald Trump, Election 2020, Elitism, Globalists, Joe Biden, Legal Issues, Liberalism, Mark Levin, Multiculturalism, Nationalism, Obama, Obama Administraiton and Policy, Political Correctness, Political Corruption, Progressive Movement, Racism, Radical Left, Social Justice, Sovereignty, State Governments / Deficits, Taxation, Taxes, Transparency, Tyranny, Videos | No Comments »
Wednesday, July 22nd, 2020
The Biden Tax Hike Would Be Severe
If the Democrats sweep in November, make sure your lawyer and financial advisers are standing by.
By Philip DeMuth Mr. DeMuth is author of “The Overtaxed Investor: Slash You Tax Bill and Be a Tax Alpha Dog”
July 14, 2020
Complain if you must, but we live in a Golden Age of Taxes—the lowest rates we may see for decades. President Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act lowered rates, widened brackets and simplified preparation. Gazing toward the heavens, one can almost see the smiling face of Ronald Reagan beaming down. Yet like all Golden Ages, this one will end, and we already know the date: Dec. 31, 2025. Barring a miracle, that is when the tax cuts expire and President Obama’s American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 becomes the law of the land once more.
To see what a good deal we have now, let’s look at the numbers. A married couple filing jointly shows $78,000 of ordinary income, their current marginal rate is 12%. When the Trump tax cuts expire, their marginal rate will more than double, to 25%.
If you receive $30,000 from Social Security and have $36,000 of other income, you will be taxed at a marginal rate of 46%, even while supposedly being in the 25% tax bracket (because of the nutty way Social Security is taxed). In some cases, your tax rate can go as high as 56%. More people will experience rising tax rates throughout retirement—first gradually, following the accelerated required minimum distributions from their retirement accounts, and then suddenly, when the first spouse dies and the survivor has to file as a single taxpayer.
The Trump tax reform doubled standard deductions, such that far fewer taxpayers still bother to itemize. It also protects estates, with an $11.58 million exclusion from taxes. People can plan to give money to whomever they want when they die, instead of playing accounting games to confound the taxman. These deductions and exemptions will be cut in half when the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act expires.
Remember the Alternative Minimum Tax, which made you do your taxes twice, under two completely different tax regimes, and then pay whichever was greater? That annual ritual has all but disappeared. Better sharpen your pencils, though, because it’s coming back in 2026 for seven million filers. Meantime, the qualified business income deduction, which lets eligible small-business owners deduct up to 20% of their income, is going away.
All this may seem a long way off. But if Joe Biden is elected and the Democrats take three more seats in the Senate, some of these changes could happen as soon as next year.
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Posted in Democrats, Donald Trump, Election 2020, Inflation, IRS, Joe Biden, Liberalism, Progressive Movement, Radical Left, Socialism, Taxation, Taxes, Transparency | No Comments »
Monday, March 16th, 2020
This is an incredibly shocking video of a talk that Adam Andrzejewski, founder and CEO of openthebooks.com gave regarding waste, fraud, corruption and abuse in all levels of our government at a Hillsdale College event . He names all those that are involved in the abuse of our taxpayer money. This is not a Republican or a Democrat issue as the corruption is widely spread throughout our government. If this level of corruption is allowed to continue, our country will be greatly damaged. Please share with all your contacts. Nancy
VIDEO – CULTURE OF CORRUPTION IN THE DEPTH OF THE SWAMP
Adam Andrzejewski | The Depth of the Swamp
Posted in Administrative State, Bernie Sanders, Big Business, Big Government, California, Congress, Conservatism, Constitution, Corporate Cronyism, Corruption/Crime, Culture Rot, Deep State, Defense Budget, Democrats, Dept of Defense, Donald Trump, Economy, Election 2020, Elitism, Entitlements, GOP, Government Regulation, Government Waste and Fraud, Healthcare, IRS, Joe Biden, Liberalism, Lobbyists, Medical/Drugs, Military, Obama Administraiton and Policy, Pensions, Political Corruption, Politics, Social Security, Spending, State Department, State Governments / Deficits, Taxation, Taxes, Transparency, Videos, Wall Street | No Comments »
Monday, February 17th, 2020
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
The Incompetence Party
The Democrats’ biggest problem isn’t Bernie Sanders. It’s that many voters doubt the party’s ability to govern anymore.
By Daniel Henninger February 12, 2020
Now that Bernie Sanders—once an obscure socialist senator from Vermont—is officially the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, it is time to confront what that means.
It does not mean the U.S. is flirting with socialism. That’s not going to happen. The meaning of Bernie’s ascent is that the Democratic Party, older even than he is, has simply run out of gas.
The Democrats resemble Europe’s aging political parties—Britain’s Labour, France’s Socialists, Germany’s Social Democrats and Christian Democrats. All have simply deflated with voters.
Signs of public fatigue with the Democrats could be seen in Iowa and New Hampshire.
Besides incompetence, the big story out of Iowa was low turnout. In New Hampshire the story was voter indecision. Once past Bernie’s 25% cement-block base, many voters were flipping a coin in the voting booth to pick from the other candidates.
What does it mean that Elizabeth Warren, by now a household name, got dropped to fourth place? Joe Biden’s humiliating fifth is a personal disaster, but what does that say about the party itself?
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Posted in American History, Bernie Sanders, Big Government, Bloomberg, Congress, Corruption/Crime, Deep State, Democrats, Department of Education, Donald Trump, Election 2020, Elizabeth Warren, Government Regulation, Government Waste and Fraud, Identity Politics, Joe Biden, Liberalism, Medicare/Medicaid, Obamacare, Political Correctness, Progressive Movement, Radical Left, Redistribution of Wealth, Regulations, Social Justice, Spending, Taxation, Taxes, Welfare, Women's Issues | No Comments »
Saturday, January 18th, 2020
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Is Donald Trump ‘profoundly unconservative’?
No. It doesn’t match his shrinking regulations and limiting government
by Allan H. Ryskind Allan H. Ryskind, a former editor and owner of Human Events, is the author of “Hollywood Traitors” (Regnery, 2015)
December 31, 2019
Prominent liberal Fareed Zakaria insists that Donald Trump “has been profoundly unconservative” because he’s abandoned what “Republicans used to call the core of their agenda — limited government.” But it’s hard to take the charge seriously, even though some conservatives have sent his piece around for comment to see if he’s onto something. Yet no politician in recent memory has restricted the reach of government at both the federal and state level more than the current occupant of the Oval Office.
Mr. Trump’s drastic shrinking of federal economic regulations, opening vast expanses of federal lands for energy exploration, drawing overseas businesses home with tax breaks and passing major tax cuts for corporations and individuals have generated an explosion of well-paying jobs, personal wealth and soaring wages, as well as the lowest level of unemployment for minorities on record. Some 7 million new jobs have been created during Mr. Trump’s presidency and more than 100 million American shareholders have watched the market jump 55 percent since his election.
You’d think Mr. Zakaria would be celebrating Mr. Trump’s low-tax, pro-growth economic agenda as not only core Republicanism but virtually Reaganesque. Increasing prosperity by stimulating market forces without enacting high taxes and big government programs is, of course, how conservatives try to keep government limited.
Mr. Zakaria concedes that Mr. Trump has delivered what conservatives have wanted in the realm of “social and cultural policy,” such as “appointing judges, tightening rules related to abortion and asylum, etc.” but suggests they have little to do with taming the Leviathan.
Really? Stacking the courts with judges steeped in the philosophy of federalism is, of course, precisely the way to limit government on both the economic and cultural fronts. Mr. Zakaria may ignore the threat, but Democratic Party presidential candidates, along with their media support groups, are panicked over the president’s court selections.
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Posted in Abortion, Administrative State, Big Business, Big Government, Class Warfare, Congress, Conservatism, Constitution, Deep State, Democrats, Donald Trump, Economy, Election 2020, Energy, Environmental Issues, Globalists, GOP, Government Regulation, Judges, Legal Issues, Liberalism, Nationalism, Progressive Movement, Radical Left, Redistribution of Wealth, Spending, Taxation, Taxes, Transparency | No Comments »
Monday, December 30th, 2019
“Oh My” is right !!! Nancy
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Elizabeth Warren Has a Plan, Oh My
She may not win the nomination, but her ideas show where the American left wants to go
By the Editorial Board, December 27, 2019
She’s the candidate with a plan for everything: That’s Elizabeth Warren’s brand. But even that sells her ambitions short, as we discovered after a tour of her 60-some policy papers. Ms. Warren is proposing a transformation of American government, business and life that exceeds what the socialist dreamers of a century ago imagined.
Her standing in the polls has fallen after missteps over Medicare, but she is still in the top candidate tier. Her ideas deserve to be taken seriously because they show where the American left wants to go:
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• Wealth tax: Tax net worth over $50 million at 2% a year, and 6% above $1 billion. To prevent the rich from yachting off, add a 40% “exit tax” on assets over $50 million upon renouncing U.S. citizenship. Estimated revenue: $3.75 trillion over a decade from 75,000 households. Most economists, including many Democrats, call that number a fantasy. Courts might also find the tax unconstitutional.
• Medicare for All tax:Charge companies with at least 50 workers an “Employer Medicare Contribution,” equal to 98% of their recent outlays on health care, while adjusting for inflation and changes in staff size. These varying fees “would be gradually shifted to converge at the average health care cost-per-employee nationally.” Estimated revenue: $8.8 trillion over a decade. If receipts fall short, add a “supplemental” tax on “big companies with extremely high executive compensation and stock buyback rates.”
• Global corporate tax: Raise the top business rate to 35%. Apply this as a world-wide minimum on overseas earnings by U.S. companies. Businesses would “pay the difference between the minimum tax and the rate in the countries where they book their profits.” Apply a similar minimum tax to foreign companies, prorated by the share of their sales made in the U.S. Estimated revenue: $1.65 trillion over a decade.
• Corporate surtax: Tax profit over $100 million at a new 7% rate, without exemptions. This would go atop the regular corporate rate. Estimated revenue: $1 trillion over a decade from 1,200 public companies.
• Slower expensing: “Our current tax system lets companies deduct the cost of certain investments they make in assets faster than those assets actually lose value.” Closing this “loophole,” she says, would raise $1.25 trillion over a decade.
• Higher capital gains taxes: Tax the investment gains of the wealthiest 1% as ordinary income, meaning rates near 40% instead of today’s 23.8%. Apply the tax annually on gains via a “mark to market” system, even if the asset hasn’t been sold. Estimated revenue: $2 trillion over a decade.
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Posted in Anti-Capitalists, Banking, Big Business, Big Government, Congress, Democrats, Donald Trump, Election 2020, Elizabeth Warren, Entitlements, Liberalism, Medicare/Medicaid, Obama Administraiton and Policy, Obamacare, Politics, Progressive Movement, Radical Left, Regulations, Seniors, Small Business, Socialism, Spending, Taxation, Taxes, Transparency, Women Candidates | No Comments »
Sunday, November 17th, 2019
Thanks to Ed Roney for sharing this article. At the bottom of the article are some of the main points in the article that Ed very thoughtfully provided . Nancy
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
The Truth About Income Inequality
The census fails to account for taxes and most welfare payments, painting a distorted picture.
November 4, 2019 by Phil Gramm and John F. Early Mr. Gramm is a former chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. Mr. Early served twice as assistant commissioner at the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Never in American history has the debate over income inequality so dominated the public square, with Democratic presidential candidates and congressional leaders calling for massive tax increases and federal expenditures to redistribute the nation’s income. Unfortunately, official measures of income inequality, the numbers being debated, are profoundly distorted by what the Census Bureau chooses to count as household income.
The published census data for 2017 portray the top quintile of households as having almost 17 times as much income as the bottom quintile. But this picture is false. The measure fails to account for the one-third of all household income paid in federal, state and local taxes. Since households in the top income quintile pay almost two-thirds of all taxes, ignoring the earned income lost to taxes substantially overstates inequality.
Posted in American History, Banking, Class Warfare, Demographics, Elizabeth Warren, Entitlements, Food Stamps, Liberalism, Populism, Progressive Movement, Radical Left, Redistribution of Wealth, Social Justice, Spending, Taxation, Taxes, Transparency, Welfare | No Comments »
Tuesday, October 29th, 2019
This article was written before the latest California wildfires which are happening now. This is an excellent article giving detailed information why PG&E’s liberal/leftist policies in California have been the cause of most of this disaster. California is burning. If liberal/leftist agendas are implemented throughout our country, our whole nation will be collapsing. Nancy Trump 2020 !
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Stakeholder’ Capitalism in Action
By the left’s lights, PG&E is a perfect corporate citizen. Liberal California pols attack it anyway.
by Allysia Finley Ms. Finley is a member of the Journal’s editorial board
October 22, 2019
Pacific Gas and Electric Co. is getting incinerated by California politicians for shutting off power to two million residents amid heavy, dry winds. The publicly traded San Francisco-based utility has been found responsible for two dozen or so wildfires since 2016, some caused by power lines sagging from steel towers more than a century old.
The purpose of the blackouts was to avoid more damage from an aging grid that has not been adequately maintained. In January PG&E filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy to restructure tens of billions of dollars in liabilities, including for wildfire. Democrats, including Gov. Gavin Newsom, are predictably lambasting the company for prioritizing profits over safety. San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo says he wants to turn it into a nonprofit.
Yet PG&E exemplifies the left’s “stakeholder” model, according to which businesses are accountable not only to their shareholders but also their workers, the environment and local communities and society at large. In practice, that means businesses exist to serve their political overlords.
Utilities are among the most heavily regulated businesses. In California, their rates and return on equity—that is, profits—are set by the California Public Utilities Commission and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Every three years PG&E must submit funding plans to the CPUC, which holds public hearings with “stakeholders,” including customers and activist groups.
The commission and the state Legislature can also dictate energy investments. State law requires utilities to obtain 60% of their power from “renewable” sources by 2030. The commission has also ordered utilities to buy energy from homeowners with solar panels, paying them a higher rate than wholesale power providers get. Last year the commission directed PG&E to install 7,500 electric-car charging stations at apartment buildings and workplaces.
If shareholders want to earn a decent profit, they have to indulge their political masters’ fashionable views on matters such as climate, identity politics and corporate governance. Thus PG&E’s website defines “environmental justice” as “making better business decisions by understanding and considering the potential impacts of our activities and investments on low-income communities and communities of color.”
The utility also proclaims that “diversity and inclusion are integral to how we do business” and “are embedded throughout the lifecycle of our talent management programs.” PG&E boasts a chief diversity officer, a Diversity Council and a Compliance and Public Policy Committee on its board to review its diversity metrics.
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Posted in Agenda 2030, Agenda 21, Big Business, Big Government, California, Cultural Marxism, Democrats, Diversity, Election 2020, Elitism, Energy, Environmental Issues, Environmental Protection Agency-, Global Warming, Government Regulation, Industry, Legal Issues, Liberalism, Political Correctness, Progressive Movement, Radical Left, Regulations, Same Sex Marriage, Social Justice, Taxation, Taxes, Technology, transgender issues, Transparency | No Comments »
Saturday, July 13th, 2019
The Secure Act which is before the U.S. Senate for a vote can impact the taxes of many of us and our children and grandchildren. Take the time to look at this information and contact your senators if you would like to comment on how you want them to vote on this bill. Nancy
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Congress Is Coming for Your IRA
The Secure Act would upend 20 years of retirement planning and stick it to the middle class.
By
Like grave robbers opening King Tut’s tomb, Congress can’t wait to get its hands on America’s retirement-account assets. The House passed the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement Act, known by the acronym Secure, in May. The vote was 417-3. The Secure Act is widely expected to pass the Senate by unanimous consent. While ostensibly helping Americans save for retirement, the bill would actually reduce the value of all retirement savings plans: individual retirement accounts, 401(k)s, Roth IRAs, the works.
The main problem with the Secure Act is that it eliminates the stretch IRA,the fixed star in the financial-planning firmament since 1999. The stretch IRA lets savers leave their retirement accounts to children, grandchildren or other beneficiaries. Under current rules, the recipients can parcel out the required minimum distributions from the accounts over the course of their actuarial lifetimes. Payouts tend to be relatively small for children but grow in size over the decades until the inherited IRA might comfortably provide for the child’s retirement through the power of tax-deferred compounding. A parent could die with the knowledge that, whatever vicissitudes their children might experience in life, they won’t have to worry about retirement.
Congress wants to kill this. The Secure Act gives nonspouse beneficiaries 10 years to pull out all the money in an IRA. The effect would be to make more of an IRA subject to higher taxes sooner, as distributions are made in supersize chunks. As much as one-third more of an inherited IRA would get gobbled up by taxes than under current rules. When the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act expires in 2025, taxes will rise across the board. If President Trump signs the Secure Act into law, the stage will be set for a taxpocalypse sometime in the next decade.
In exchange for its windfall under the Secure Act, Congress will push back the age at which retirees must take their first required minimum IRA distributions from 70½ to 72. This isn’t the deal American savers were promised when they made contributions to their IRAs the last 20 years. Before, the optimal approach was for savers to leave their IRAs to their children or grandchildren and stretch the payouts over decades.
Posted in Big Government, Congress, Legal Issues, Pensions, Senator, Seniors, Taxation, Taxes, Ted Cruz, Transparency, Wall Street | No Comments »
Sunday, May 5th, 2019
If I remember correctly, wasn’t the unsealing of Obama’s opponent’s divorce papers in either his Illinois or U.S. Senate race, lead to Obama’s win over his opponent? Very Interesting The sad state of American politics of personal destruction as conducted by the Left. Nancy
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
MY BRUSH WITH PERSONAL DESTRUCTION
By Stephen Moore Mr. Moore is a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation and an economic consultant with FreedomWorks. He was a senior economic adviser to the Trump campaign in 2016.
May 3, 2019
When President Trump asked me to serve as a member of the Federal Reserve Board, I was honored. I never imagined the storm that would follow. The left and the media instantly launched a relentless campaign against me. Last week a reporter who has covered the Fed for 30 years told me he’d never seen anything like it. On Thursday I reluctantly threw in the towel and asked the president not to nominate me.
I knew that many of my ideas on monetary policy were controversial and outside the box. That’s why the president picked me. My central argument is that economic growth does not cause inflation—an assault on the core belief of the Keynesian economists at the Fed, whose fear of supply-side growth has often misdirected monetary policy, most recently late last year. As someone who worked with Mr. Trump as a senior economic adviser to his campaign, I am thrilled that 3% to 4% growth with stable prices has been achieved, and I believe it can be sustained. I also believe the Fed should stop targeting interest rates and instead focus on a stable dollar by following commodity prices along with other inflation measures as a leading indicator of whether prices are rising or falling.
I was naive. I believed that to be confirmed I would simply need to defend these ideas and my free-market economic philosophy in general. I relished that debate, especially because so many of my harshest critics were completely wrong about the Trump economy.
A majority in the Senate viewed my economic-policy expertise favorably, and my confirmation seemed likely. It helped my case that I had been one of the most outspoken critics of the Fed in December, when it raised interest rates. After a 4,000-point collapse in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, Chairman Jerome Powell early this year backed away from future rate increases and disavowed his December statement that the Fed’s asset sales were on “autopilot.” The market and the economy sprang back to life.
What did me in was not my economic ideas but gutter campaign tactics and personal assaults. I’ve been called an adulterer, a misogynist, a tax cheat, a deadbeat dad, antigay and mentally unfit. A Washington Post editorial warned that I was a “dangerous” pick for the Fed, and a columnist said I could cause a “global financial calamity.” They must imagine I have superheroic powers of persuasion. If appointed, I would have been one of seven Fed governors.
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Posted in Banking, Corruption/Crime, Deep State, Democrats, Donald Trump, Economy, Election 2016, Federal Reserve, Heritage Foundation, Legal Issues, Liberalism, Political Corruption, Radical Left, Taxation, Taxes, Transparency | No Comments »
