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Jeb Bush says he released 33 years of tax returns this week because he wants to be the most transparent candidate to run for president in 2016. But if that’s really the case, why is he continuing to obfuscate some of his most lucrative and potentially controversial business dealings he had before announcing his candidacy, like his work as an “adviser” for investment bank Lehman Brothers? So, if Jeb won’t tell you what Jeb exactly did while working on Wall Street, in the interests of transparency and disclosure, I will try. Not much is known about what Bush actually did...

Record-breaking transparency. Jeb takes a swipe at Hillary by releasing 33 years of personal tax returns Don’t look now, but Jeb Bush’s campaign is about to set a record in terms of releasing tax information. This afternoon, Bush will release 33 years’ worth of personal income tax returns via his website. That’s more than any other would-be nominee ever - by a wide margin. Only Bob Dole and John Kerry came close to this total, and the Bush release will outpace both of them by double digits. As the AP reports: Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush plans to release 33...

June 1 (Bloomberg) -- Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, in a break with his party, said he could support tax increases to help reduce the federal government’s budget deficit. The brother of former President George W. Bush told a congressional panel in Washington today that he could back a theoretical deficit-reduction package that would include $1 in tax increases for every $10 in spending cuts. 1 Comments Weigh InCorrections? Personal Post More from PostPolitics Obama: From dove to tough guy Aaron Blake JUN 1 THE FIX | When it comes to foreign policy, Obama’s image is starting to look a...

One of the more memorable moments during the last presidential campaign was a GOP debate in August, 2011. Fox’s Bret Baier asked the eight candidates if they would agree to $1 in new taxes for every $10 in spending cuts. Not one person raised his (or her) hand. Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Richard Nixon—all tax hikers at one point or another during their presidencies—would have raised their hands, and might have been booed off stage. That’s how much the Republican party has changed. Which brings us to Jeb Bush. During his eight years as governor of Florida (1999-2007),...

Americans don’t much like the federal tax system, a recent Pew Research Center report finds. But it’s not, as you might imagine, because they think they pay too much. Rather, they think people other than themselves don’t pay their fair share.Some six-in-ten Americans in the Pew Research survey said they were bothered a lot by the feeling that “some wealthy people” and “some corporations” don’t pay their fair share. Only 27% cited their own tax bills as something that bothered them a lot, even though 40% thought they paid more than their fair share given what they get from...

Donald Trump is finally showing us more of his economic plan beyond the "Make America Great Again" slogan on his red hat. America has now learned: -- He wants to tax the rich more and the middle class less. -- He wants to lower corporate taxes. -- He wants to cut government spending and stop raising the debt ceiling. "The hedge fund people make a lot of money and they pay very little tax," Trump said in an interview Wednesday with Bloomberg. "I want to lower taxes for the middle class." In short, Trump is willing to raise taxes on...

16 Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump declared, “I think flat tax is okay” on Friday’s broadcast of the “Matt Murphy Show” on Birmingham, AL’s WAPI. Trump said, “Who knows taxes better than me?” He continued, “You know, when they talk about fixing the tax, it’s so complicated, that people have to go and use H&R Block to do a $50,000 — a man who makes $50,000 has to spend money –.” Host Matt Murphy then cut in to ask Trump if he supports the fair tax. Trump answered, “Well, I think fair tax is okay. And I think flat tax...

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump stated that on taxes he supports, simplifying the tax code and wants to “reduce taxes” on Tuesday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends.” Although, he later added on CNN’s “New Day” that “I know exactly what I want to do, I just don’t want to announce it yet.” Asked about his tax plan, Trump said, “You have so many plans Steve, and you have the Fair Tax, and you have the flat tax, and you have the current system, but it’s too complicated. Frankly, what we should do is…start it off by...

The Republican presidential field is talking tax reform. (Beware the deceitful cries from the left of “tax cuts for the rich.”) Several candidates favor some kind of flat tax on income and at least one, Mike Huckabee, likes the “Fair Tax,” a proposed levy on consumption, which seeks to do away with most or all other federal taxes. The former is often portrayed as a system where the poor are disproportionally burdened and the latter as one where a federal monitoring agency, such as the IRS, is no longer needed. Neither portrayal is accurate. The debate boils down to whether...

Despite having a relatively moderate record on tax policy as the governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee has wholeheartedly embraced a radically regressive tax plan as a central plank of his presidential candidate platform. For years, Huckabee has been one of the main proponents of the “Fair Tax,” a plan that would replace all federal taxes with a national sales tax. Citizens for Tax Justice and the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation have each found that to raise the same amount of revenue as current law, the sales tax rate would have to be about 50 percent. A study by the...

Republican Sens. Mike Lee of Utah and Marco Rubio of Florida have released a blueprint for federal tax reform called “The Economic Growth and Family Fairness Tax Plan.” First, we should not embrace the language of progressive socialism in believing tax reform should have as a goal to advance “family fairness.” The plan should simply be entitled “The American Growth and Opportunity Plan.” That said, the Lee-Rubio plan is a great improvement over the current system. For the individual tax structure, the plan introduces a two-tier system to replace the current seven tax brackets. This plan moves America from a...

Tax Reform: Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, a possible Republican presidential candidate in 2016, might have hit on the most important fiscal issue facing the U.S.: the need for major tax reform. But he takes it a step further. Speaking Monday, the senator from Texas threw another thunderbolt: Republicans should use their control of Congress to get rid of the Internal Revenue Service. "We need to pass fundamental tax reform making our tax code simpler, flatter, fairer," he told a crowd at a Heritage Foundation event. "And I'll tell you, the single most important tax reform, we should abolish the IRS."...

ContributionThe IRS Must Be Put Down Like a Rabid Dog Dec. 17, 2014 3:25pm John Linder John Linder served in Congress for 18 years from Georgia. He and his wife, Lynne, have retired to a farm in Northeast Mississippi. Since it was first disclosed that the IRS abused the taxpayers and the law, the Democrat refrain has been, “…it is clear that there was no White House involvement…” Well, now it is clear that there was White House involvement, but it is against the law to disclose it.A watchdog group, Cause of Action, filed a Freedom of Information Act...

good article by Neal Boortz http://www.wsbradio.com/weblogs/nealz-nuze/2014/oct/29/michelle-nunn-and-fairtax/ http://fairtax.org/cosponsors/ http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d113:s00122:@@@P THE FAIR TAX WOULD BE THE BIGGEST TRANSFER OF POWER FROM DC BACK TO THE PEOPLE IN THIS COUNTRY'S HISTORY A flat tax is still an income tax, and would leave the IRS in place. It punishes productivity, and fails to capture any revenue from the illegal aliens and illegal activities like drugs and prostitution because most of them don't report their income, but they buy stuff, so with the Fair Tax, they would start paying a share. The IRS tried to take out the Tea Party, it would be sweet vengeance...

A team of acclaimed filmmakers is spearheading “Unfair”, a ninety minute documentary motion picture intended for all audiences. It will be the first major theatrical documentary to shed light on the certain damage the Income Tax and the IRS have wrought on our liberties, our businesses, our families, and our religious, charitable and civic organizations, while empowering a political agenda contrary to America’s heritage. This film will be promoted to mainstream audiences based on its factual and dramatic content. In addition, the Picture will be marketed heavily to interested grassroots audiences that identify themselves strongly with any and all of...

A Washington Examiner article asks “Can the IRS be fixed, or should it just be abolished?” The answer is clear to anybody who has followed the IRS scandal or filed a federal tax return. Washington’s individual income tax and its enforcement agency, the IRS, cannot be fixed, repaired, reformed or rehabilitated. They are a cancer eating away at this nation, her taxpayers and our economic engine. Congress created the income tax in 1913, and for 100 years the IRS has operated exactly as intended, as an agent of control with total impunity, even down to the political targeting of individuals...

WASHINGTON (MNI) - Initial claims for U.S. state unemployment benefits jumped for the second straight week in the April 26 week, climbing by 14,000 to 344,000, the Labor Department reported Thursday. The Labor Department said there were no special factors, however, the latest report reflects a second straight week of a double digit increase in initial claims which are now at the highest level since February 22 week when they were 351,000. Expectations for this week's report was for a claims level of 320,000, which would have been a 9,000 decrease from the previously reported 329,000 level in the April...

The latest Reason-Rupe poll asked Americans if they would support or oppose changing the federal tax system to a flat tax, where everyone pays the same percentage of his or her income, finding that 62 percent favor the flat tax and 33 percent are opposed. When asked where they would set the flat tax, the aveage response was 15 percent.This reflects another recent Reason-Rupe poll finding that 67 percent of Americans say it is "not the responsibility of the government to reduce the differences in income between people with high incomes and those with low incomes," while 29 percent...

An honest inquiry. I'm a big supporter of tax reform in general, and the FairTax in particular sounds like a very good proposal to me. Query as to whether investment purchases (stocks / bonds / ETFs / etc.) are included in the FairTax plan, and if so, at what rate (same as consumer purchases or different)? Opinions welcome as to whether this is or is not a good idea (increased tax base plus encouraging investing as a long-term purchase, vs. possible detriment to the financial market)? Thanks in advance, the lump.

To make fun of big efforts that produce small results, the famous Roman poet,Horace, wrote “The mountains will be in labor, and a ridiculous mouse will be brought forth.” That line sums up my view of the new tax reform plan introduced by Congressman Dave Camp, Chairman of the House Ways & Means Committee. To his credit, Congressman Camp put in a lot of work. But I can’t help but wonder why he went through the time and trouble. To understand why I’m so underwhelmed, let’s first go back in time. Back in 1995, tax reform was a hot issue....