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October 6, 2011The Size of the 5.6% Millionaire's Tax by Nick KasprakCongressional Democrats have proposed a new 5.6% surtax which would apply to AGI over $1 million as their latest attempt to find a politically palatable way to pay for the American Jobs Act. The surtax proposal replaces President Obama's proposal to limit the benefit of itemized deductions to at most 28% of their value. The new proposal targets very high-income taxpayers with incomes over $1 million, so I thought it would be interesting to look at a "typical" millionaire and see how such a taxpayer would be affected. I'll...

"Class warfare ... may make for really good politics, but it makes for rotten economics," Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., chairman of the House Budget Committee, told "Fox News Sunday." The president is planning on proposing the new and higher rate as part of a broader long-term deficit-reduction plan he's unveiling Monday. It will likely include a mix of entitlement reform and new revenue, and will be aimed at the bipartisan "super committee" trying to find about $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction over the next decade. Ryan said the millionaire tax provision will undermine economic growth. "If you tax something more,...

2012 presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann and her husband Marcus could be worth up to $2.8 million, but owe as much as $750,000 in outstanding loans, according to 2010 financial disclosure documents filed late last week. The filings reveal that the Bachmann's largest assets are her husband's Christian psychotherapy clinic — which is worth at least $600,000 and generated as much as $100,000 in gross income in 2010— and the Bachmann Family Farm, valued between $500,000 and $1 million.* Bachmann has said that she and her husband "have never received a dime from the farm," which received nearly $260,000 in federal...

Republican presidential candidate former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney’s attempt to forge a bond with unemployed Florida voters hit a sour note when he tried to characterize himself as an “unemployed American.” A spokesman for the Romney campaign insisted that the claim is “essentially true. He has no job. He’s not on anyone’s payroll. And he’s looking for work. He meets the criteria for being classified as unemployed.” The fact that Romney is a millionaire and that his “job search” expenses are being paid out of a multimillion dollar campaign fund was brushed aside as irrelevant. “Corporate executives who are downsized...

Readers may recall the 1950s TV show, "The Millionaire," which portrayed stories of individuals who were given a "no strings attached" gift of money by an anonymous benefactor. Each week in one of the show's opening scenes, a man representing the wealthy benefactor, John Beresford Tipton Jr., knocked on an unsuspecting recipient's door and announced: "My name is Michael Anthony and I have a cashier's check for you for one million dollars." That TV program is scheduled to return next year as a reality show, and the new recipients will be the typical husband and wife who reach age 66...

BUFORD, Ga.— A Cobb County jury has awarded a Buford woman $1.2 million after she said she was scalded by 190-degree water that shot out of a cappuccino machine at a QuikTrip convenience store. Lawyer Nelson Tyrone III says the woman, 52-year-old Cynthia Nance, was burned on Halloween night in 2007 at a QuikTrip convenience store. Atlanta attorney Valerie Pinkett, who represented QuikTrip, said the case was settled on confidential terms after the jury's verdict. She said the machine involved has been replaced with a newer model at all QuikTrip stores. Tyrone said Nance was burned on her hand and...

Pennsylvania Democrat Joe Sestak’s campaign has repeatedly referred to his Republican rival for the Senate as a “millionaire” to suggest his policies will serve the rich. But Sestak himself could be worth as much as $2.7 million, according to a report in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Sestak’s 2009 disclosure shows his retirement savings, bank accounts, and stock and mutual fund holdings are worth between $969,000 and $2,722,000. His two homes are appraised at $800,000 and $334,000. Toomey’s reported assets are worth between $2.02 million and $4.9 million.

Wu Qinyi, a 6-year-old girl, has become the youngest shareholder on China's Nasdaq-style growth enterprises board, as the Shaoxing-based Zhejiang Sunflower Light Energy Science & Technology Limited Liability Company (Sunflower) started its initial public offerings (IPO) Monday, Xinhua reported. Wu inherited 62,500 of the shares from her father, the former secretary of Sunflower's board, who passed away in a traffic accident last year. Sunflower's IPO price was at 16.8 apiece, bringing Wu's wealth to 1.05 million yuan, or more than 154,411 U.S. dollars, the report said. She has also broken the record for youngest wealthy shareholder in China, previously set...

TRENTON, N.J. - Democrats in the New Jersey Assembly have failed to override the Republican governor's veto of a tax surcharge on millionaires. Monday's vote was strictly along party lines. All 47 Assembly Democrats voted for the override and all 33 Republicans voted against it. The measure needed seven GOP votes to advance. The one-year surcharge would have raised about $600 million by increasing income taxes nearly two percent on the state's 16,000 highest wage earners. Gov. Chris Christie vetoed the tax last month after the Legislature passed it along party lines. The governor vetoed the tax because it would...

New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver is reportedly pitching a plan for an increased "millionaire's tax" aimed at 75-85 thousand New Yorkers making $1 million or more a year. Political columnist Fred Dicker , who appeared on Wednesday's Good Day New York, says Silver secretly proposed a $1 billion tax hike on the highest income earners to Gov. Paterson. The plan would jack up a current millionaires tax another 11-percent. The current "millionaire's tax" actually starts affecting people who have incomes over $200,000. High income tax earners would pay more than 13-percent of their salary in local taxes. The...

This month, Governor Tim Pawlenty successfully resisted an attempt to institute a "Millionaire's Tax" on high-income people in Minnesota. In New Jersey, Governor Chris Christie is standing firm in his insistence that a temporary high-income tax surcharge won't be extended this year. By taking these stances, Pawlenty and Christie are bucking a trend that took (mostly blue) states by storm last year, for the long-term benefit of their states' budgets and economies. Minnesota's budget scramble arose when the state Supreme Court invalidated $3 billion in budget cuts that Pawlenty had imposed unilaterally. The legislature responded by sending a budget-closing bill...

Mark Dayton is urging the Minnesota legislature to pass an immediate tax hike, using the money to reduce class sizes and stop 4-day school weeks. Minnesota DFL gubernatorial candidate Mark Dayton is proposing a new, higher income tax on the state's highest income earners and said the money should be used to ease the budget crunch at local schools. The "Millionaire Tax" would be imposed on incomes above $1 million. Dayton, a former U.S. Senator, called the direction of Minnesota schools a "descent to the bottom, not a Race to the Top." He is urging the legislature to pass an...

Documentary film director Michael Moore, who has become a millionaire thanks to the profits from his movies, told CNSNews.com that “capitalism did nothing” for him. CNSNews.com spoke with Moore on the red carpet at the Uptown Theatre in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday night before the premiere of his upcoming documentary, “Capitalism: A Love Story." CNSNews.com asked: “Critics may say, when they see this movie, Michael Moore has amassed a fortune of over $50 million, some have said and –” Moore said: “Really? Are you kidding me? Seriously? Wow. Where did it go?”

London (AHN) - A British playboy who once hosted a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton at his Florida home has been convicted in the 2000 murder of a caretaker who stood in the way of a multi-million property deal. Thanos Papalexis, 37, was found guilty of murdering Charalambos Christodoulides at a warehouse in northwest London in March 2000. The jury failed to reach verdicts on two Albanian men, Ylli Xhelo and Robert Baxhija, who also had been charged in the murder, Christodoulides, 55, was a caretaker at the warehouse, where he lived in an apartment. Prosecutors alleged that Papalexis killed the...

Here is video of "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" contestant Ken Basin getting the million dollar question wrong. He could have walked away with $500,000 but he took a chance and only walked away with $25,000. (Watch Video)

Donald Trump and Rush Limbaugh are sending the same message to New York’s Governor David Paterson: Hike taxes for high-income earners and your major taxpayers will leave the state. Trump told FOX host Neil Cavuto that the “millionaire’s tax’ is going to be “total disaster” for the state and will consider leaving New York. Trump warned that he also spoke with 25 to 30 people “leaving or going to consider leaving.” Limbaugh went a step further on April 11 when he told Cavuto he will leave the high-tax state and is happy to “lead the way.” In Limbaugh’s interview with...

The boss of a successful US hedge fund has quit the industry with an extraordinary farewell letter dismissing his rivals as over-privileged "idiots" and thanking "stupid" traders for making him rich. Andrew Lahde's $80m Los Angeles-based firm Lahde Capital Management in Los Angeles made a huge return last year by betting against subprime mortgages. Yesterday the 37-year-old told his clients that he had hated the business and had only been in it for the money. And after declaring he would no longer manage money for other people, because he had enough of his own, Lahde said that instead he intended...

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and former President Bill Clinton released tax data Friday showing they earned $109 million over the last eight years, an ascent into the uppermost tier of American taxpayers that seemed unimaginable in 2001, when they left the White House with little money and facing millions in legal bills. The bulk of their wealth has come from speaking and book-writing, which together account for almost $92 million, including a $15 million advance — larger than previously thought — from Mr. Clinton’s 2004 autobiography, “My Life.” The former president’s vigorous lecture schedule, where his speeches command upwards of...

MEMPHIS — Hillary Rodham Clinton called for a cabinet-level poverty czar and John McCain said he was wrong to vote a quarter century ago against a federal holiday in memory of Martin Luther King Jr. as both presidential candidates converged here on Friday for the 40th anniversary of Dr. King’s assassination. Sen. John McCain spoke at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, the site where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed 40 years ago. From the Memphis church where King delivered his last sermon on the evening before he was gunned down by James Earl Ray, Mrs. Clinton gave...

Romney to Downsize Post-Super Tuesday? ABC News' Matt Stuart Reports: Mitt Romney suggested Saturday that he might reduce his staff after Super Tuesday, saying he has "a much larger staff" than may be required "as you go on to these subsequent primaries." (...) http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/02/romney-to-downs.html