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The Sacramento Bee website is reporting that the number of top-income taxpayers in California has declined by a third. In an article in its Capitol Alert section, the Bee says that those Californians with $500,000 and up taxable incomes have declined from almost 150,000 in 2007 to slightly under 100,000 in 2009. The article also notes that the 100,000, representing just over a half percent of the 14.6 million returns, accounted for 18.8 percent of total income reported, but paid 32 percent of all income taxes in 2009. If Governor Jerry Brown wonders where a whole bunch of those making...

Obama: Millionaires Should Pay At Least 30 Percent in Taxes By Michael O'Brien People earning over $1 million per year should pay an effective tax rate of no less than 30 percent, President Obama said in his State of the Union address Tuesday night. The president laid down one of his most political markers of the annual policy speech by crafting what he called the "Buffett Rule," named after the famous billionaire investor. The president calls for lower taxes on lower-income wage earners but asks for wealthier taxpayers to pay more. "Tax reform should follow the Buffett rule: If you...

Not so much a big win for us as a big loss for them. Democrats backed away from their demand for higher taxes on millionaires as part of legislation to extend Social Security tax cuts for most Americans on Wednesday as Congress struggled to clear critical year-end bills without triggering a partial government shutdown… Republicans minimized the significance of the move. “They’re not giving up a whole lot. The tax they wanted to implement on business owners was something that couldn’t pass the House and couldn’t pass the Senate,” McConnell said in a CNBC interview. Jettisoning the tax could also...

Lobbyists for a day, a band of millionaires stormed Capitol Hill on Wednesday to urge Congress to tax them more... "If you think the federal government can spend your money better than you can, then by all means" pay more in taxes than you owe, said Grover Norquist, of Americans for Tax Reform, a group that has gotten almost all congressional Republicans to pledge to vote against tax hikes. The IRS should have a little line on the form where people can donate money to the government, he suggested, "just like the tip line on a restaurant receipt." ...

If you told me that somebody had published a comprehensive report on wasteful government policies which dole out billions of dollars to the wealthiest individuals in the country, one of the last people I’d expect to find as the author would be Senator Tom Coburn.(R-OK) But that’s precisely what unfolded when I found that the senator had borrowed a tag line from 1970s television programming and released, “Subsidies of the Rich and Famous.� U.S. Senator Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-OK) today released a new report “Subsidies of the Rich and Famous” illustrating how, under the current tax code, the federal government...

On the one hand, there is the former community organizer Obama. This Obama has made it clear in recent weeks that he is at one with the Occupy Wall Street protesters, saying, for example, when ABC asked how he viewed the demonstrators, that "the most important thing we can do right now is those of us in leadership letting people know that we understand their struggles and we are on their side. ..." Obama coming down on the side of demonstrators carrying signs demanding the arrest of investment bankers and other "masters of the universe" shouldn't come as a surprise...

So just who are those top 1 percent of Americans that we're all supposed to hate? If you listen to President Obama, the protesters at Occupy Wall Street, and much of the media, it's obvious. They're either "trust-fund babies" who inherited their money, or greedy bankers and hedge-fund managers. Certainly, they haven't worked especially hard for their money. While the recession has thrown millions of Americans out of work, they've been getting even richer. Worse, they don't even pay their fair share in taxes: Millionaires and billionaires are paying a lower tax rate than their secretaries. In reality, each of...

Nearly 12 per cent of households in Los Alamos have assets worth $1m or more. The northern New Mexico town of Los Alamos has been revealed as having the highest concentration of millionaires in America. The town, which is home to a government nuclear weapons lab, topped a report after it was found that more than one in ten households is home to a millionaire. Report findings state there are 885 millionaire households among the population of Los Alamos of around 18,000. ... Los Alamos saw off competition from Naples, Florida, which was second, and Bridgeport, Connecticut, which was third...

Members of Congress had a collective net worth of more than $2 billion in 2010, a nearly 25 percent increase over the 2008 total, according to a Roll Call analysis of Members' financial disclosure forms. Nearly 90 percent of that increase is concentrated in the 50 richest Members of Congress.

The recession slashed both the number and earnings of Ohio millionaires, according to a newspaper’s analysis of state tax returns. The Dayton Daily News reports Monday that the state in 2007 had more than 7,800 taxpayers with adjusted gross income of $1 million or more. By 2009, the number was down to about 4,500. Ohio Department of Taxation spokesman Gary Gudmundson says the 43 percent drop mirrors the national, 40 percent decline in millionaires during the same period. Ohioans making $1 million or more had adjusted gross income totaling $50 billion in 2009, less than half the $103 billion the...

… Inequality in America is greater than it has been in almost a century. Those fortunate enough to belong to the 1 percent, made up of the super-rich, stand on one side of the divide; the remaining 99 percent on the other. Even for a country that has always accepted opposite extremes as part of its identity, the chasm has simply grown too vast. Those who succeed in the US are congratulated rather than berated. Resenting other people's wealth is viewed as supporting class struggle, which is something very frowned upon. Still, statistics indicate that the growing disparity is genuinely...

Chinese Spend More Money On Luxury Goods Than Europe And The U.S. Combined Gus Lubin Oct. 27, 2011, 5:06 PM The size of China's luxury boom is absolutely incredible. Here are some facts based on a UBS report: * Last year emerging Asia accounted for around 50% of global luxury sales, most of which came from China. The Chinese probably spent more on luxury than the Americans and Europeans combined. * Emerging Asia accounted for 60% of luxury growth. * Tourists from emerging Asia account for half of luxury sales in Europe and 15% of sales in the U.S. Most...

‘They are . . . not interested in asking millionaires and billionaires to pay a half a penny on the dollar for the sake of the future of our children and communities.” That was the reaction of Sen. Bob Menendez (D., N.J.) upon the defeat Thursday evening of the bill he sponsored that paired an element of President Obama’s jobs plan — funding for the hiring of some first responders and hundreds of thousands of unionized teachers — with a surtax on those earning more than $1 million. Yet that same evening, Menendez and his fellow Democrats — as well...

We have entered a new phase of the endless Occupy Wall Street sleepover. Not working is hard work. After a month of tying up the police, generating mounds of trash, railing against Jews while holding up "Nazi Bankers" signs, grappling with pervs, rapists and thieves in their ranks, communing with avowed communists, and hobnobbing with 1 percenter celebrities donning 99 percenter costumes (phew!), the Occupiers are rallying around a new mascot: Robin Hood. The crime-plagued Carnival of 1,001 Demands is now focused on one unified agenda item: a soak-the-rich tax on financial transactions worldwide. The corporate-bashing Canadian magazine "Adbusters" (funded...

SACRAMENTO -- Occupy Wall Street protesters may be long gone by November 2012, but labor leaders are hoping that voters' anger toward the wealthy won't be going anywhere as the election season unfolds. For that reason, the California Federation of Teachers and a coalition of liberal allies are moving forward with plans to place a millionaires tax measure on the ballot next year. Millionaires, in this case, are defined as individuals whose annual income is $1 million or more. Josh Pechthalt, the president of the 100,000-member teachers union, said the month long protests that have spread around the globe have...

Zbiginew Brzezinski, national security adviser under Jimmy Carter, told the "Morning Joe" program he thinks the names of the rich "should be known publicly" so the masses can "pressure some of those people to give some of it back to society." "You know, how many Americans are really fully aware of how many other good people, that’s like Warren Buffett and others, who really donate a lot of their earnings to charities, to philanthropy?" Mr. Brzezinski said. "But how many more are there in the hedge funds? In the banks? In a variety of other places who on the basis...

I heard a Commentator say that Steve Jobs created a Trust before his liver transfer to avoid Estate Taxes to his children. He wasn't sure that he had to pay a Gift tax on the transfer of 3 homes, 30 Million Shares of Apple and 120 Million shares of Disney.

The US Senate just voted to defeat Harry reid's 5.6% added income tax on "billionaires" (those making over $1M/year). Two Dems joined 46 Repubs to kill the bill that needed 60 votes to continue.

The national Occupy Wall Street movement has been heating up again — resulting in about 50 arrests in Boston early Tuesday and plans for a Manhattan "Millionaires March" to the homes of some of New York City's wealthiest residents. The protesters from the Occupy Boston movement were arrested after they ignored warnings to move from a downtown greenway near where they have been camped out for more than a week, police said. Police spokesman Jamie Kenneally said the arrests began about 1:30 a.m. Tuesday and were mostly for trespassing. A conservancy group recently planted $150,000 worth of shrubs along the...

NBA commissioner David Stern has cancelled the first two weeks of the season after owners and players failed to reach a new labor deal and end the lockout. The crisis began on July 1 when owners locked out the players after they failed to come to terms before the expiration of the old collective bargaining agreement.

Washington (CNN) -- President Barack Obama will use a news conference Thursday morning to push Congress to act on his jobs plan, a senior administration official said. Obama will likely endorse the so-called "millionaire's surtax" included in a jobs bill filed by Senate Democrats on Wednesday night, the official said. The surtax in the bill introduced by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is a 5.6% tax hike on earnings over $1 million -- up from the 5% initially proposed. It would raise more than enough to fully pay for the president's $447 billion jobs bill within the required 10-year window,...

President Obama has made ending the Bush tax on incomes above $250,000 a year a top goal of his presidency. Republicans have predictably fought him at every turn, and used misleading statistics to characterize the plan as one that would cripple small businesses -- when in fact only sliver of the impact would fall on truly small businesses. Wednesday, those Republicans got a big, if unintentional, assist from Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) -- a member of Democratic leadership, who has been a leading advocate for setting the threshold at $1 million in income. "There are people making 250, 300 [thousand...

Reid: ‘Even the tea party’ supports 5 percent tax increase on millionairesBy Nicholas Ballasy | The Daily Caller – 1 hr 41 mins ago Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has proposed a 5 percent tax increase on millionaires to pay for President Obama’s jobs bill, arguing that even the tea party supports his proposal. “More than 50 percent of the tea party and about 75 percent of other people in America agree that we need to do something about this so we’re going to propose to pay for this important jobs legislation by asking people who make more than a...

Confirming that one has to be a billionaire or at least a multi-millionaire to be an applicant for the Tax Czar position under the Teleprompted Wealth Readjuster, is the latest sheer class warfare idiocy out of tax expert du jour Harry Reid, who has proposed an overhaul of the Obama tax bill with one in which millionaires end up paying a 5% surtax. National Journal reports: "Senate Democrats will replace tax increases proposed by President Obama to pay for his $445 billion jobs bill with a more politically popular tax increase on millionaires, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said...

CBS News Poll analysis by the CBS News Polling Unit: Sarah Dutton, Jennifer De Pinto, Fred Backus and Anthony Salvanto Most Americans believe that taxes on millionaires should be increased in order to reduce the deficit, according to a new CBS News poll. Sixty-four percent of Americans said they believe those making a million dollars or more in taxes should pay more. Thirty percent said taxes on such individuals should not be increased. Democrats were extremely likely to support such an increase (83 percent did so), and independents also supported it, 65 percent to 28 percent. On the other side,...

How about the House passing his tax increase plan in TOTO right away and make all effective immediately and the dare the Senate to pass it? If the Senate takes up on the measure and passes it (which they won't), there are two fatal scenarios for Obama: 1) sign and crash the economy further and 2) veto and reveal how awful his economic prescriptions are. If the Senate does not take up the measure, then it will be proven for all to see how stupid Obama's ideas are that even Dummycrats won't go for them. Thoughts?

US president Barack Obama, in a populist step designed to appeal to voters, will propose a 'Buffett Tax' on people making more than $1 million a year as part of his deficit recommendations to Congress on Monday. Such a proposal, among suggestions to a congressional super committee expected to seek up to $US3 trillion in deficit savings over 10 years, would appeal to his Democratic base ahead of the 2012 election, but may not raise much in revenues. White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer said in a tweet on Saturday the tax would act as "a kind of [Alternative Minimum...

A top House Republican accused President Obama of appealing to Americans' "fear, envy and anxiety" by pushing a new tax rate on people making more than $1 million annually, saying the "class warfare path" will only hurt the economy. "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...

Upper-income Americans' economic confidence was badly shaken in August, with 80% saying the economy is "getting worse," up from 66% in July. This is the first month since the financial crisis of late 2008 and early 2009 that upper-income Americans are more pessimistic about the future direction of the U.S. economy than other Americans.

There are fewer millionaires in America today – can you hear the celebration at the Blue Heron farm on Martha’s Vineyard where the Obama family is spending someone’s millions? Obama at Blue Heron Farm - 2009 Pullout quote: For the past three decades, the political left has obsessed about income inequality. As the economy experienced one of the largest and lengthiest economic booms in history from 1982-2007, the left moaned that the gains went to yacht club members. Well, if equality of income is the priority, liberals should be thrilled with the last four years. Wall Street Journal (great article...

-- In a recent New York Times op-ed article, Warren Buffett asserts that the super-rich do not pay enough taxes. He suggests that any new budget deal should raise rates on the super-rich, especially on their "unearned" income from interest, dividends and capital gains. Buffett is wrong. Bad government policies play a major role in generating inappropriately high incomes, but singling out the super-rich is misguided. And the policy Buffett criticizes most -- low tax rates on capital income -- should be expanded, not eliminated. The first problem with Buffett's view is that the number of super-rich is too small...

Democratic politicians and liberal groups, including unions, often rail against corporate tax loopholes as unjustified raids on the public treasury – as they should. Loopholes are particularly troublesome during periods, such as this one, when state and local budgets are leaking red ink and basic public services are being slashed. But one multimillion-dollar loophole draws vocal support from those who usually oppose corporate tax breaks – one that happens to benefit a heavily unionized industry whose top executives are overwhelmingly Democrats and contribute lavishly to the party's candidates and causes. That would be Southern California's movie and television production community....

Warren Buffett, the third wealthiest man in the world with a net worth of about $80 billion, is demanding the U.S. government make the rich like him pay higher taxes and says they should no longer be protected like endangered “spotted owls.” In a New York Times op-ed on Monday, titled “Stop Coddling the Rich,” Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway’s chair and CEO, said he and his “mega-rich” friends have been spared the “shared sacrifice” the country’s leaders have asked for as the country veers toward a double-dip recession. “While the poor and middle class fight for us in Afghanistan, and while...

Reacting to last night’s GOP presidential debate, the White House said today that the 2012 candidates proved themselves to be out of touch with Americans by saying they would refuse to accept tax increases as part of a debt deal. In Ames, Iowa last night the candidates were asked if they would refuse to accept a budget deal with a 10-to-1 ratio of spending cuts to tax increases. All eight presidential contenders raised their hands. “That’s clearly not where the American people are,” Principal Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest told reporters today. “That basically puts these candidates in a position...

Southern California has more millionaires than just about anywhere else in the nation, with L.A. coming in at No. 1, Orange County at No. 4, and San Diego ranking No. 6 in cities with the most seven-figure-plus households in 2008. So maybe we should feel a little guilty, especially as President Obama and the GOP are headed toward draconian federal cuts, the United States' credit rating is down a notch, and the stock market is diving like a conservative congressman in a bathroom stall. Because many millionaires and billionaires, it was revealed today, don't pay taxes like you and me:...

I'm going to tell you something that Barack Obama doesn't understand. And because he doesn't understand it, our country is wasting hundreds of millions of dollars at a time when we cannot afford to waste hundreds of millions of dollars. Time and again President Obama has told us how he intends to solve our health care problems: spend money on pilot programs and other experiments; find out what works and then go copy it. He's also repeatedly said the same thing about education. The only difference: in education we've already been following this approach with no success for 25 years....

A reclusive copper heiress who spent the past decades living in New York City hospitals has left most of her $400 million fortune to charity--and a nurse who was randomly assigned to care for her 20 years ago. The New York Post reports that Huguette Clark did not leave a penny to her family members. The lion's share of her fortune will go to a foundation to promote the arts. She left the biggest chunk of the remaining inheritance--a testament worth about $38 million--to her private nurse, Hadassah Peri. She also left Peri her collection of dolls and dollhouses, which...

A palate cleanser via the Daily Caller dedicated to a very special man who’s still not worried that we’re headed for a double-dip recession. Anytime we write about the “raise my taxes!� crowd I feel obliged to remind them that they’re perfectly entitled to raise their own taxes whenever they like. Here’s the link; every dollar that goes towards paying down the national debt means a little extra tax revenue isn’t going towards interest payments and can therefore be applied elsewhere.Give generously, kids, because guess what? The government added $5.3 trillion in new financial obligations in 2010, largely for retirement...

Say you made a million dollars a year. Congratulations. You made yourself a millionaire. It’s yours. Well, not so fast… How could you un-make yourself a millionaire?

We could definitely use another Abraham Lincoln to emancipate us all from being slaves to words. In the midst of a historic financial crisis of unprecedented government spending, with a national debt that outstrips even the debt accumulated by the reckless government spending of the previous administration, we are still enthralled by words and ignoring realities. President Obama’s constant talk about “millionaires and billionaires” needing to pay higher taxes would be a bad joke if the consequences were not so serious. Even if the income-tax rate were raised to 100 percent on millionaires and billionaires, it would still not cover...

Recently, CNN's Money.com posted an article bearing the title, "U.S. Millionaires Population Expanded by 8 Percent in 2010." According to the article, there are now approximately 8.4 million millionaires in the United States, and last year's increase was due primarily to rising stock prices, following a 27-percent decline in the number of millionaires in 2008 due to the stock market's plunge that year. What is one to make of this information? There were only a few thousand millionaires in the United States in 1900. One would expect there to be many more today with the enormous economic growth of the...

A week ago, Donald Trump said he would release his own tax returns when Obama released his birth certificate. Well, now Obama has released his birth certificate. So, Mr. Trump, when can we see your tax returns?

(SUCH MANIPULATION!..ANYBODY THAT WANTS TO, CAN PAY AS MUCH TAX AS THEY WANT TO THE GOVERNMENT....this is mindgame propaganda and I especially love the strategic "criticism" of Obama....contrived! how transparent can you be!) abcnews.com By ALAN FARNHAM April 12, 2011 Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength--rich guys in favor of raising taxes on themselves and other wealthy people--say they are irritated over President Obama's failure to do just that. Nor do they believe his latest announcement that he intends to try again, says Erica Payne, founder of the Agenda project and coordinator of the Patriotic Millionaires campaign. The president, when a...

If President Obama's deficit-reduction speech today includes a call to end the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, there will surely be pushback; Republicans have already begun a preemptive attack on raising taxes. One group of millionaires, however, is saying that they are more than willing to pay more for the good of their country. The “Patriotic Millionaires” penned a letter to Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and House Speaker John Boehner, urging them to “increase taxes on incomes over $1,000,000.” The Millionaires—a group that includes producer and director Doug Liman, actress Edie Falco, the founder of Ask.com,...

This may sound like a liberal parody of conservative economic thinking, but let me put it out there: America’s problem is that the rich don’t have enough money. There, I said it. Let’s rumble. When it comes to the Scrooge McDuck set, the problem isn’t that they’re not rich enough, it’s that there aren’t enough rich — not enough to do what liberals want to do, anyway, which is to balance the budget by increasing taxes on them. Let’s deploy some always-suspect English-major math: There are lots of liberal definitions of “rich.” When Pres. Barack Obama talks about the rich,...

During the final two months of 2010, the United States enjoyed what was perhaps the most sustained public discussion of debt and deficits in a generation. Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, the co-chairs of President Obama’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, released their provocative report. Former Clinton administration budget director Alice Rivlin and noted Republican deficit hawk Paul Ryan put out a comprehensive debt reduction proposal. Mitch Daniels, governor of Indiana and a potential 2012 Republican presidential candidate, offered specific proposals to reform the entitlements that are most responsible for driving the country deep into the red. My...

Anti-tax activists everywhere have been loudly arguing for an extension of George W. Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans in the United States. Now a group of millionaires is arguing the opposite. More than 40 of the nation's millionaires have joined Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength to ask President Obama to discontinue the tax breaks established for them during the Bush administration, as Salon reports. "For the fiscal health of our nation and the well-being of our fellow citizens, we ask that you allow tax cuts on incomes over $1,000,000 to expire at the end of this year as...

According to numerous media sources and several highly esteemed philantropic organizations all over the World, Europe, Canada, NYC, LA, certain corners of South East Asia and Australia boast the best surroundings for eco-friendly prosperity and success found on this planet. Especially Europe does. If we are to trust the experts in this field, conditions for successful human life are better in Scandinavia and Central Europe than anywhere else on Earth. Being Scandinavian, I won't deny I enjoy reading about how foreigners praise my corner of the World and talk of our our nations as an enviable place in which to...

We all have are preconceptions about millionaires: they're tax evaders who just inherited their money from rich Aunt Flo, and they hang around the golf course all day with their snobby, elitist friends. So what's the average millionaire really like? Here are seven millionaire myths, and the real facts about the ones who seem to have it all.

So what has Al Gore gained from his Big Green escapades? >>According to public disclosure information, Gore was worth somewhere between $1 million and $2 million in 2000. Not quite eight years later, Gore is estimated to be worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $100 million. While I ordinarily would applaud such financial gains from such a short period of time, I can’t help but to question just how it happened. When you look out at what Al Gore has done, it’s evident that he figured out on a way to capitalize on the creation of Big Green while becoming...