Free Republic

California state government has so much money this year that it’s opening two new savings accounts so it can keep socking away even more cash for the rainy day that Gov. Jerry Brown says is just over the horizon. That tactic — setting a course to pile up $16 billion in savings over the next 12 months — should reassure taxpayers that cuts to government services won’t be as severe as they were a decade ago when the state’s economy plummeted into the Great Recession. But the money is inviting a different kind ofpolitical problem for majority Democrats. It could...

Electric automaker Tesla is cutting 9% of its employees across the company ... Throughout its nearly 15 years of existence, the company has never made a profit, ... Tesla will also not be renewing its residential sales agreement with Home Depot, Musk said, opting instead to focus on selling its solar products in its stores and on its website.

Tax cuts, deregulation and smart trade policies will make America boom They don’t call it the dismal science for nothing. Remember Paul Krugman predicting the apocalypse in the wake of Donald Trump’s election. And now with the economy clipping along at nearly 3%, deregulation and lower taxes reviving manufacturing, and consumers confidently spending again, some two-thirds of private-sector prognosticators see a recession beginning as early 2020. The new doomsday scenario offered by the Congressional Budget Office and others is that the economy is getting only a temporary jolt from tax cuts and increased government spending, and aggregate demand will tail...

Last December, President Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act into law. The largest shake-up to the federal tax code in more than 30 years, the law includes myriad changes that will benefit manufacturers. Among other things, the law reduces the corporate tax rate from 35 to 21 percent and repeals the corporate alternative minimum tax. The law also allows companies to immediately expense the full cost of qualified property acquired and placed into service before 2023. And, it maintains the R&D tax credit. While stumping for the bill, President Trump predicted tax reform would be “rocket fuel” for...

The California state budget could extend a tax break to low-income families of undocumented immigrants. Assembly Democrats want Gov. Jerry Brown to expand the state’s Earned Income Tax Credit in such a way that people who do not have Social Security numbers can apply for it. The proposal is meant to help poor Californians recover some of their state income tax. Last year, a household with two children and an adjusted gross income of up to $22,309 would have been eligible for a tax credit. The maximum credit for a family of that size is $2,467, according to the Franchise...

<p>Acadiana lost $26.6 million in proposed construction projects with the stroke of Gov. John Bel Edwards veto pen Wednesday.</p> <p>Twenty-nine projects were part of the 40 items struck from the state’s annual construction budget by Edwards using his line-item veto authority.</p>

The number of electric, gas and water utilities cutting customer charges due to the recently passed Republican tax cuts has passed 100, and the total savings is about $3 billion. According to Americans for Tax Reform, the number has reached 101 with most utilities either cutting bills or not passing on the costs of expanding their operations. “When Democrats threaten to raise taxes if they get back into power they are threatening to raise your utility bill -- month after month,” said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform. The general total for the cuts is over $2.8 billion....

A Miccosukee tribal member owes back taxes on gambling revenue, a federal appeals ruled Monday in a decision that experts believe could pave the way for the federal government to collect more than $1 billion in overdue personal income taxes. The U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a Miami federal judge who ruled that tribal member Sally Jim must pay the Internal Revenue Service $278,758 in taxes, interest and penalties for failing to file a tax return in 2001. The ruling came two years after U.S. District Judge Cecilia Altonaga decided her family's gaming income — a distribution of...

I was driving over to Trenton the other day when I noticed a white sports car coming up on my left. At first I thought it was a Corvette. But as it sped past I realized it was something far more exotic: an Acura NSX. At $200,000, the NSX costs about $130,000 more than a Corvette. But it was so beautiful I decided I needed to buy one anyway. Unfortunately, I have a revenue problem. The Star-Ledger doesn't pay me that kind of dough. So I'm stuck with my current sports car, which was built in the prior millennium. That's...

After two years in office, Sen. Josh Newman (D-Fullerton) was recalled Tuesday for his vote to increase the gas tax to repair the state’s woefully maintained streets and expand its inadequate transit systems. Political opportunism won over responsible governance. Republicans launched the recall campaign after Newman supported the gas tax increase in Senate Bill 1, which needed a two-thirds majority to pass. But Newman’s vote was pretext. Really, Republicans were trying to win back a seat that Newman narrowly won in 2016 and that was historically held by the GOP. The campaign worked. Newman is out and Republican former assemblywoman...

Voters in California’s 29th State Senate district recalled freshman Democrat Josh Newman in Tuesady’s California primary over his vote for Governor Jerry Brown’s 12-cent-per-gallon gas tax hike, replacing him with Republican Ling Ling Chang and definitively denying Democrats a supermajority in the upper house.

In the wake of Seattle’s decision to enact an Employee Head Tax (EHT) to fight homelessness, media reporting has largely focused on the backlash from large businesses such as Amazon. It’s not hard to see why. Amazon, which employs more than 10 percent of the city’s workforce, has suspended planned investments in protest, and more than 100 leaders of large businesses operating in the city signed an open letter opposing the tax increase. But local residents tired of Seattle’s stagnant economic situation are beginning to take action against the EHT as well. It is truly difficult to imagine a worse...

A record 2.3 million Russians have been banned from traveling abroad over unpaid debts, a measure that Russia’s bailiffs say has helped recover almost $300 million in outstanding debt. Russian law forbids anyone who owes more than 30,000 rubles ($483) in unpaid bank credit, taxes or fines from leaving the country. The number of Russians with debts greater than the allowed amount doubled in 2015, when the threshold was 10,000 rubles, in what collectors attributed to an economic downturn triggered by Western sanctions and falling oil prices.

Cynthia Nixon (aka Miranda from Sex and the City) caught a lot of heat for suggesting that decriminalizing weed might be a form of reparations for Black people in New York. This was probably not the best move she could have made in her gubernatorial run, but she later clarified her point. “I’m not going to use that word anymore,” Nixon told the New York Post. “We have to make sure that the communities that have been most devastated by the war on drugs are prioritized for small business loans and other kinds of support. Obviously it would in no...

U.S. manufacturers are hiring more workers, boosting wages and increasing domestic investments following the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Seventy-two percent of manufacturers are ramping up workers’ wages and benefits, according to a new survey from the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM). Meanwhile, 77% of survey respondents said they were hiring more workers, while 86% are investing more in plants and equipment. “Manufacturing in America is now rising to new heights, thanks to tax reform, and as a result, manufacturers of all sizes are already investing more, growing more, hiring more and paying more. They are already...

Democrats have yet to reach a consensus on what message might resonate most favorably with voters this Fall. Citing a poll finding that 60% of voters don't believe the Mueller probe has uncovered any crimes, Democratic strategist Jesse Ferguson suggested that "we need to focus our message on the successes of the investigation. Granted, there hasn't yet been any evidence of Russian collusion, but several people have been indicted for other crimes." Almost all of these "other crimes" involve lying to federal agents. The one seemingly significant crime not in this category is the charge that Paul Manafort engaged in...

WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service is preparing to crack down on states that try to circumvent a new limit on the state and local tax deduction, saying on Wednesday that it will not allow local governments to find creative ways to help individuals fully deduct those taxes. The I.R.S. warning comes in response to states, like New York, that have looked for ways to blunt the impact of a new $10,000 cap on the state and local tax deduction, known as SALT. The cap, which was included in last year’s $1.5 trillion Republican tax overhaul, hit predominantly Democratic, high-tax...

Taxpayers may be surprised to know that, prior to the enactment of the Tax Cut and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA), under certain conditions illegal aliens or undocumented immigrants could be claimed as a dependent on individual tax returns, which also allowed the taxpayers to claim various tax credits. Section 10 of the TCJA has repealed the old law, making it now impossible to claim this dependency deduction. The law does still allow individuals to claim qualifying aliens for certain tax credits. There are tax preparer due diligence requirements for some of these tax credits, and a new provision in...

Nanny-state-imposing left-wing billionaire Michael Bloomberg is now on video admitting how much he likes to raise taxes on poor people, calling such tax hikes a “good thing.” For years, Bloomberg has personally funded and promoted all sorts of regressive taxes and regulations in an attempt to push people around. He uses the coercive power of the government to force people to live their lives as he sees fit. So here is Bloomberg on stage with another global mandarin, Christine Lagarde of the International Monetary Fund. He refers to low income individuals as “those people” and then takes a shot at...

The law firm of adult film star Stormy Daniels' attorney, Michael Avenatti, was hit with a $10-million judgment Tuesday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court after he broke his promise to pay $2 million to a former colleague.