Free Republic

LONDON (CNNMoney.com) -- Former Federal Reserve chief Alan Greenspan believes Congress should let the tax cuts enacted by President George W. Bush expire for all Americans in order to address the widening deficit, according to a TV interview airing Friday. "They should follow the law and let them lapse," Greenspan told Bloomberg TV's Judy Woodruff. The 2001 and 2003 tax cuts are due to expire at the end of the year. President Obama had promised to make them permanent for families making less than $250,000. (Read 'Bush tax cuts up in the air') But faced with growing fiscal challenges, there's...

One of the provisions of the health care reform legislation passed earlier this year increases the medical expense deduction threshold from 7.5% of adjusted gross income to 10% of adjusted gross income, effectively increasing the cost of medical care for many taxpayers who itemize on their tax returns, by reducing their medical deductions.

While at an electric vehicles plant, President Barak Obama gives a speech on economic growth ( what economic growth? ) and at the same time, slamming the Republican party for growth policies that are working. What tax cuts President Obama, come January 1st of next year, THERE WILL BE A TAX INCREASE!

While a possible increase in taxes on the "carried interest" of hedge fund and private equity money managers is getting all the attention, in the same bill Congress is also creating a tax mess for small-business owners in the form of an $11 billion tax hike over the next 10 years. The tax increase was included in H.R. 4213, a peddler's wagon of legislation (new spending, physicians' reimbursement, extensions of expired tax breaks, etc.) that was passed by the House in a narrow vote just before Memorial Day and is now being considered by the Senate. The Democratic-backed Senate version...

In the eyes of Waverly Woods, a tax on indoor tanning discriminates against her in three ways: She's white. She's female. And she's a small-business owner. "They want to brainwash everyone into thinking tanning is the new arsenic," said Woods, who owns tanning salons in Norfolk and Virginia Beach. Starting July 1, indoor tanning salons must charge their customers a 10 percent tax on sessions involving ultraviolet rays to comply with the health care law passed in March. Legislators who support the tax view it as discriminatory, too - but from their perspective, it penalizes people for an unhealthy habit....

As if by blackmail, the AZ legislatures want us to vote on a 18% sales tax that will cover the teachers that they have given pink slips and the schools they have closed. The Goldwater Institute has made a 28 second commercial that shows the meaningless and silly spending cuts they have yet to make. How do you justify a Human Nature Dance Theater and a Bread Museum when we have such a huge budget short fall?

OLYMPIA, Wash. — Calling it a "sensible and modest" solution to Washington's historic budget crisis, Gov. Chris Gregoire on Friday approved a revenue package that nets roughly $780 million to avoid deeper cuts in education, health care and human services.Consumers will pay more for a basketful of convenience-store favorites: Soda, bottled water, major-brand beer, candy and cigarettes. Service businesses will send the state a larger share of their gross sales, from attorneys and lobbyists to hairdressers and janitors.Out-of-state companies also were targeted for more revenue, either by recalculating how taxes are charged or shrinking certain exemptions in response to court...

Taxpayers earning less than $200,000 a year will pay roughly $3.9 billion more in taxes — in 2019 alone — due to healthcare reform, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation, Congress's official scorekeeper. The new law raises $15.2 billion over 10 years by limiting the medical expense deduction, a provision widely used by taxpayers who either have a serious illness or are older. Taxpayers can currently deduct medical expenses in excess of 7.5 percent of their adjusted gross income. Starting in 2013, most taxpayers will only be able to deduct expenses greater than 10 percent of AGI. Older taxpayers...

Shopping for her brother's birthday gift had always been a snap for New Hartford Town Clerk Donna LaPlante. Because they had long agreed on a $25 limit, she would simply fork over $20 and renew his fishing license. This year, to her brother's surprise, she gave him a book. "I told him the license was now $40," she said. "He said, '$40!'" Across streams and rivers, lakes and ponds, the impact of the state's budget problems is being felt keenly by the state's anglers as they prepare for opening day of trout season next Saturday. Last August, the state legislature...

Jeff Gombosky, a lobbyist for Anheuser-Busch in Olympia, tells PubliCola he has heard a rumor that a beer tax was floated in Olympia on Friday as a revenue source to break the stalemate in Olympia. He has not seen anything official yet, however. Gombosky said generally Anheuser-Busch does not support singling out one item or industry for taxation (the House has already dropped its proposal for a $30 million gum and candy tax and a $96 million soda pop tax, which actually resurfaced today, has been MIA in both the House and Senate budgets all session). Gombosky says he especially...

Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-Mo.) warned Saturday that the Democratic health care bill could kill his dad. “As someone who has a 90-year-old father who has prostate cancer, this bill would put him in the grave – literally!” he said. “Because if you’re going to give somebody a pill because you can’t give them the kind of care they need when they are an elderly person – and you’re going to be rationing care – that’s not right.” Luetkemeyer was one of twelve House Republican freshmen at a 35-minute morning press conference intended to warn of dire consequences that will befall...

Now that the "temporary" sales tax is heading to the ballot, I think we must shine a light on the predicament we find ourselves in. The legislature kept referring to it as a revenue increase as if they were rolling out some new product line that would increase sales. Government of any kind, at any level, is not a revenue generator, they are overhead. In life you have the revenue generators (in this particular equation, you and me) and then you have the corporate office (the government bureaucracy). After closing my doors last year, I returned to work at a...

States Move To Revoke Charities' Tax Exemptions Faced with steep declines in tax revenue, an increasing number of states and localities are considering eliminating various tax exemptions for nonprofit groups. A bill before the Hawaii Legislature, for instance, would require charities to pay a 1 percent tax, and Kansas is considering making them subject to sales taxes. Revoking the nonprofit organizations' exemptions from property taxes is also under scrutiny in several counties in Kansas, as well as in Pennsylvania. And last fall, Minneapolis made charities subject to the fees it charges businesses and residents for streetlights in hope of gaining...

Legislation requiring online retailers to collect Virginia's 4.5 percent sales tax -- the so-called "Amazon Bill" -- easily cleared the Virginia Senate this morning and is headed to the House of Delegates, where opponents hope it falls prey to that chamber's hostility to taxes. Senate Bill 660, by Republican Emmett W. Hanger Jr. of Augusta, was approved, 28-12. The measure is a priority among traditional, bricks-and-mortar retailers, who say they can't compete with online businesses that currently don't have to collect the tax on Virginia sales. Foes say the legislation is a jobs-killer; that it would force Internet businesses here...

Investors withdraw up to €10bn from Greece as government prepares tax crackdown to cut down deficit staggering €8bn-€10bn (£7bn-£8.7bn) may have been taken out of Greece by private investors since it became engulfed by economic turmoil in November. Under pressure from the European Union and international markets to rein in the nation's €300bn debt, socialist prime minister, George Papandreou, announced last week that he would have to enforce tough deficit-cutting measures. But the coming austerity package is leading panicked wealthy Greeks to divert their savings out of the country.

Early Ore. Vote Results Come Gushing In THE ASSOCIATED PRESS January 26, 2010 PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- Early results from Oregon's special election came gushing in, and two tax measures were ahead on the strength of votes from Multnomah County, home of the liberal bastion Portland. Polling suggested the final count could be closer. The heavy vote was a result of a new law that allows mailed in ballots to be scanned days in advance of the close of voting. With nearly three-quarters of the expected vote counted, 55 percent had voted for Measure 66, which would impose higher taxes...

Taxes: On the eve of President Obama's first State of the Union address, two Democratic congressmen are advising him to extend the Bush tax cuts instead of letting them expire. Now that's a stimulus. We hear that the administration is considering taking a more populist tack as it sails the choppy political waters of 2010. Some of President Obama's plans reportedly include several tax tidbits for the "middle class," including a doubling of the child care tax credit for families below $85,000 in income, and $1.6 billion for child care and a cap on student loan payments. Such transparent populism...

Residents of the US capital may have to dig a little deeper into their pockets when they go grocery shopping once the city slaps a five-cent levy on each plastic bag issued at the checkout line. The measure, which takes effect on January 1, 2010 and is the first such initiative in the United States, seeks to make consumers bear the brunt of clean up costs for the bags which currently are dispensed for free with a customer's purchases.

Despite talk about easing burdens on businesses to encourage them to create jobs, companies in Virginia will be paying more in taxes come Jan. 1. The state unemployment tax that businesses pay on each employee will be going up, from an average of $95 per employee per year to an average of $171 a year in 2010, $234 in 2011 and $263 in 2012. The tax goes into the fund the state uses to pay unemployment benefits... When the unemployment fund gets low, it triggers an automatic increase in the tax. The increase is determined by a formula. Virginia Employment...

Virginia Gov. Timothy Kaine (D) proposed Friday replacing the local car tax by increasing income tax $1.9 billion a year. But Republicans in the General Assembly and Gov.-elect Robert F. McDonnell (R) have said they are opposed to any tax hikes. The outgoing governor also proposed about $2.3 billion in budget cuts to help make up for a nearly $4.2 billion shortfall by 2012. ... Kaine recommended eliminating 1,879 jobs as well as 664 layoffs, many of them in the departments of transportation, corrections, juvenile justice and at the University of Virginia. In public education, he would cap the number...