Showing posts with label tax. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tax. Show all posts

High Cigarette Taxes May Be More Harmful Than Smoking

by Jonathan Nelson.    The incentives created by government. New York's cigarette taxes are the highest in the nation, at $4.35 per pack. Some New Yorkers naturally will seek to avoid cigarette excise taxes. People are tempted to buy cigarettes in a low-tax state such as North Carolina and sell them in New York, says Jonathan Nelson.   ... MORE

U.S. Losing Living Standard As Economic Freedom Erodes

Land of the heavily taxed, home of the highly regulated. With the United States sinking on several major indices of economic freedom as it celebrates its Independence Day, free-market advocates have reason to ask, “What ever happened to the land of the free and the home of the brave?” A review of several credibly researched global indices  ... MORE

Stephen Moore: No, We Don't Need A Gas Tax Hike

Politicians want to fatten the pot from which they steal.  It's summertime and that means millions of Americans will soon be cramming in the minivan for family vacation. But Congress may soon be raising the cost of those trips by increasing the federal gas tax. Why? The highway trust fund that finances our national highway system is running  ... MORE

Michigan City Makes The Citizens Pay For Police Brutality

The beatings will continue until revenue improves. One time tax hike needed to pay settlement. Think that since you “aren’t breaking any laws,” police brutality doesn’t affect you? Well, that’s certainly not the case in one Michigan city. Instead of violent cops paying for their own wrong-doings, the legal expenses associated with police brutality ... MORE

Steve Forbes: Income Tax Rate Cuts Work. Always.

The federal government could learn from the states.  One of the genius features of our federal system of government is that it allows states to be laboratories for policies, to see what works and what doesn’t. The great welfare reform bill of 1996 came out of the pioneering policies of Wisconsin, which demonstrated that there could be a work   ... MORE

Josie Wales: IRS Continues SWAT Raids For Evasion While Hundreds Of Thier Agents Avoid Paying Any Taxes At All

Government's tax cheats are low priority.  The Associated Press has reported that over 1,600 IRS employees have willfully committed tax evasion in a 10-year span; most still employed in spite of a 1998 law calling for termination in such cases. Even worse, it has been reported that many of the tax-evading agents were active in enforcing the federal  ... MORE

John Stossel: What Creates Jobs

Regulation kills options.     I took a camera to Times Square this week and asked people, "What creates jobs?" Most had no answer. One said, "stimulus!" What? Government creates jobs? No! I suppose it's natural that people think government creates jobs because politicians always say that. "We've now created more than 10 million," said President    ... MORE

Ed Feulner: Breaking The Budget

The pace of unsustainable spending is quickening.   Let’s say you were a financial adviser, and a family came to you with the following situation. They make the median family income in the United States — $52,000. But last year they spent $61,000. That’s right, $9,000 more than they’re making, and it all went on the family credit card.      ... MORE

Jacob Sullum: Ted Cruz Is Right About Taxes

IRS code's headache-inducing complexity is a scandal. If you have not done your taxes yet, do not count on getting help from the Internal Revenue Service in answering any last-minute questions that may arise. The IRS estimates that only half of the anxious and bewildered taxpayers who call the agency this year will get through to a     ... MORE

Arkansas Drivers May Be Taxed Based On Odometer

by Mallory Jordan.  Gov't seeks new way to sheer the sheep. Drivers in Arkansas could be seeing a big change if House Bill 1716 passes the Arkansas legislature. A bill to tax Arkansas drivers per mile they drive passed committees and now moves to the House. For drivers who drive to work every day or drive anywhere, the state may begin to look  ... MORE

Sports Stadiums Throw Taxpayers For A Loss

by Steve Chapman.     It's a play fake that never fails. Since 1995, Los Angeles has been an anomaly: a huge city with lots of sports fans that has exactly as much professional football as Billings, Montana. This week, Angelenos got a bit of good news: They still aren't getting an NFL franchise. A corporation called AEG announced Monday that it    ... MORE

California Gas Prices Almost A Dollar A Gallon More Than National Average Due To Needless Taxes And Regulation

by Gregg Laskoski.    What is "middle-class economics"? We’ll probably be hearing a lot of answers to that question in the coming months as politicians vie for position in the 2016 presidential election. The New York Times took a close look at America’s middle class after President Barack Obama discussed it in aspirational terms during his State of    ... MORE

IRS Defends Refunds To Illegals Who Never Filed Taxes

by Stephan Dinan.      The IRS is defending its decision to let illegal immigrants claim up to three years’ refunds on income even if they never paid income taxes, telling Congress in a new letter last week that agency lawyers have concluded getting a Social Security number triggers the ability to go back and ask for previous refunds. President     ... MORE

Taxes & Restrictions Posing As Federal Dietary Guidelines

by Baylen Linnekin.       Last week the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC), which meets every five years to help set federal dietary policies, issued its final recommendations. The recommendations of the committee, first established in 1990, "provide the basis for federal food and nutrition policy and education initiatives." So just what  ... MORE

Stepen Dinan: White House That Promised Transparency Refuses To Cooperate With The Congressional IRS Probe

How to behave when the truth is not on your side.  The White House told Congress last week it refused to dig into its computers for emails that could shed light on what kinds of private taxpayer information the IRS shares with President Obama’s top aides, assuring Congress that the IRS will address the issue — eventually. The tax agency has  ... MORE

VIDEO: Is Our Debt A Revenue Or Spending Problem?

Shearing The Sheep: Democrats Want To Spend Taxpayer Dollars To Study New Ways To Tax People Even More

by Pete Kasperowicz.     Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) this week introduced legislation that would give states federal grants to study the possibility of imposing a controversial new tax — one that would tax people for every mile they drive in their cars. Blumenauer’s Road Usage Charge Pilot Program Act is the latest effort to move away from a gas  ... MORE