Tag: taxes

Commentary: America Needs the Trump Tax Cuts

Daily Caller News Foundation
Tax Cut Bill

The Biden-Harris administration has become synonymous with an economy in tatters. Americans are struggling with rising prices, stagnant wages, and increased obstacles to starting a business, buying a home or retiring. According to the Gallup Economic Confidence Index, Americans’ outlook on the economy from 2021 to 2024 has been negative.

Contrast this with the economic prosperity seen under the Trump administration. America enjoyed energy abundance, skyrocketing wages, a record number of startups and incredible stock market averages. A large part of this success can be credited to the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), a tax cut for families and small businesses that fueled one of the strongest economies in decades.

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Commentary: An Economy That Serves Nobody Except Those in Charge

American Greatness
Suits

As we outlined in Part One, here in California, we have an economy that would be the fifth largest in the world if it were to be separated as a standing nation. Home to Silicon Valley, Hollywood, world-class agriculture, and medical schools, California is an economic powerhouse.

Yet we, in California, have the highest poverty rate in the nation. We have a majority of the nation’s homeless people. We have the highest overall tax rates in the nation. Our energy costs are double that of the national average. Our per-student spending in schools is well above the national average, yet our students consistently have below-average grade-level test scores. Our major cities are crime-ridden, our power grid is woefully vulnerable, and our beaches are regularly closed due to raw sewage contamination.

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Commentary: Americans Support Trump on the Election’s Two Most Important Issues

Admin
Donald Trump at Rally

As the nation reels from a second cowardly attack on former President Donald Trump’s life, it is increasingly clear the radical left refuses to tone down their hateful rhetoric against Trump even if it threatens his life repeatedly. The American people, however, want to put Trump back in charge of the two most pivotal issues facing the country – the economy and immigration.

Just five days after the contentious debate between former President Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris blatantly exposed the mainstream media’s allegiance to the radical left, Trump fended off yet another attack on his life. On Sunday Trump was on what should have been a secure West Palm Beach golf course, only to be threatened once again by a radical extremist with a weapon.

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Arizona Court of Appeals Hears Oral Arguments over Scottsdale’s ‘Bait and Switch’ Description of ‘New’ Prop. 490 Park Sales Tax as a Tax Decrease

Rachel Alexander
Attorney Scott Day Freeman

A three-judge panel on the Arizona Court of Appeals heard oral arguments last Tuesday in the Goldwater Institute’s (GI) legal challenge to a $1.2 billion sales tax the City of Scottsdale referred to the ballot this fall. GI said the City’s description of Proposition 490 made the tax for parks out to be a tax decrease, when it really was a new tax. GI was appealing a dismissal of its lawsuit by Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Michael Gordon, who was appointed to the bench by Democratic Governor Janet Napolitano.

In its executive summary about the lawsuit, GI stated, “The City of Scottsdale is attempting to trick Scottsdale residents into approving a tax increase by calling it a tax reduction.” GI cited Arizona law, Molera v. Hobbs, which prohibits bait and switch tactics with ballot measures. 

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Arizona Democrats Say They Want to Cut Costs with New Laws, State Republicans Contend it Would Lead to Higher Taxes

The Center Square
Sen. Juan Mendez and Sen. John Kavanagh in front of the Arizona State Capitol Building (composite image)

If victorious in November, Arizona Democrats aim to institute laws they say would cut costs for Arizonans. Republicans say these measures would only hurt Arizona’s economy and lead to higher taxes.

Only two seats away from having a Democratic majority in Arizona’s legislative chambers for the first time in six decades, the Democratic Caucus has established a plan they say would allow them to hit the ground running in 2025 should they take control of the Legislature. This story is part of an ongoing series of what a Democratic trifecta would look like for Arizona taxpayers.

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Disabled Connecticut Veterans to Receive Break on Taxes

The Center Square
Disabled Veterans

Connecticut veterans with disabilities will get a break on their property and vehicle taxes under a bill signed by Gov. Ned Lamont.

The measure, which passed the Legislature with bipartisan support, covers veterans with a permanent and total disability rating resulting from their active-duty service. The exemption, expected to impact about 1,200 veterans in the state, will apply to the primary resident owned by an eligible disabled service member or, if they don’t own a home, to one motor vehicle owned by the service member.

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Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs Most Proud of Not Raising Taxes During His Tenure, Says ‘We Have to Make Sure Our People Are Being Taken Care Of’

Kaitlin Housler
Glenn Jacobs

Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs said the accomplishment he’s most proud of since assuming office in 2018 is his and his team’s work to avoid raising taxes for county residents.

Jacobs said that while it is becoming “more difficult” to construct a budget amid economic challenges resulting from decisions made at the federal level, his administration is “doing everything that we can to be creative and think outside the box” to avoid raising taxes.

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Commentary: An Economic Bill of Rights for the 21st Century

Admin
Manual Labor

Beginning April 1, the minimum wage for employees working in California’s fast food chains and health care industries will rise to $20 per hour and, in some cases, up to $23 per hour. Many employers managing independent restaurants, retail, and other industries will have to match the higher hourly rate to retain employees. And for hourly employees whose wages are indexed to the minimum wage, mostly in California’s unionized public sector, wages will rise proportionately.

There is no national consensus on the impact of minimum-wage laws. It is part of a much larger debate over what constitutes an optimal economic environment to enable, quoting from Franklin Delano Roosevelt, “economic security and independence.”

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Beacon Center of Tennessee Publishes State’s 2023 Pork Report

Kaitlin Housler

The Nashville-based Beacon Center of Tennessee published its annual Pork Report on Wednesday, highlighting the wasteful spending of taxpayer dollars this past year across the Volunteer State.

Examples of “offensive” and “wasteful” uses of Tennessee taxpayer money highlighted in the 2023 Pork Report include the nearly $5 million taxpayer subsidy given to benefit the California burger chain In-N-Out’s move to Tennessee, large property tax increases in multiple counties, and the City of Memphis giving out over $1 million to a TV show on the verge of cancellation.

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As Joe Biden Promised Tax Fairness, His Son Rushed to Erase His Delinquent Taxes, IRS Memos Show

Just the News

As Joe Biden marched toward the presidency in 2020 with a promise to force the wealthy to pay their “fair share” of taxes, his son Hunter was scrambling behind closed doors to clean up a trail of his own delinquent taxes before they became an election scandal, according to once-secret IRS memos made public recently by Congress.

IRS agents would soon discover that the future first son was continuing to allegedly misrepresent his income and deductions to the very accountant he had hired to help, the memos show.

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Ohio House Passes Bill Focused on Providing Property Tax Relief

Kaitlin Housler

The Ohio House of Representatives passed a bill this week focused on providing property tax relief to Ohioans.

If enacted, the Ohio Homeowners Relief Act would modify the procedures used by the tax commissioner to conduct property tax sales assessment ratio studies. Specifically, the bill would require the commissioner to work alongside local elected officials and weigh the past three years of a county’s property values in order to determine property taxes instead of just one.

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Report: Michigan Losing Ground, Could Raise Taxes to Provide More Services

The Center Square

The Citizens Research Council of Michigan released its final paper on how to make Michigan prosper by increasing population.

The five-part series found Michigan is losing ground in the nationwide competition to attract and retain residents, counting statistics from demographics, economy, workforce, health, infrastructure, environment and public services.

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Commentary: The New Right Cares About More than Taxes

Admin

New research is challenging assumptions about the Republican Party’s core values, showing the GOP of the 2020s is an entirely different animal from the GOP of the 2010s. The research captures an increasing shift toward populism and America First priorities that has been growing since Former President Trump’s election in 2016.

The study by American Compass divides Republicans into two camps, the Old Right and the New Right, based on their economic priorities and approach to cultural issues.

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Arizona Free Enterprise Club Gives 17 Arizona State Politicians 100 Percent Ratings in Its 2023 Scorecard

Rachel Alexander

The Arizona Free Enterprise Club (AFEC) issued its annual ratings of legislators this month, with four state senators and 13 state representatives receiving perfect scores. The scorecard analyzed 25 bills in the House and 30 in the Senate during the 2023 session that addressed priority issues for AFEC. Many legislators scored well since “[f]or most of the legislative session, the caucuses in the House and Senate were unified, and there was less bad policy that made it onto the floor for a vote in either chamber.”

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Commentary: Tax Relief Is Coming to Millions of Red-State Residents in Ohio, Connecticut, and More

Admin

July marked the beginning of Fiscal Year 2024 for 46 of the 50 states. It also closes the books on most state legislative sessions in what was an incredible 2023 for hard-working taxpayers.

In recent years, we’ve seen significant income tax relief in the states. Notably, 10 states – Kentucky, West Virginia, Montana, Utah, Arkansas, North Dakota, Indiana, Nebraska, Connecticut, and Ohio – have cut personal income taxes (PIT) in 2023. With the new addition of West Virginia, North Dakota, and Connecticut, 22 states have cut personal income taxes since 2021, with several of these states cutting taxes multiple times during that period.

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Commentary: The Surprising Origins of the ‘No Taxation Without Representation’ Slogan

Admin

Ask most Americans where the slogan “No taxation without representation!” came from and the likely response will be “American colonists protesting against Britain in the 1760s.” But the spirit, if not the precise letter of the phrase, originated more than a century before. Moreover, we can thank the Brits themselves for it. It started with something called the “ship tax.”

Since the early Middle Ages, English custom allowed the monarch to impose a special levy in times of war upon citizens who lived in coastal settlements. They could meet the requirement by providing ships, shipbuilding materials, or money for the Crown to build ships (hence the name, “ship tax”). Kings and Queens levied the “tax” as a royal prerogative, meaning they skipped the annoyance of securing the consent of Parliament as required in the Magna Carta of 1215.

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$412 Million Tax Cut Headlines Tennessee Bills That Become Law Saturday

The Center Square

Many of the laws passed during the recent Tennessee Legislative session will go into place July 1, the beginning of the new fiscal year, including a $412 million tax cut.

That cut includes $272.8 million toward a three-month grocery tax holiday between Aug. 1 and Oct. 31 along with changing the state franchise and excise business taxes to single sales factor taxes like 32 other states.

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IRS Whistleblower: Hunter Biden Hasn’t Paid Taxes on 2014 Money from Ukrainian Oligarch’s Firm

Just the News

Federal agents secured evidence that Hunter Biden engaged in a “pretty classic tax evasion scheme” that allowed him to avoid paying taxes on millions of dollars in income since at least 2014, and the deal he ultimately got would not have been afforded to other Americans facing such serious charges, an IRS whistleblower who supervised the investigation tells Just the News.

“If these facts were from the local businessman or the neighbor next door, they would have been charged, they would have already probably had their entire sentence,” IRS Supervisor Agent Gary Shapley said during a 45-minute interview aired Thursday on the John Solomon Reports podcast.

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Feds Built Case Hunter Biden Evaded $2.2 Million in Taxes Dating to 2014 Before Being Thwarted

Just the News

If Hunter Biden pleads guilty next month as expected to two misdemeanor tax evasion charges, he’ll be admitting he shorted the U.S. government of about $100,000 in taxes he owed in 2017-18.

But it’s a far cry from the evidence the IRS and FBI developed showing a pattern of tax evasion and avoidance that stretched back to his father’s term as vice president a decade ago, according to newly released documents and testimony.

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Ramaswamy: Plea Deal Keeping Hunter Biden out of Prison Is a ‘Joke,’ the ‘Perfect Fig Leaf’

M.D. Kittle

GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy is blasting a plea deal announced Tuesday that will keep President Joe Biden’s troubled son out of prison on two federal misdemeanor counts of failing to pay his taxes and a separate felony charge of possession of a firearm by a known drug user.

Multiple news outlets are reporting that Hunter Biden and his attorneys have reached an agreement in which U.S. Attorney David Weiss would recommend probation on the tax violations. The younger Biden also would avoid prison time on the gun possession charge, “subject to a pretrial diversion agreement,” his attorney said in a statement.

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Property Taxes Climb 3.6 Percent Across U.S. to $339.8 Billion

The Center Square

Property taxes levied on single-family homes in the United States increased 3.6 percent to $339.8 billion in 2022, according to a new report from a real estate data firm.

That’s up from $328 billion in 2021. The 2022 increase was more than double the 1.6 percent growth in 2021, but smaller than the 5.4 percent increase in 2020, according to the report from ATTOM, a property data provider.

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Poll: 73 Percent of Taxpayers Say Government Doesn’t Use Their Taxes Wisely

The Center Square

Ahead of Tax Day on April 18, 73% of taxpayers said the government doesn’t use their taxes wisely, a new survey found. A separate report found that red states have the better taxpayer return on investment.

Wallethub’s “Taxpayer Survey” found that 28% of respondents said charities would better spend their money; 26% said local governments would best spend their money, followed by state government (22%), the federal government (16%) and religious groups (13%).

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Georgia Senate Says Kids Don’t Need Permits or to Pay Taxes on Lemonade Stands

The Center Square

As a parent, T.L. Matthew knows setting up a lemonade stand can be fun and educational.

“In my personal experience, setting up a lemonade stand with my daughter was a fun and rewarding bonding experience that taught her valuable skills in communication, entrepreneurship, and money management,” Matthew, the CEO and founder of Fayetteville-based SumFoods, told The Center Square via email. “Unfortunately, in many states, kids who try to set up their own businesses have been bogged down by unnecessary regulations and taxes, forcing them to obtain permits and licenses or risk being shut down or fined.”

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‘2023 Property Taxpayer Protection Act’ to be Taken up by General Assembly this Week

Laura Baigert

A bill that would protect property taxpayers from bearing the brunt of new residential development across the state is set to be taken up in the General Assembly this week.

The “2023 Property Taxpayer Protection Act” will remedy a disparity between the ways in which cities and counties are able to fund the expansion of services brought on by the accelerated growth Tennessee is experiencing which was created by the 2006 County Powers Relief Act.

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Tennessee Commission Reports at Least $62.9 Billion of Public Infrastructure Improvement Needs

Laura Baigert

The Tennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (TACIR) announced last week the release of its 21st annual report on the public infrastructure needs across the state during the five-year period of July 2021 to June 2026.

The latest report, “Building Tennessee’s Tomorrow: Anticipating the State’s Infrastructure Needs,” indicates there is $1.2 billion or 2 percent increase over the year before. And while the costs have increased for the seven straight reporting period, they decreased when adjusted for inflation and population.

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Tennessee’s December Revenues $217 Million More than Budgeted

Laura Baigert

Tennessee revenues for December were $217.2 million more than budgeted and represented growth of nearly five percent over December 2021, according to Friday’s announcement by the state’s Commissioner of Finance and Administration Jim Bryson.

December is the fifth month, on an accrual basis, of the 2022-2023 fiscal year, and the year-to-date revenues are $959.9 billion in excess of what was budgeted and $655 million over the same time last fiscal year.

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Arizona State Senate Majority Caucus Promises to Keep Republican Values at the Center of Legislation Going into New Session

Neil Jones

The Arizona State Senate Republican Caucus (Caucus) released its 2023 Majority Plan on Thursday, outlining priorities and approaches to strengthening the state and tackling important issues. Kim Quintero, director of communications for the Caucus, told The Arizona Sun Times that the elected officials would do their best to honor the Republican values they ran on while working under newly sworn-in Gov. Katie Hobbs (D).

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Minnesota Ranks in the Top Five States for Cigarette Smuggling

The Center Square

A new study released by The Tax Foundation this week reports high tax rates on cigarettes induce smuggling of tobacco products from low-tax states or foreign sources into high-tax states.

“States and municipalities have spent millions to combat cigarette smuggling. Recent policy responses include greater law enforcement activity on interstate roads, differential tax rates near low-tax jurisdictions, banning common carrier delivery of cigarettes, and cracking down on tribal reservations that sell tax-free cigarettes,” the “Cigarette Taxes and Cigarette Smuggling by State, 2020” report said. “However, the underlying problem persists. High cigarette taxes act similarly to a ‘price prohibition’ on the legal product in many U.S. states, incentivizing smuggling and illicit activity.”

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Central Arizona Water Conservation District Candidates Discuss Water Shortage, Taxes at EZAZ Forum

Rachel Alexander

The grassroots group EZAZ held a forum featuring the candidates running for the Central Arizona Water Conservation District (CAWCD) Board of Directors on Sunday. At least one of the candidates, Republican Legislative District Chair Cory Mishkin, said the coming water shortage was manageable, and called out California for causing problems. A couple of the candidates expressed concern that property taxes are being used to subsidize developers and municipalities.

Jeff Caldwell, EZAZ’s secretary and volunteer coordinator, asked each candidate five questions, as well as allowing them to give opening and closing statements. The candidates were not provided the questions in advance.

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Tennessee Collects Record $8.7 Million in Taxes on September Sports Betting After June Rule Change

The Center Square

Tennessee collected $8.7 million in taxes on $336.9 million in sports wagers in September, according to new numbers from the state’s Sports Wagering Advisory Council.

The taxes are more than the state has collected in a month since wagering opened in November 2020. The previous high was $5.9 million collected in November 2021.

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Cato Institute Gives Governor Bill Lee ‘D’ Grade on State Fiscal Policy Report Card

Kaitlin Housler

The Cato Institute released its 2022 Fiscal Policy Report Card on America’s Governors on Wednesday, which grades the governors of all 50 U.S. states on their fiscal policies from a limited-government perspective.

According to its website, the Cato Institute is an American libertarian think tank that “promotes an American public policy based on individual liberty, limited government, free markets and peaceful international relations.”

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