Taxation

Mona Charen was the first of several speakers over the course of the NRI Summit to offer up this important point: The United States is now at the point where about 50% of the population pays no income tax. Therefore, tax-cuts can no longer be the centerpiece of an effective national Republican platform, because half…

WASHINGTON D.C — I am attending the National Review Institute’s Conservative Summit this weekend, and will post some of the interesting views I am hearing at the beginning of next week. However, I want to mention one item right away. In between panel sessions, I ran into Time Magazine columnist Joe Klein and had the…

In a blog-post mostly about health care reform that includes some brief commentary on what President Bush will propose during tonight’s State of the Union address, Time magazine columnist Joe Klein drops this major bomb…[President Bush’s] plan opens the door for a real negotiation on changing the current tax code in a more progressive way,…

“Rhode Island has the worst unemployment tax system, the worst property tax system, and the third worst individual income tax system.” So says the Tax Foundation’s latest “State Business Tax Climate Index” report (full report -> PDF). Also, Rhode Island ranks 48th in the Foundation’s Individual Income Tax Index and 35th in both the Corporate…

With a vote of 36-0, the State Senate passed a bill that would slow down and then limit the amount that a community could raise property taxes in any given year. The bill would lower the maximum annual increase to a community’s tax levy from the current 5.5 percent to 4 percent gradually, starting in…

Lowering the acceptable rate of annual property tax increases is a good idea. (I wonder why our Democrat dominated general assembly is tackling this now…Oh yeah, it’s an election year). Senator Teresa Paiva Weed (D-Newport) is leading the charge in the effort. Currently, communities are prohibited from raising their tax levy by more than 5.5…

Some news events do not require commentary. This is one such news event. Paul Caron, the Charles Hartsock Professor of Law at the University of Cincinnati College of Law writes about how the IRS to Refund $15 Billion of Telephone Taxes to Consumers: The Treasury Department and IRS announced this morning that after losing in…

I have to admit that Froma Harrop’s rhetoric, in the following single instance, does resonate a bit for me: The centerpiece is the lowered tax on investment income, which Republicans are trying to keep at 15 percent. As a result, the idle rich living off their stock portfolios are taxed at 15 percent, while the…