The people who came up with Prop 13 had a stated mission of keeping grandma in her home. Which is fine, but that’s not really where we’re at today. While still keeping grandma in her home here are some straight forward ways to fix property taxes in California. Continue reading
taxes
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On May 20th, 2010 police officers in West Memphis, Arkansas pulled over a white minivan during a drug interdiction patrol. The police pulled 45 year-old Jerry Kane from the minivan. A scuffle ensued and Kane’s 16 year-old son Joe emerged from the vehicle with an AK-47. He hit the officers with 25 bullets, killing both of them. Ninety minutes later both of the Kanes were killed in a Walmart parking lot in a standoff with the police. Why did Joe Kane kill two police officers (and wound two others in the second altercation)? Because Joe and Jerry Kane were Sovereign Citizens, people who believe that courts and cops have no authority over them, and who believe they have the right to defend themselves from them, by force if necessary. Continue reading
Tomorrow is the deadline for filing your 2011 taxes in the US. Maybe you owe money and dread writing that check. Or maybe you just realized that you never got your W-2.
Really though, if you haven’t filed by now you might as well just send in an extension and go back to whatever Master of Procrastination activity you’ve been doing for the last three months. If you’re bound and determined to get them done today; Go, get off the internet, what are you doing here? For everyone else, here is a game. Rewrite the tax code. How would you make it “fair”. Also or alternately what would you fund or defund?
Image via Baloo
“Middle-class families shouldn’t pay higher taxes than millionaires and billionaires. That’s pretty straightforward. It’s hard to argue against that,” President Obama said yesterday. I agree with Obama on this one. Then I read an interesting Fact Check piece titled: Are Rich Taxed Less than Secretaries?
According to this article, the data tells a different story. Stephen Ohlemacher writes, “…the wealthiest people in America pay a lot more in taxes than the middle class or the poor… They pay at a higher rate, and as a group, they contribute a much larger share of the overall taxes collected by the federal government.”
So just how big is the million dollar earner group and what percentage do they fork up to Uncle Sugar? In 2009, 237,000 households filed taxes with the IRS in amounts of $1 million or more in income. Of that amount less than 1% paid no taxes at all. Continue reading
Here’s a hypothetical from fantasyland: the government of {your country} suddenly has a billion US dollars or local equivalent to spend, and it can only spend it on ONE giant program. Pretend it’s a bequest from a rich billionaire who just died. You can pretend the dead billionaire is Rupert Murdoch if you want to feel especially happy about it. Continue reading
In a disgusting display, the Republican party is now trying to block a tax cut that NObama is championing.
Quick explanation: To pay for Social Security benefits, employers and employees have always paid into the system via a payroll tax. This payroll tax has been 6.2% paid by the employer and 6.2% of salary paid by the employee. This totals to 12.4% of everyone’s salary being paid into the social security system. Social Security payroll taxes are basically unavoidable, and they only apply up to the first $106,800 of a worker’s wages. Last year Obama cut this tax on the worker’s side of things, saving people up to $2,136 a year, or at the very most a solid 2% of their income. Continue reading
Are you tired of paying rent to The Man and have decided you need to be in charge of your own destiny? Do you wish you could have a nice home where you can do whatever you want? Do you need a bigger back yard for your dog or a bigger room to keep your collection cat trees?
If you’re ready to make the big step and commit to owning a home then there are some costs beyond the price of the home that you are going to have to take into account.
Tax laws and standard accounting practices have caused a lot of corporate profits from US companies to accumulate outside the US. There is a current lobbying and legislative effort underway to temporarily cut the tax rate on bringing those profits back to the US. Continue reading