This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Taxes

  • WaPo: Is allowing Bush tax cuts to expire a tax hike?

    The Washington Post asked Grover Norquist that question, in an obvious attempt to trap him…and it worked. Norquist answered that “no” it wouldn’t violate the promise that most Republicans made to the public. Let me tell the Post that Norquist doesn’t speak for me or my vote.

    Of course, letting the tax cuts expire is decidedly not Mr. Norquist’s preference. Indeed, as a matter of policy, he is passionately opposed to a single dime in new tax revenue. But the fact that Mr. Norquist interprets his own pledge to permit such conduct suggests that Republican lawmakers who have been browbeaten into abjuring any tax increase, at any time, for any reason, may not be as boxed in as they believe. The official Republican line has been that allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire, even for those earning more than $250,000, would be a job-killing tax increase. The fact that the godfather of the pledge does not interpret the lapse as an increase is significant.

    I’m not adverse to an increase in tax revenues – I’m opposed to an increase in taxes to achieve an increase in revenues. revenues increased during the period of the Bush tax cuts (by the way, ten years after the tax cuts were effective, can we stop calling them tax cuts and start calling them the tax rates). I don’t know what political game Norquist is playing here, but if the tax rates rise above what they are today…well, that’s a tax hike. And if it’s caused by action or inaction by Congress, I’m holding them responsible in the 2012 election.

    The Post continues a few more times accusing Republicans of being opposed to an increase in tax revenues – and that’s not the case at all. Republicans don’t oppose increased revenues, that’s just ignorant and intentionally misinforming the public – apparently the bread and butter of the Post. Tax increases aren’t the only way to increase revenue as the post wants you to believe.

    In fact, the best way to increase tax revenues is to put Americans back to work – and raising taxes on their potential employers won’t do that.

  • Stupid politician tricks

    Chris Rock was only joking when he proposed a bullet tax, but a politician in Baltimore isn’t. Mayoral candidate, Otis Rolley, is perfectly serious when he announced his proposed $1 per bullet tax as an answer to armed crime in Baltimore (WBALTV link);

    “This is not a revenue enhancement tool,” Rolley said of the tax idea. “It’s a ‘make it difficult for you to buy bullets in the city’ tool.”

    The bullet tax is part of Rolley’s public safety plan, which includes a change in how the city treats some drug use. He wants to make possession of small amounts of marijuana a summary offense. That would treat the offense more like public drunkenness than a drug crime, Miller reported.

    Yeah, that makes sense because everyone knows that bullet possession is a crime, while possession of controlled substances is not – so increase the penalties for owning bullets and reduce the penalties for drug possession…it makes perfect sense.

    I guess Rolley, the rocket scientist, doesn’t realize that people can just buy their bullets outside of Baltimore. The only people he’s punishing is the business owners who sell bullets in Baltimore. Or they can buy their bullets on the internet. I guess the next step would be a tax stamp on bullets and penalties for possessing bullets in Baltimore that weren’t purchased there. That wouldn’t be costly at all would it?

    And criminals always find a way to get what they need regardless of the price. I guess Rolley would tax reloading equipment, too. Would you have to file your bullet manufacturing tax quarterly for each bullet you made in your basement?

    The answer seems to always be more taxes.

    Thanks to ROS for the link.

  • Ain’t it funny how there’s never enough of other people’s money?

    Old Trooper sends us a link about a company in Salinas, California that sucked more than a half-million dollars from the town seducing them into believing that they had a plan to build “green cars” that would solve all of the world’s problem. But as it turns out, a half-million samolians weren’t quite enough and the company went tits-up before the first car rolled off the assembly line;

    The start-up company promised city leaders that it would create 70 new jobs and pay $700,000 in taxes a year to Salinas.

    Green Vehicles was supposed to be up and running by March 2010 inside their 80,000 square-foot space at Firestone Business Park off of Abbot Street.

    Ryan had lofty goals, listing his company’s mission as: “To make the best clean commuter vehicles in the world; To manufacture with a radical sense of responsibility; To engage in deep transparency as an inspiration for new ways of doing business.”

    Green Vehicles designed two vehicles, the TRIAC 2.0 and the MOOSE, which it planned to manufacture.

    On July 12, Ryan wrote a blog post announcing that his company was closing.

    That’s classy, writing a blog post to let everyone know you burned up all of their cash. I’m sure my employer would be impressed if I resigned from the paying job on this blog instead of face-to-face.

    Ryan outlined three mistakes he made while steering his company into a brick wall. All three reasons boiled down failing to generate enough capital.

    Funny how fast you can burn through other people’s money so quickly. Just like the city that gave away hundreds of thousands of dollars they were given by the tax payers. Twice. After the company didn’t produce last year, they dumped a few hundred thousand more into the unicorn-fart powered cars. Oh, and they claim they collapsed because a grant from the state never materialized – i guess the state isn’t all that stupid after all.

    I guess that’s what the hippies mean when they say that we only need to invest more money into these schemes to make “green energy” possible.

  • Another stealth tax hike planned?

    Before George Bush raised limits on contributions to my 401k and my wife’s IRA, performance was anemic to say the best. Sputtering along at 10% of my pay and a paltry $2000 per year for the IRA, I worried that I wouldn’t be able to have enough time to work so that I could have a nest egg to supplement my plan. George Bush fixed that – we can actually save enough money now to retire on it. And the limits increased with inflation.

    And then came the Obama Administration. Our limits haven’t increased since 2008, like everything else.

    And now, Fox Business reports that this Administration plans to cut our contribution limits even more;

    The idea: Impose a so-called “20/20 cap” contributions to 401(k) plans. That means workers would have to cap their tax-preferred contributions to either $20,000 or 20% of income, whichever is lower.

    But the Employee Benefits Research Institute [EBRI] says this cap would sting lower income earners nearly as much as high-wage workers.

    So, let me get this straight; the Administration wants to slash Social Security benefits to seniors, they’ve already cut Medicare to pay for the universal healthcare, they’ve suspended cost of living increases for two consecutive years to Social Security and military pensions recipients and now they’re coming for the money of future retirees?

    The whole idea of Social Security was to entice older workers to leave the work force and make room for younger workers to help solve the unemployment during the Great Depression, but now it seems that Obama Administration is making retirement look less appealing to older workers as they strip away and threaten retirees’ financial security.

  • IRS employees commit tax fraud

    The Washington Times reports that more than 100 IRS employees falsely gave themselves a first time home buyers tax credit last year;

    The Treasury Department’s inspector general for tax administration, in several reports over the past few years, has identified a total of 128 IRS employees who claimed the credit but who also made other claims that showed they either weren’t first-time buyers or bought their homes outside the eligibility period for the credit, which was worth up to $8,000.

    Meanwhile, one other IRS employee has been charged with using her position to try to help friends and relatives take advantage of the credit, which was signed by President Bush and then boosted under President Obama’s 2009 stimulus law.

    The IRS employees represented a small part of the total fraud in the program, which the inspector general said may have totaled more than a half-billion dollars overall. The inspector general said refundable tax credits, which transfer money back to taxpayers even when their tax liability is zero, “are targets for fraud.”

    I had to send in a certified copy of my deed to prove that I was qualified for the tax credit.

    Federal prosecutors in Boston say Michael E. Doyle of New Hampshire, who worked for the IRS for about 20 years and who was a supervisor in its Andover, Mass., office, claimed he had bought a home on April 15, 2008. In reality, he bought the home for $260,000 on Aug. 15, 2007, months before the eligibility period.

    Mr. Doyle’s attorney didn’t respond to a message seeking comment.

    In another case, part-time IRS employee Catherine Griffin in Georgia has been charged with altering information in IRS computers to help four friends and family members appear eligible for the credit. She charged them $2,000 each.

    128 employees committing fraud is an epidemic.

    More than 1,000 prisoners who received the credit despite being incarcerated at the time.

    Yeah, well we expect felons to commit crimes.

  • Zombie: The first five Presidential Emergency Text Messages

    Our buddy, Zombie posts “The first five Presidential Emergency Text Messages“. of course it’s in reference to the new alert system the Administration put in place that’s going to warn us about potential disasters and terrorist attacks. it sounds like a fairly good idea, but the people who call themselves “pro-choice” aren’t giving you a choice, in this case;

    “Presidential and local emergency messages as well as Amber Alerts would appear on cell phones equipped with special chips and software.”

    The nation’s top cell phone carriers (Verizon and AT&T) are already signed on for the system, but users can opt out of receiving the local alerts and Amber alerts. However, no one will be able to out of the Presidential Alerts, which as a result will eventually become compulsory for all cell phone users nationwide:

    Consumers would be able to opt out of all but those presidential messages.

    My concern is that this is a gateway for the “right” to have a cellphone like all of those other “rights” that have been discovered recently – the right to privacy, patient rights, passenger rights – well, you know.

    Of course, the only people who don’t have cellphones can’t afford them (or want one), so the government will have to mandate someone to give them a phone so they can be warned along with the rest of us of late buses and Republicans coming to make us worship their God or whatever other tragedy we’re going to learn about through this system.

    But someone is going to have to pay for the poor people’s phones and it’s probably going to be me…and, oh, yeah, you, too. And then you’ll have to pay for those text messages, too. And the taxes on those text charges. Either that or the government will make cellphone companies give them phones and then our rates will go up to pay for them.

    Anyway, go read the rest of Zombie’s post.

  • Kristof: Raise America’s Taxes

    Don’t you just want to throttle these lying little f**ks;

    There is no single reason for today’s budget mess, but it’s worth remembering that the last time our budget was in the black was in the Clinton administration. That’s a broad hint that one sensible way to overcome our difficulties would be to revert to tax rates more or less as they were under President Clinton. That single step would solve three-quarters of the deficit for the next five years or so.

    Kudos to Mr. Obama for boldly stating that truth in his speech — even if he did focus only on taxes for the very wealthiest. I also thought he was right to say that we need spending cuts — including in our defense budget.

    Yeah, Clinton balanced the year-over-year budget for two years by cutting the military so badly that when we needed them, during the Bush Administration spending increased dramatically. While the Clinton military actions consisted of firing off a few missiles left over from the Gulf War without replenishing the stocks. Clinton was dragged kicking and screaming towards welfare reform which saved him a pretty penny, too. As I mentioned earlier today, he benefited from Roth conversions in the first few years of that tax shelter that liberals now want to eliminate.

    It’s funny how liberals can only think of raising taxes – even though the Bush tax cuts increased tax revenues. The only waste they can see is in defense spending – even though rebuilding the military is always more costly than maintenance, in money and lives.

    ROS sends us this link from the Wall Street Journal;

    Mr. Obama then packaged his poison in the rhetoric of bipartisanship—which “starts,” he said, “by being honest about what’s causing our deficit.” The speech he chose to deliver was dishonest even by modern political standards.

  • Credit where credit is due

    Yes, it looks like the unemployment rate fell last month to 8.8% and the economy added nearly a quarter million jobs. But, then regular readers of this blog aren’t surprised because I’ve been telling you for years that it would happen once the Bush Tax Cuts were extended.

    Taxes for the next two tax years are certain, so employers can add workers, for two years anyway. Every time Obama does what Bush did he looks good. I wonder why that is?