It's April 16th, and yesterday Americans' income taxes were due to the IRS. Coincidentally, today is Tax Freedom Day, and until today, the average American has been working to pay off his taxes for 2019. According to the Tax Foundation, "Tax Freedom Day® is the day when the nation as a whole has earned enough money to pay its total tax bill for the year." The Tax Foundation breaks down exactly how much time Americans spent paying off the different types of taxes in 2019, writing "This year, Americans will work the longest to pay federal, state, and local individual income taxes (42 days). … [Read more...]
Are You Retired? Have You Seen These Six Tax Changes that could Affect You?
At The Wall Street Journal, Anne Tergesen explains six changes to the tax code in the 2017 tax reform law that could especially affect retirees. She writes (much abridged): 1. Higher standard deduction: Many retirees, especially those who have paid off mortgages, take the standard deduction. For them, one positive change is the near-doubling of this deduction, or the amount taxpayers can subtract from their adjusted gross income if they don’t itemize deductible expenses including state taxes and charitable donations. 2. A tax break for charitable contributions: Retirees who take the … [Read more...]
The Best States for Retiree Taxation
If you have a few minutes I believe your time will be well spent reviewing this piece I posted back on February 16, 2018. During your working career you can make adjustments on the fly. Paychecks are still coming in, and you can cut some spending to shore up holes in your savings plan. But once you retire, there's no more income to offset any unexpected spending you may have done. That's why you must be acutely aware of how you position yourself and your money in retirement. After you have invested your money to best avoid risk, the biggest threat to your income is taxation. Retirees … [Read more...]
Think Long and Hard about where to Raise Your Family
Your ability to act and stand-up against higher education (as in higher cost), federal, state and local taxes and the politicians that enact them has never been more necessary or crucial to your family’s long-term survival and prosperity. It’s preposterous to believe those living in ivory towers and the politicians controlling your tax dollars know better than you. They don’t. You are the best caretaker for your family and for your money. That’s why it concerns me when blue states, in particular, come after your hard-earned money due to their misappropriating taxpayer dollars for … [Read more...]
Welcome to Florida
In response to reports of the sagging luxury real estate market in Manhattan, blaming the capping of the State and Local Tax deduction for the drop in demand, Senator Rick Scott of Florida has written an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal explaining exactly why New Yorkers are fleeing to low tax Florida. He writes: A recent article in a Beltway publication warned about a potential recession and considered how it might affect President Trump’s chances at re-election. The story began—no joke: “The luxury real estate market in Manhattan is sagging.” It goes on to argue that softening in the … [Read more...]
The Benefits of Billionaires
In a new post, my friend Chris Edwards of the Cato Institute lays out why billionaires, despite being constantly bashed, are actually benefiting America. He writes: Are rich people idle “rentiers,” as economist Thomas Piketty calls them, who inherit wealth and add no social value? In supporting Sen. Bernie Sanders’ plan for higher estate taxes, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich claimed that “America is creating a new aristocracy of the non-working super rich.” And in plugging Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s wealth tax, Paul Krugman said “we seem to be heading toward a society dominated by vast, … [Read more...]
Is Your State a Property Tax Hell?
If you don't live in the Northeast, it's likely that it could be worse. According to a Tax Foundation analysis, the 6 states with the highest property tax collections per capita are in the northeast, with those ranked eighth and tenth joining them there. The region is property tax hell. Outside New Jersey (1st), New York (4th), and the New England states (NH 2nd, CT 3rd, VT 5th, RI 6th, MA 8th and ME 10th), only Wyoming (7th) and Illinois (9th) crack the top ten. Though the non-state of Washington D.C. has the highest rates of all at $3,535 collected per citizen. Property taxes are an … [Read more...]
Why Bill Gates Wants to Raise Your Taxes
Bloomberg reports that Bill Gates is out in favor of raising tax rates on capital gains to target America’s wealth. Raising the tax rate on capital gains in the name of generating more revenue or narrowing the wealth gap is a half-baked and incredibly lazy idea. It’s one thing for Senators Bernie Sanders or Liz Warren to propose soak-the-rich tax policies to rile up their base, but Mr. Gates should know better. A higher capital gains tax rate will do nothing to narrow the divide between rich and poor, nor will it generate higher tax revenue for the government. America’s richest … [Read more...]
Connecticut Just Doesn’t Learn: Now Targets the Middle Class With New “Sin” Taxes
Now that Connecticut has raised taxes on the wealthy so high many of them are fleeing the state, Ned Lamont, the state's governor, and its legislature, are setting their sites on the middle class to fund state government. The state is overloaded with debt. After a borrowing binge, the state raised taxes, but it still can't pay its bills. So, rather than making the hard choices by cutting spending, the government is coming after middle class families with taxes on things like soda and electronic cigarettes. In the CT Mirror, Thomas Aiello, a policy and government affairs associate with … [Read more...]
Democrats Fight for the Wealthy with New Tax Bill
Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) is pushing a bill with his House colleague Rep. Bill Pascrell (also from NJ), to eliminate the cap on deductions for state and local taxes. The cap has hit wealthy Americans in high tax states like New Jersey very hard. In 2010 Menendez called the GOP Senate negotiators terrorists for attempting to extend the entire Bush tax cut plan, now he's demanding tax breaks for many of the same people the Republicans were fighting for then. Naomi Jagoda of The Hill reports: Sen. Bob Menendez and Rep. Bill Pascrell, both New Jersey Democrats, introduced legislation last … [Read more...]
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