taxes

A recent Bloomberg Businessweek article, “Mr. Normal Meets Mrs. Merkel” got me thinking. Why are Americans screaming about their tax levels? We have among the lowest federal tax rates in the civilized world and certainly the lowest our country has experienced in the past several decades. In the...

As a wealth management consultant and professor for over a decade, it is that time again to file our taxes.  With tax filings, we must document our income, expenses, deductions, exemptions, retirement contributions and so forth.  Some of us must file our taxes for partnerships or corporations....

No matter how you slice and dice it, it is difficult to swallow when you see Warren Buffett's or Mitt Romney's taxes. You may think, how did they get their tax rates down to 15%? The challenge for many of us is not the tax rates, but the totality of taxes or the level of income we receive. As I...

by Linda Beale Repatriation Holiday Lobbying--Money Speaks... We've discussed repatriation before--the tax break being pushed by multinationals who want to bring some of their offshore profits home without paying taxes, as they did in the 2004 "one time only" repatriation break. The reason they...

From The Economist.

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/09/20/323765/gop-high-taxes-destroy-jobs-false/">Think Progress carries quotes from the Presidential contenders and election slogans. The release of this plan immediately spurred the natural Republican tax apoplexy, with the GOP presidential candidates decrying...

By Robert A. Green, CPA and founder and CEO of Green & Company Inc. (GreenTraderTax.com and GreenTraderFunds.com) Various IRS publications discuss tax rules for physically-held currency held for personal-use, mentioning capital gains treatment on gains, and no tax-deductible loss (capital or...

By Robert A. Green, CPA and founder and CEO of Green & Company Inc. (GreenTraderTax.com and GreenTraderFunds.com) Chinese media interviewed me about this blog: Xinmin Weekly article in Chinese. I met a nice journalist Ms. Leyun (Lorrin) Shao from China in Finland last year. She reads my blog...

Robert Frank in the WSJ: "The debate over taxing the rich in the U.S. seems to center on “fairness” – who pays too much or too little. Yet there is little discussion about a more immediate question: Would it raise the expected revenue? Great Britain's recent experience may be instructive. The U.K....

by Mike Kimel The Effect of Individual Income Tax Rates on the Economy, Part 6: 1981 - 1993 This post is the sixth in a series that looks at the relationship between real economic growth and the top individual marginal tax rate. The first looked at the period from 1901 to 1928, the second from...

Yesterday in the New York Times Greg Mankiw -- a professor of economics at Harvard, an advisor to the governor of Massachusetts, in the campaign for the Republican presidential nomination and a former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under president Bush -- had a column in which he...

Problem; High unemployment, stagnant economic growth, government infighting. Goal; Make businesses feel confident that there is a bright economic future and that they can feel comfortable hiring new workers. Strategies Cut spending. Go across the board and cut the budget for every program 10%....

by Mike Kimel The Effect of Individual Income Tax Rates on the Economy, Part 5: 1968 - 1988This post is the fourth in a series that looks at the relationship between real economic growth and the top individual marginal tax rate. The first looked at the period from 1901 to 1928, the second from...

Just a thought: If Warren Buffett is really serious about paying higher taxes, couldn't he simply take the standard deduction voluntarily ($11,400 for married taxpayers filing jointly in 2010) instead of itemizing his deductions?  That wouldn't require any change in tax policy, so he doesn't have...

by Mike Kimel The Effect of Individual Income Tax Rates on the Economy, Part 1: 1901 - 1928 In 1913, the 16th Amendment to the Constitution led to the income tax system we know and don't love today. Since that time, in fact, since way before that time, people have been arguing about the effect of...