From the Gormogons : Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) unleashed his long-awaited "bipartisan" health care reform bill September 16 (since amended, with more goodies for everyone). Yesterday, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its estimate of the Baucus bill's price tag: $829 billion over ten years, allegedly reducing the federal deficit by $81 billion over the same time frame. Mind you, the Baucus bill will only raise the insurance coverage rate 9%. What the CBO does not highlight, however, is that Sen. Baucus cooked the books. Under the Baucus plan, revenue enhancement (taxes) goes into effect immediately. Coverage does not kick in for two and one-half years. So, to make the numbers work, Sen. Baucus has to collect ten years of revenue to cover seven and one-half years of cost. 'Puter thought the whole thing smelled a little fishy, so he gave Sleestak an abacus, a quill and some parchment and set him on the CBO math. Using the above numbers, Sleestak calculates tha...

President Obama insists that mandatory health insurance is not a tax, and compares it to automobile insurance. But now we also know that, under at least the Baucus bill, if you don't purchase health insurance you may be fined $25,000 and sent to prison for a year. The necessity for this non-taxation is driven by the President's assertion that we all need to become one big health insurance risk pool : He noted that consumers currently pay higher health insurance premiums due to the costs run up by hospitals and other facilities providing care to uninsured people. Those unable to afford health insurance should get government help, Obama said, but others who can afford coverage but choose not to get it should face coverage requirements similar to those for auto insurance. "What it's saying is ... that we're not going to have other people carrying your burdens for you any more than the fact that right now everybody in America, just about, has to get auto insurance,...

I thought it would be at least amusing to use the Delawareliberal comments as sub-headings regarding each category of what is wrong with the proposed tax on sodas and juice drinks. But there are so many different little strands of each comment that it would be impossible to pull them all out. So, instead, I'm going to let you read them in more or less the order they appeared, and note the assumptions. pandora: I’m perfectly okay with taxing sodas and juice drinks. Mainly because they’re total crap, and one of the main reasons our country’s children are overweight. They are also dirt cheap. Assumptions here: (1) Because "I" am perfectly okay with a new tax it should be imposed on everybody; (2) it is the government's responsibility to keep children from being obese; (3) the cheapness of the product to be taxed justifies charging people more for it. John Manifold: Soda fattens your kids [and you and your husband], shortens their lives, costs more than water [a...

Everybody assumed that when California started sending out State IOUs instead of checks for income tax refunds , it was a sign of the State's dire financial status. Now buried in the middle of a story about President Obama trying to provide more incentives for retirement savings, we find this nugget of fool's gold at The Hill: President Barack Obama announced a series of policy changes Saturday aimed at making it easier for Americans to save money for retirement. Among the changes are expanded access to 401k plans, small tax policy changes and a pledge to let workers convert vacation days into retirement savings. The president framed the new policies as a response to the recession.... Second, a checkbox will be added to tax forms letting Americans receive their tax refund as a savings bond. The neat part about this--from the State's perspective--is that not only will millions of unwary Americans bite on this tactic voluntarily, it will have established the principle that th...

From the Carroll Standard : First, THEN [last year]: Reporter Steven Greenhouse, October 31, 2008: "Independent analyses of the presidential candidates’ tax proposals show that those who make less than $250,000 a year would not see their taxes raised under Senator Barack Obama’s plans." Reporter Jim Rutenberg, October 16, 2008: "Mr. Obama’s plan would raise taxes on filers earning more than $250,000 a year, a category that includes some small businesses, but would cut taxes on households earning less than $200,000 a year." An Oct. 16, 2008 editorial: "Mr. Obama would cut taxes for low- and moderate-income families and raise them for richer Americans." But Obama's most vociferous defender was reporter Larry Rohter, who wrote on Sept. 30, 2008: "Under his plan, only individuals making $200,000 or more and families earning more than $250,000 a year, accounting for less than 2 percent of the population, would pay additional taxes, and more than 9...

First, read the Army Times story : A speedier withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq and Afghanistan would shave $1.1 trillion off the budget in the next decade, a new congressional budget projection says. That would be a sizeable cut in defense-related spending from 2010 through 2019, which the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates at $7.4 trillion. The budget forecast, issued as Congress is about to return from a summer break and confront questions about budget priorities and deficit spending, says defense costs are uncertain because budget analysts cannot predict the number of deployed troops and the pace of operations. The $7.4 trillion price tag is based on the number of deployed troops remaining at about 210,000, but looks at two scenarios for reductions: • A sharp reduction in troops over three years, resulting in $1.1 trillion in savings. Under this projection, the number of deployed troops falls to 160,000 in 2010; to 100,000 in 2011; to 35,000 in 2012 and to 30,000 f...

So the US government took your tax dollars to use for Cash for Clunkers, but you thought, "Hey, I'm getting a great deal here." Until you find out--usually well after you've made the deal-- that the Feds, and possibly your State, are going to count that Clunker rebate check as taxable income : The Cash For Clunkers program is adding to the activity at treasurers' offices all around South Dakota. First, people were asking for proof of ownership, so they could show they owned their vehicle for a full year, allowing them to cash it in. Now, they'll be returning to register their new vehicle. And when they do, new owners need to bring every bit of paperwork provided to them by their dealer. "That means they need their title, their damage disclosure, their bill of sale and the dealers have 30 days to get that to them," Minnehaha County Treasurer Pam Nelson said. But many of those cashing in on the clunkers program are surprised when they get to the treas...

The consequences of long-term deficit spending--whether by the previous administration or this one--are a choice between a crashing currency or significantly higher taxes. President Obama has repeatedly promised that we can have it all : stimulus spending, two foreign wars, bail-outs for banks and entire industry sectors, and health insurance reform without raising taxes on anybody but Americans who make over $250K. He's still saying it : "I have not proposed any plan that would put the burden on middle-class families in order to deal with this'' healthcare plan, Obama told the audience Saturday at a "town hall'' meeting in Grand Junction, Colo. "So when you hear people talking about I'm raising your taxes, the only tax policies I've implemented for middle-class families is a tax cut for 95 percent of working families.'' ... "When I was campaigning,'' Obama replied, "I made a promise that I would not raise your taxes...

Every time there is a school referendum I hear seniors complaining that they should not be paying for a public school system they do not use because they are on fixed incomes and cannot afford higher taxes. Of course, those same seniors are more than willing to accept the fact that millions of the parents of school-age children who cannot afford to pay health insurance premiums are forking out 3% of their salaries (matched by 3% from their employers) to pay for Medicare. Maybe real reform would start by letting people keep their own money and make their own choices with it. Oh. No. Can't do that because it's selfish and un-American and it makes far more sense to have the government take $2,500 in school taxes from an 85-year-old and $2,500 in Medicare taxes from a thirty-year-old and pay bureaucrats to swap the money around. Yeah. Libertarians are so crazy.

Richard Drooling has an amazingly original op-ed in the NYT that includes something to piss off everybody on all sides of the health care debate [that's my standard for an excellent piece of work]. This is the sentence that struck me: Eight million children have no health insurance, but their parents pay 3 percent of their salaries to Medicare to make sure that seniors get the very best money can buy in prescription drugs for everything from restless leg syndrome to erectile dysfunction, scooters and end-of-life intensive care. I have to admit that I had never thought of that one. Let's unpack it. Nearly 22% of non-elderly uninsured families earn more than $40K per year. About 5% of non-elderly uninsured families earn more than $80K per year. Those families, who cannot afford to pay for their own children to be insured, pay as much as $1,200-$2,400/year in Medicare taxes to provide national health insurance for seniors. This makes sense, exactly how? I'm sure someone wil...

... then you should talk to my Dad. Dad's 81, Mom's 78. When we talked last night he--shall we say-- waxed eloquent about the idea that Medicare is the standard by which we should judge the government's performance as a health insurance provider. First off, Dad points out, after a lifetime of paying Medicare taxes, the coverage is hardly free. "They take $86 a month for each of us out of our Social Security payments," he notes. "Then the Medicare only covers about 60% of my out-of-pocket costs, so I had to get the supplemental insurance. We got the cheapest one we could find--bare bones coverage that leaves out a number of things we still have to pay for. That costs another $176 a month. And we didn't take the prescription drug coverage because that would have been at least another $120 a month. We just couldn't afford it." Let's crunch those numbers: $86 + $86 + $176 + $120 = $468/month, or $5,616/year. Above that, he estimates that-...

Even the New York Times cannot shake off the idea that this is ... not just ridiculous but positively Orwellian: It seemed like a good idea at the time. Ten years ago, with yoga transforming into a ubiquitous pop culture phenomenon from a niche pursuit, yoga teachers banded together to create a voluntary online registry of schools meeting new standards for training instructors. But that list — which now includes nearly 1,000 yoga schools nationwide, many of them tiny — is being put to a use for which it was never intended. It is the key document in a crackdown that pits free-spirited yogis against lumbering state governments, which, unlike those they are trying to regulate, are not always known for their flexibility. Citing laws that govern vocational schools, like those for hairdressers and truck drivers, regulators have begun to require licenses for yoga schools that train instructors, with all the fees, inspections and paperwork that entails. While confrontations have played out di...

First, from Jefferson County, Alabama, where the Courts have ruled that the local government's occupational tax and business license fee are invalid, the Center for Libertarian Press Information notes that the county faces the prospect of running out of money on 31 July. In a statement of rare, direct honesty, one County Commissioner indicates what she thinks is the essential service of government: One Commissioner placed the priorities of the County government exactly when she said: “If we can’t make payroll, only the revenue department employees will be working, to collect taxes.” Locally, one of our favorite liberal/progressive bloggers declares all tax cuts or credits to be government subsidies : We are taking about the cost of business equipment — not retail items that get sold to a consumer. And that grocery store gets depreciation on its shelving — which reduces the tax bill owed. A subsidy. Not unlike the mortgage tax deduction. Or any other tax credit or deduction. Th...

First, the one who howls describes the current pending legislation to prevent banks from capriciously changing the interest rates charged on existing credit card balances, and then he goes on to make a point as politically incorrect as it is critical to understanding how the economy actually functions: There is legislation pending in Congress to restrict the ability of lenders (e.g. credit card issuers) from changing rates on existing debt. They ask if it is fair for someone who took on a debt thinking it would be at 15% to suddenly find it is at 25%. But how are tax increases any different. I make 10-20 year investments in my company, and the expected tax rate is a hugely important assumption in whether it makes any sense for me to put my capital in a particular venture. How is a large increase in taxes on returns from my past investments any different than changing the interest rate on an existing debt? Then Coyote discusses the fact that huge new regulatory skeins ostensibl...

OR: little things the IRS does not try very hard to tell you. Military.com points out that many taxpayers-- especially retirees --are about to get a rude surprise: they will have to pay part of their stimulus checks back next year : WASHINGTON - Millions of Americans enjoying their small windfall from President Barack Obama's "Making Work Pay" tax credit are in for an unpleasant surprise next spring. The government is going to want some of that money back. The tax credit is supposed to provide up to $400 to individuals and $800 to married couples as part of the massive economic recovery package enacted in February. Most workers started receiving the credit through small increases in their paychecks in the past month. But new tax withholding tables issued by the IRS could cause millions of taxpayers to get hundreds of dollars more than they are entitled to under the credit, money that will have to be repaid at tax time. At-risk taxpayers include a broad swath of the pub...

A lot of our friends suggest that the question of greater taxation has been settled, that patriotic, adult Americans understand that that they have to be willing to pay significantly more taxes to improve education, infrastructure, health care, and that only rightwing extremists, racist tea baggers, and fanatic libertarians are still concerned about our tax burden. Apparently not so. Kilroy provided the link that sent me to this March 2008 study by the University of Delaware regarding what kind of tax burden First State citizens would be willing to accept in order to improve public education. The results are ... surprisingly libertarian for a State that is portrayed as a leading light in the Obama-nation. Here are the results: 83% of Delaware citizens reject the idea of a sales tax to support education. 76% of Delaware citizens reject the idea of increasing income taxes to support education. 66% of Delaware citizens reject the idea of increasing property taxes to support educatio...

... even though nobody seems to be listening. Two examples: one, David Axelrod's comments regarding the Tea Party tax protests on Face the Nation , where one line has been highlighted and another one--the big lie--completely overlooked. Here's the complete transcript of the relevant portion of the broadcast: SMITH: What do you make of this spreading and very public disaffection with not only the government, but especially the Obama administration, the TEA parties this week? You even have the governor of Texas even using the word secession? Should Texas be allowed to secede? AXELROD: Well, I don’t think that really warrants a serious response. I don’t think most Texans were all that enthused by the governor’s suggestion. SMITH: But what about the first part of the question? (CROSSTALK) AXELROD: I think any time that you have severe economic conditions, there is always an element of disaffection that can mutate into something that’s unhealthy. SMITH: Is this unhealthy? AXELROD:...

... despite the fact that he roasted Senator McCain for suggesting the same thing during the campaign. From the NYT : WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is signaling to Congress that the president could support taxing some employee health benefits, as several influential lawmakers and many economists favor, to help pay for overhauling the health care system. The proposal is politically problematic for President Obama, however, since it is similar to one he denounced in the presidential campaign as “the largest middle-class tax increase in history.” Most Americans with insurance get it from their employers, and taxing workers for the benefit is opposed by union leaders and some businesses. In television advertisements last fall, Mr. Obama criticized his Republican rival for the presidency, Senator John McCain of Arizona, for proposing to tax all employer-provided health benefits. The benefits have long been tax-free, regardless of how generous they are or how much an employee earns....

I have thus far pretty much avoided commentary on the various and sundry administration appointees with tax problems. Oh, I might have groused in a comment somewhere or other, but I have consciously focused on lobbyists rather than tax cheats. So, first, I'll get the Libertarain-anarcho-capitalist part out of my system with an extensive snippet of Jim Davidson's rant over at Boston Tea Party : There's an old saying that "sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander." This appears to be an early gender equality cliche. US trade representative nominee Ron Kirk owes $10,000 in taxes. He earned more than a million dollars last year as a partner in Houston-based law firm Vinson and Elkins. He owes some of the money because of honoraria he received for yakking at events. He owes some of it because he took deductions for his season tickets to see the Dallas Mavericks (some sort of spherical ball team?) which apparently didn't comply with government rules for deduction...

... not that I know anybody who actually pays taxes on this anyway, but it would be nice to decriminalize the process. The NJ has a story today on how people are turning to bartered exchanges in tough times, which includes this segment: Bartering can be less expensive than buying because there are few overhead costs for rent or staff. However, not all costs are eliminated. The IRS considers barter dollars as identical to real currency for tax reporting, and barterers must obtain a special form, the 1099-B. Want change I can believe in? Stop ripping off private individuals who exchange goods for which both parties have already paid.