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Journalist @baltimoresun writer artist runner #amwriting Chaplain PIO #partylikeajournalist
Journalist @baltimoresun writer artist runner #amwriting Md Troopers Assoc #20 & Westminster Md Fire Dept Chaplain PIO #partylikeajournalist
Showing posts with label Governance Taxes Alt Min Tax AMT. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Governance Taxes Alt Min Tax AMT. Show all posts

Thursday, November 15, 2007

20071112 “Schools, Union and Taxpayers” by Michael Barone in National Review On Line


"Schools, Unions & Taxpayers" - - - Michael Barone in National Review On Line

From Maryland Taxpayers Association:

MTA suggests that fellow taxpayer-advocates ask their state legislators to discuss - frequently and publicly - the perils to the taxpayer arising from the leadership of Maryland's teachers and public employee unions.

{See http://www.examiner.com/a-1024548~Time_for_Grasmick_to_go.html}

{See http://redmaryland.blogspot.com/2007/11/its-so-complicated-and-just-too-hard.html}

Related: Taxes Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) or Taxes Maryland or Taxes or Maryland General Assembly Oct. 29 2007 Special Session

Scroll down for chapter and verse from Michael Barone.

MICHAEL BARONE: "The AMT has no deduction for state and local taxes, and tends to hit high earners in high-tax states like Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and California heavily Democratic states, you’ll notice.

These states tend to have highly paid unionized public employees, and their union leaders surely understand that the AMT threatens to create political pressure to lower state and local taxes and therefore spending.

If voters can’t deduct their state and local taxes, their tax burden will go way up, and they may start a tax revolt. Better not let that happen! So eliminating the AMT is an imperative for Democrats.

Their [the union leaders] goals are to increase pay, which runs counter to taxpayers’ interests, and to minimize accountability, which runs counter to citizens. Republicans are not their reliable adversaries union leaders get cozy with Republican legislators when they can, by letting them know they wont oppose them." [Underscoring MTA's throughout.]

November 12, 2007

Leaving the Children Behind

In favor of the unions.

By Michael Barone

Education is not ordinarily thought to be in the purview of a Federal Reserve chairman. So it’s striking when Alan Greenspan in his memoir, The Age of Turbulence, raises the subject.

“Our primary and secondary education system,” he writes, “is deeply deficient in providing homegrown talent to operate our increasingly complex infrastructure.” The result: “Too many of our students languish at too low a level of skill upon graduation, adding to the supply of lesser-skilled labor in the face of an apparently declining demand.”

So if you’re concerned about widening disparities in income, Greenspan tells readers attracted to his book by its publicists’ promise of criticism of George W. Bush, then what you need to do is to “harness better the forces of competition” in educating kids.

As Greenspan concedes, we have done that to some extent. Governors Republican and Democratic have worked to make public schools more accountable, charter schools provide some needed competition, and the bipartisan No Child Left Behind Act has further prodded states and localities in those directions. But except for a few cities, notably Milwaukee and Cleveland, we have not had school-choice programs with vouchers allowing parents to choose private as well as public schools.

Vouchers are adamantly opposed by the teacher unions, which spent millions persuading Utah voters last week to repeal a voucher law passed by the legislature. No one can say for sure how much vouchers would improve education. But they are “forces of competition,” as Greenspan puts it, which we’re almost entirely prevented from harnessing because of the power of teacher unions — the power, more specifically, that they wield in the Democratic party.

[…]

The teacher unions are an incredibly important source of money and volunteers for the Democratic party — about one in ten delegates at recent Democratic national conventions have been teacher union members or their spouses. When they snap their fingers, the Democrats jump. Vouchers threaten to dry up dues money, and that is that.

Teacher unions are not the only public employee unions important to the Democrats — nearly half the union members in the country are public employees. And you can see their power exerted as well in House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel’s tax reform proposal.

Rangel, who deserves credit for raising the issue of broad tax changes, proposes vast tax increases in order to eliminate the Alternative Minimum Tax. The AMT, originally designed to make sure that a few millionaires could not avoid paying income tax, has never been indexed for inflation, and threatens to engulf 20 million taxpayers next year unless Congress passes another one-year “patch” or, as Rangel wants, abolishes it.

The AMT has no deduction for state and local taxes, and tends to hit high earners in high-tax states like Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and California — heavily Democratic states, you’ll notice. These states tend to have highly paid unionized public employees, and their union leaders surely understand that the AMT threatens to create political pressure to lower state and local taxes and therefore spending. If voters can’t deduct their state and local taxes, their tax burden will go way up, and they may start a tax revolt. Better not let that happen! So eliminating the AMT is an imperative for Democrats.

Looking ahead to future fiscal burdens, many people understand that Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid threaten to consume an ever-larger share of the economy over the years. But so do state and local governments if public employee unions get their way. And to get it, they rely on taxpayer’s funds — all their dues income comes from the public fisc.

Read the entire column here: "Schools, Unions & Taxpayers" - - - Michael Barone in National Review On Line


National Review Online - http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZTU0NWM2M2Y5ZTgzNWFhODFjZWYxZTQyOWMzMDMwYTA=

Richard Falknor
Executive Vice-President
Maryland Taxpayers Association, Inc.
http://www.mdtaxes.org

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

20070924 CNN Money: AMT: Tick-tock, Congress

CNN Money: AMT: Tick-tock, Congress

Millions of taxpayers have been left in the dark about just how much they'll owe the IRS this year thanks to indecision in D.C.

By Jeanne Sahadi, CNNMoney.com senior writer

September 24 2007

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Lawmakers have effectively denied roughly 23 million taxpayers the ability to plan adequately for their taxes this year.

That's because they have yet to decide just what they're going to do about the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT). If they end up doing nothing, those 23 million folks will get hit with the "wealth" tax - about 19 million of them for the first time.

The AMT was originally intended for the wealthy few when it was created nearly 40 years ago. But because Congress never indexed for inflation the amount of income exempt from AMT and because it disallows a lot of popular tax breaks, tens of millions of middle-class taxpayers could get hit.

While leading politicians and tax experts have been saying that at the very least Congress will pass a "patch" this year to shield the majority of the 23 million from the AMT, it is not clear what that patch would look like.

Since 2001, Congress has temporarily increased income exemption levels and allowed for some personal credits to be used. The last patch - for 2006 - put the exemption levels at $62,550 for joint filers and $42,250 for single filers. Without a patch, the 2007 exemption amounts will fall to $45,000 for joint filers and $33,750 for single filers.

Even if Congress does pass a patch, the Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that 5.4 million tax filers are likely to be subject to the AMT in 2007, up from 4.2 million last year.

[…]

With at most six legislative weeks left on the Congressional schedule this year, it seems highly unlikely that a deal would be sealed on a broad AMT reform package for two reasons:

There is still no consensus on how or whether to pay for it - repeal could reduce expected revenue by close to $1 trillion over 10 years.

A number of issues, like the mortgage crisis, have stolen some momentum from dealing with the AMT.

[…]

Broadly speaking, you might be at risk of having to pay AMT if more than one of these situations apply:

You live in a high-tax state. State and local income taxes are not deductible under AMT as they are under the regular federal income tax code.

You have kids. Personal exemptions are disallowed under the AMT.

You take a lot of miscellaneous deductions, including unreimbursed business expenses. They, too, are disallowed under the AMT.

Your household gross income exceeds $100,000.

[…]

Read the entire article: AMT: Tick-tock, Congress

Link to how families making $75,000 can hit by the AMT

http://money.cnn.com/2007/03/26/pf/taxes/amt_hearing2/index.htm

Managers' taxes: Big concerns could table hike

AMT: Popular tax breaks in the cross hairs

AMT: Middle class more at risk than millionaires

Links referenced within this article

private equity taxation

http://money.cnn.com/2007/09/06/pf/taxes/house_senate_carriedinterest/index.htm?postversion=2007090610

Managers' taxes: Big concerns could table hike

http://money.cnn.com/2007/09/06/pf/taxes/house_senate_carriedinterest/index.htm?postversion=2007090610

AMT: Popular tax breaks in the cross hairs

http://money.cnn.com/2007/06/01/pf/taxes/amt_summer/index.htm?postversion=2007060111

AMT: Middle class more at risk than millionaires

http://money.cnn.com/2007/03/07/pf/taxes/amt_hearing_house/index.htm?postversion=2007031213

Find this article at: http://money.cnn.com/2007/09/24/pf/taxes/amt_ticktock/index.htm

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Gas prices dip lower

25 highest-paid women

Millionaires in the making

EU officials fret over U.S. economy