It's a good thing they're not running for accountant in chief.
In his most wide-ranging speech on the economy, presumptive Republican nominee John McCain on Tuesday laid out an agenda that would change the tax code, freeze discretionary spending and temporarily suspend federal gas taxes.
Regardless of how much money you make, you have skin in this game.
The presidential candidates all have big plans for their time in the White House. Reform health care. Reduce taxes. Close corporate loopholes. Encourage savings. The list goes on.
Dear FSB: I work for a wholesale distribution business that is considering building a new distribution center this year. The U.S. Congress is currently debating an economic stimulus package that would include bonus depreciation that would certainly have an impact on our decision to make an investment now. How can we best express our need for tax relief for small business?
President Bush, citing concerns about the country's economic future, called Monday for swift passage of a $150 billion program intended to counter slowing growth.
The state of the slowing economy and how to energize it - now and beyond - will be a focal point of President Bush's State of the Union address Monday night.
In last night's debate, held days before Tuesday's Republican primary in Boca Raton, Florida, GOP candidates came up with a few new factual distortions and repeated several old ones. Among them:
President Bush on Friday proposed a temporary, broad-based tax relief package aimed at spurring the nation's slowing economy.
You may be getting an extra few hundred extra bucks for your wallet this year courtesy of the federal government. And if you could spend it as fast as you get it, lawmakers would be most appreciative.
It's a good thing they're not running for accountant in chief.
In his most wide-ranging speech on the economy, presumptive Republican nominee John McCain on Tuesday laid out an agenda that would change the tax code, freeze discretionary spending and temporarily suspend federal gas taxes.
Regardless of how much money you make, you have skin in this game.
The presidential candidates all have big plans for their time in the White House. Reform health care. Reduce taxes. Close corporate loopholes. Encourage savings. The list goes on.
Dear FSB: I work for a wholesale distribution business that is considering building a new distribution center this year. The U.S. Congress is currently debating an economic stimulus package that would include bonus depreciation that would certainly have an impact on our decision to make an investment now. How can we best express our need for tax relief for small business?
President Bush, citing concerns about the country's economic future, called Monday for swift passage of a $150 billion program intended to counter slowing growth.
The state of the slowing economy and how to energize it - now and beyond - will be a focal point of President Bush's State of the Union address Monday night.
In last night's debate, held days before Tuesday's Republican primary in Boca Raton, Florida, GOP candidates came up with a few new factual distortions and repeated several old ones. Among them:
President Bush on Friday proposed a temporary, broad-based tax relief package aimed at spurring the nation's slowing economy.
You may be getting an extra few hundred extra bucks for your wallet this year courtesy of the federal government. And if you could spend it as fast as you get it, lawmakers would be most appreciative.
Martin Feldstein, the Harvard economist credited with being one of the fathers of the Bush administration tax cuts, says the U.S. economy is now likely to slip into a recession, and that avoiding one will take a new round of tax cuts and interest rate cuts from the Federal Reserve.
Five top Republican presidential contenders sparred over taxes and spending Sunday night in a debate that touched on the value of Washington experience.
Word is that President Bush may propose new measures to boost the economy by the time he gives his State of the Union address later this month.
Every presidential candidate bemoans something about income taxes: they're unfair, they're too complex, they hinder economic growth, you name it. And every candidate is sure their proposals can set things right and still result in green glory for the Treasury.
The debate over the Alternative Minimum Tax isn't nearly as gripping as an episode of "24," but like Jack Bauer, Congress is under the gun.
The Senate voted Thursday to block a looming tax increase averaging $2,000 for millions of taxpayers after Senate Republicans succeeded in thwarting a Democratic plan to also raise taxes on investors.
Presidential campaigning is a promise-making fiesta, and never more so than when it comes to taxes.
Warren Buffett thinks those who use the phrase "death tax" are intellectually dishonest because the phrase in his words is "clever, Orwellian and dead wrong."
President Bush vetoed a $600 billion spending bill Tuesday, accusing Democratic leaders of wasting money and plotting tax increases, then took his budget fight with Congress on the road.
The leading Democratic candidates for president have said they'd favor higher investment taxes on upper-income taxpayers - and Wall Streeters don't like it.
If a tax-system overhaul proposed last week were to pass into law, there would be a substantial redistribution of the tax burden.
No one actually expects lawmakers to overhaul the tax code this year, but House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel (D-NY) planted his flag Thursday morning by unveiling a bill that he calls the "mother of all tax reforms."
A bill representing the "mother of all tax reforms" is set to be revealed Thursday, according to House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel (D-NY).
The Bush administration said in a new report Monday that Social Security is facing a $13.6 trillion shortfall and that delaying needed reforms is not fair to younger workers.
Sen. Barack Obama on Tuesday proposed overhauling the tax code to lower taxes for the poor and middle class, increase them for the rich and make it so most Americans can file their taxes in five minutes.
Talk to most private equity fund managers about the bill before Congress to raise taxes on "carried interest," and they'll tell you the proposal is downright un-American. (For more on the bill and its genesis, see Allan Sloan's column, The Deal) Leo Hindery Jr., managing partner of InterMedia Partners, is not most managers. On Sept. 6, Hindery, who's also a former CEO of AT&T Broadband and the YES Network - and John Edwards's economic advisor - went before the House Ways and Means Committee and endorsed the proposal.
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is filling in the blanks in his proposal to eliminate taxes on interest and dividends for families earning less than $200,000 a year.
Take your tax breaks and mind-boggling incentives - give us a low rate.
Escalating a budget battle with Democrats who control Congress, President Bush accused them Saturday of pushing tax-and-spend policies and renewed his veto threat.
At first glance, private equity and venture capital are kissing cousins - same partnership structure, same investment pool, same pedigreed MBAs. But ever since the Senate Finance Committee this spr...
House Democrats on the tax writing committee may have come to a consensus on how to reform the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), according to a report Wednesday in Tax Notes, a trade publication published by Tax Analysts. The proposal would give the biggest tax break to middle- and upper-middle income households.
John Edwards says we need to raise taxes to fix health care, and you can bet that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton will eventually say so too. Their red-blooded Republican foes will counter that raising taxes is always and everywhere evil, because it hurts the economy.
Under the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), you're not allowed to take a lot of the income tax breaks you might otherwise enjoy under the regular income tax code. But there is one that's preserved: The reduced 15 percent rate on capital gains and dividends.
A House Ways and Means subcommittee held hearings on the fixing the alternative minimum tax this afternoon.
Middle-income taxpayers have become more vulnerable than millionaires to the alternative minimum tax, which was originally designed to prevent tax avoidance by the rich, according to testimony given Wednesday before a House panel.
Fans of federal fiscal restraint recall warmly the halcyon days of the 1990s when pay-as-you-go regulations were seen as instrumental in achieving the once unattainable goal of a balanced budget.
When it comes to the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), the question on lawmakers' minds these days isn't "Should it change?" but "How should it change?" ... and, not insignificantly: "How should we pay for it?"
To achieve a budget surplus by 2012 while boosting spending on the military, President Bush has proposed curtailing domestic spending, permanently extending his tax cuts and only providing relief from the alternative minimum tax for one more year.
President Bush has promised to submit a five-year budget proposal to Congress on Monday that will achieve a balanced budget and eliminate the deficit by 2012 without raising taxes.
On the heels of stronger-than-expected economic growth numbers and ahead of the Federal Reserve announcement on interest rates, President Bush on Wednesday told a Wall Street audience that a strong economy worthy of investors' confidence requires free trade, business regulation that's fair but not oppressive, and better transparency in terms of executive pay.
As he has in prior State of the Union addresses, President Bush once again called on Congress to reform federal spending of tax dollars, in particular how they are spent on entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare.
President Bush in his State of the Union address Tuesday laid out a plan intended to make healthcare more affordable, give everyone who buys insurance the same tax break and incentivize you to be more cost-conscious in how you spend your healthcare dollars.
If lawmakers repeal or fix the alternative minimum tax (AMT), taxpayers are likely to foot the bill, even if tax rates aren't raised explicitly.
President Bush's tax cuts offered the biggest benefits to families in the highest income categories, according to a study cited in a published report Monday.
A bipartisan group of senators on Thursday introduced a bill calling for the death of the stealth tax that lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have criticized.
President Bush has promised to submit a five-year budget proposal to Congress that will achieve a balanced budget by 2012 and make permanent his tax cuts.
The Democrats are taking control of Congress and one of their key agenda items in the "first 100 hours" is boosting the minimum wage. But while a passage in the House is near-certain, passage in the Senate and ultimately the White House may require concessions in the form of tax cuts and regulation-reduction.
To judge by the current political rhetoric, our elected leaders are all tireless champions of small business. In July, Senator John Kerry (D-Massachusetts) charged the Bush administration with "bal...
When President Bush confessed that he was stunned by the GOP's "thumpin' " in the midterm elections, he also announced his intention to stay in the domestic policy game - with Treasury Secretary He...
When President Bush confessed that he was stunned by the GOP's "thumpin' " in the midterm elections, he also announced his intention to stay in the domestic policy game - with Treasury Secretary Henry M. "Hank" Paulson Jr. as his running back. Now, with the Democrats set to take control of Congress, Paulson is positioned to emerge as the most important Republican economic figure in Washington. The former Goldman Sachs CEO, initially reluctant to accept the job, has brought to the office in a mere four months an aura of gravitas that eluded his two predecessors. Just as important, he has cultivated ties to leading Democrats - something sorely lacking inside the Bush White House. Paulson also provides the deepest relationship with official China of any American in public life, giving him a unique vantage for shaping the global economic landscape and aiding on critical foreign policy concerns, such as stopping a nuclear-armed North Korea.
Whenever the balance of power shifts in Washington, the question arises: "Will taxes go up?"
The White House Tuesday slashed its 2006 budget deficit forecast to $296 billion from $423 billion, and President Bush cited the numbers as evidence that his tax cuts were bolstering the world's largest economy.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - Permanent repeal of the estate tax this year is looking highly unlikely given that the Senate defeated a motion to consider the legislation last week. But the chances for compromise weren't snuffed out, and estate tax reform legislation may still see the light of day.
House GOP leaders had to further dilute President Bush's austere 2007 budget plan in order to push it past the finish line early Thursday.
President Bush on Wednesday afternoon signed into law another landmark piece of tax legislation.
A contentious $70 billion tax-cut package awaits only President Bush's signature after the Senate on Thursday passed the measure 54-44, largely along party lines.
It is very reassuring that Republican negotiators in the House and Senate have reached an agreement to extend President George W. Bush's cuts in tax rates on dividends and capital gains. Equally reassuring, the negotiators plan to liberate as many as 15-million middle-income Americans from the impending burden of the alternative minimum income tax. Now the unparalleled economic growth that has characterized the American economy since the early 1980s can proceed. My only question is why?
The Senate on Thursday passed a GOP-supported final tax reconciliation bill that extends the reduced tax rates on capital gains and dividends, and prevents millions of households from falling prey to the alternative minimum tax (AMT) in 2006.
The House passed a $70 billion tax cut package Wednesday evening that extends lower tax rates on dividends and capital gains for two more years.
The House passed a GOP-supported final tax reconciliation bill Wednesday that extends the reduced tax rates on capital gains and dividends, and prevents millions of households from falling prey to the alternative minimum tax (AMT) in 2006.
Tax writers on Tuesday reached official agreement on a tax reconciliation bill that will extend the reduced tax rates on capital gains and dividends and prevent millions of households from falling prey to the alternative minimum tax (AMT).
The U.S. economy is the envy of the world - a dynamic, increasingly efficient machine fueled by technology and globalization, among other things. But if the fruits of economic dynamism keep going almost exclusively to the wealthy and well educated, we may be in big trouble.
After months of heated debate, bluster and predictions of a done deal on the horizon, lawmakers still haven't signed off on a final tax bill. There is, however, a fair chance that a final deal could be announced this week.
Following is an interview with Laura Tyson, dean of London Business School and former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers during the Clinton administration, and Glenn Hubbard, dean of the Columbia Business School and chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers in the first years of the Bush administration.
The president's new go-to man on economic matters, Edward Lazear, has taken the mantle in a year when the White House faces no shortage of fiscal battles.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - Despite the optimism expressed by lawmakers that they were "very close" to striking a deal Thursday, negotiations on a much delayed tax reconciliation package stalled Thursday night.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - The political jousting over whether to include both temporary AMT relief and an extension of reduced dividend and capital gains rates in a final tax reconciliation bill may come to an end by Friday.
President Bush's tax cuts for investment income have significantly lowered the tax burden on the richest Americans, reducing taxes on incomes of more than $10 million by an average of about $500,000, according to a report Wednesday.
Around this time of year, Sen. Ron Wyden wants you to go skiing with your kids, read a novel, plant a garden--anything but do taxes. The Oregon Democrat has dreamed up a tax code so simple it shrin...
Bob Reilly is just a middle-class schoolteacher trying to get by.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - On the heels of the roughest year of his presidency, amid vicious partisan fighting and mid-term election fears, President Bush began his State of the Union address Tuesday evening.
Following the roughest year of his presidency, President Bush on Tuesday evening used his State of the Union address to reiterate some of his key economic proposals: making tax-cuts permanent and making healthcare coverage more affordable and portable.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - On the heels of the roughest year of his presidency, amid vicious partisan fighting and mid-term election fears and soon after a recent White House projection of an even larger deficit, President Bush will deliver his State of the Union address next Tuesday.
The White House's Roosevelt Room is wired for PowerPoint presentations, and most officials also bring handouts when they brief George W. Bush and his inner circle. But Budget Director Josh Bolten, who has spent months walking the President through a problem that could dramatically affect his legacy, sticks to colorful charts on old-fashioned easels. The lights stay on, so nobody dozes off, and there's no paper to wander through. It's dense material, after all. "I keep everyone's attention focused on what I want them to focus on," Bolten said.
(FORTUNE Small Business) - Imagine for a moment that your local police set out to trap a few wily burglars but wound up clumsily ensnaring you and others -- the town's shopkeepers, factory owners, ...
Tax cuts have fueled a booming economy, President Bush said Saturday, calling on the American people to back his drive to make those cuts permanent and to address other issues on his agenda for 2006.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - Who's afraid of the big bad federal budget deficit? Not the bond or currency markets.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - Tax reform reportedly has been pushed into the slow lane for now, but not so the tax debate.
President Bush may have drawn cheers at campaign rallies last year by calling the federal income tax code "a complicated mess" and promising to make its "million pages" simpler and fairer. But H&R Block can breathe easy for another season.
Charles Rossotti ran the Internal Revenue Service from 1997 through 2002. His recent book, Many Unhappy Returns, chronicles his experiences collecting your money, and this year he sat on a presiden...
Remember "political capital"? A year ago, George W. Bush had a hugely ambitious economic agenda. He'd already won deep tax cuts. Now he promised to fix the Social Security system once and for all a...
Charles Rossotti ran the Internal Revenue Service from 1997 through 2002.
NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - It's understandable if you have your hackles up about recent proposals to nix the federal deduction for state and local taxes and to downsize the mortgage-interest tax break.
Maybe you've managed to ignore the recent spate of tax-reform stories, but that doesn't mean you'll dodge the Alternative Minimum Tax or its higher tax bite.
NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Forget tax reform for a moment. Of more immediate concern to lawmakers this week is whether they'll extend a number of tax breaks, most notably investment tax breaks and AMT relief.
NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Charged with proposing ways to make the federal tax code simpler, fairer and more growth-oriented, President Bush's bipartisan tax advisory panel put forth a Simplified Income Tax Plan with many changes that could alter individuals' tax bills.
The president's tax-reform advisory panel submitted two final proposals Tuesday morning to the Treasury Department, both of which offer significant changes to the tax breaks people have come to expect -- as well as to the complexity and costs of filing that many have come to detest.
NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - When the president's tax advisory panel releases its final report on Tuesday, lawmakers, academics and average taxpayers will find much to love, hate or dismiss as politically unviable.
NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - The Presidential Tax Reform Panel agreed on Tuesday to recommend two plans that would reform the U.S. federal tax code, according to published reports.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, BEHOLD THE GREATEST excuse in recent history. Hurricane Katrina seriously and even tragically harmed millions of people, thousands of businesses, and hundreds of local governm...
NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Over the past year, the tax panel appointed by President Bush to propose reforms for the U.S. federal tax code has considered revolutionary changes like scrapping the income tax and replacing it with a national retail sales tax.
WASHINGTON, D.C. (CNN/Money) - When you work for a company, your employer typically foots a large portion, if not all of your health insurance premiums. That money, which is not reported on your W2, is tax-free to you.
If you don't care much for talk radio, or you don't live in the South, the name Neal Boortz might not ring a bell. But pay attention: Around 4 million people nationwide catch his radio show. It's N...
NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Hurricane Katrina did more than devastate residents of the Gulf Coast and blow away their economy.
Former President Clinton believes the Democrats should pounce on and exploit President Bush's refusal to hike taxes to finance Hurricane Katrina relief efforts and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
LETTERS TO FORTUNE
Since the president prefers not to raise taxes to finance Hurricane Katrina recovery, three senators suggested Sunday that Congress cut spending, delay a Medicare prescription benefit and forgo a tax cut for the rich.
With President Bush promising a big push to rebuild New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, many are wondering how the government's going to pay for all this.
Republican lawmakers will postpone plans to extend dividend and capital gains tax cuts as the Gulf Coast struggles to recover from Hurricane Katrina, a news report said Tuesday.
A bestseller advocating radical tax reform contains a critical flaw that misleads readers, according to a report in the October issue of MONEY Magazine.
| Most Viewed | Most Emailed | Top Searches |
| Most Viewed | Most Emailed | Top Searches |
Video
