The obvious question to close off this series is “How can Sweden afford those benefits?” Of course a […]
Taxes
Forty years ago, Ronald Reagan made the comment “Government is not the solution to our problem, government is […]
Now that we are closing this current period of political idiocy, it’s time to start talking about things […]
I know there are very basic differences in how people look at the world. I personally get much […]
As the new header says the GOP just loves to cut taxes but that is the easy part. […]
I want to start this post off by saying I think there are some good parts to the […]
But since Piotrowski describes property taxes as “unethical, unchristian-like” and a form of “financial slavery,” he decided to make […]
I see where the Greeks elected a new government this week to help them reduce austerity that was […]
Despite a wide coalition of business, labor, religious groups, farmers and others pushing for an immigration overhaul, many […]
On top of that, higher-income taxpayers could see their itemized deductions and personal exemptions phased out and pay […]
“The Republican Party is not really a party. It doesn’t stand for anything except re-electing itself,” Stockman, who […]
The U.S. government and Switzerland have reached an agreement that could expose Americans who have used Swiss banks […]
A Senate panel late Monday accused Apple (AAPL) of using what it called a “complex web of offshore […]
Our financial ills will never be settled till you fix it so every man will pay an income tax on what […]
I must admit that I am a loyal customer of Amazon. I pay an extra $79 a year to have two-day free delivery of almost everything I buy and I buy quite a bit from them. I get many things the next day. It amazes me just how quickly they can get my order to me!
Another company that amazes me is Google. If I have a question on just about anything I can get many different views on the subject usually within a minute or two. I can remember in high school and even college spending hours in the library scouring through twenty-four book encyclopedias and many other books to find a minute amount of info I can now get in seconds.
I am totally sick of the “slippery slope” that my conservative friends so often cling to!!
If I hear another person give me a slippery slope story I just might punch them. The idea of the slippery slope consumes so much of their lives. It is the center point for their current stands against gun regulation. It is the center point for their current stands of excluding anyone from their religious circles who don’t totally align with them. It is the center point of their current stands on taxes.
Source: Most Americans Face Lower Tax Burden Than in the 80s – NYTimes.com. But in fact, most Americans in […]
source: A Very Different Lame-Duck: Lessons From 2010 – ABC News. The fiscal cliff is what we’re focused […]
Source: Churches and Taxes – ProCon.org.
US churches received an official federal income tax exemption in 1894, and they have been unofficially tax-exempt since the country’s founding. All 50 US states and the District of Columbia exempt churches from paying property tax. Donations to churches are tax-deductible. The debate continues over whether or not these tax benefits should be retained.
Proponents argue that a tax exemption keeps the government out of church finances and thus upholds the separation of church and state. They say that churches deserve a tax break because they provide crucial social services, and that church tax exemptions have been in place for over 200 years without turning America into a theocracy.
Opponents argue that giving churches special tax exemptions violates the separation of church and state, and that tax exemptions are a privilege, not a right guaranteed by the US Constitution. They say that in tough economic times the government cannot afford what amounts to a subsidy worth billions of dollars every year.
Here is a letter from my Quaker friends at AFSC that I thought you might be interested in. […]
But every one of us write our own history. If it sounds better the way we want […]
I was a small business owner for six years after I retired from the big business corporate world. But being a sole proprietor with no employees I really don’t have a good view of just what small businesses are really about. The Republican political leaders say small businesses are the growth engine of our country and we shouldn’t tax them by taking away the Bush tax cuts for those making over $250,000 annually.
How many of the so-called small businesses were like mine just a guy in a shop building things for customers? How many hire more than a handful of employees? I decided to look into this.
Here is a link to a bunch of numbers in this area: http://www.census.gov/econ/smallbus.html
There are approximately 29 million business in this country
- Of those 29 million about 22 million are business with no employees
- Only one million firms have more than 9 employees
- Only 90,000 (0.3% have more than 100 employees
- Across the United States, small business failure rates rose by 40% between 2007 and 2010
- Only about one if five small businesses will be in existence five years after its creation
They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. If that is really the case then I […]
This excerpt from a Wall Street Journal article peaked my senses. It seems the rich, who we give […]
