A few steps to take to manage your property tax bill.
With advances in technology, filing and paying your taxes has become as easy as checking email.
You should be diligent when making charitable contributions.
Given how scattered our digital lives have become, it’s important to have a good system for storing and managing your important papers.
Regarding your editorial "How Much the Rich Pay" (Jan. 20): Most of the comments regarding taxes on the rich have focused on what happens when shareholders of a C corporation pay taxes on dividends. However, I have not seen any comments on ...
Regarding Daniel J. Mitchell's "Will Republicans Hand the Left a VAT Victory?" (op-ed, Jan. 4): All taxes result in additional costs for something that thus make that product or service less desirable than it would be without the added tax. ...
The Internal Revenue Service estimated that Americans underpaid their taxes by $385 billion for tax year 2006 in its latest report on the nation's "tax gap"—an estimate of taxes owed but not paid.
Subscriber Content Read Preview
The Occupy Wall Street protests have faded from the news, while the unemployment rate fell to 8.5% in December, the lowest level since February 2009. Still, unemployment and income inequality remain justifiable concerns for tens of millions ...
Subscriber Content Read Preview
DAMARISCOTTA, Maine—With the highest median age in the nation, Maine faces the usual concerns of a graying state, from sustaining a robust work force to offering sufficient health care and transportation. But policy makers also view seniors ...
Subscriber Content Read Preview
European leaders are meeting in Brussels today to craft their third attempt—or is it the sixth?—to end the Continent's debt crisis and avert a deep recession. So it seems an apt moment to review the economic policy record of the leaders ...
Subscriber Content Read Preview
Next year must be divisible by four because the flat tax, one of the hardy perennials of bad tax policy, has come bouncing back like a bad penny. The flat tax is typically marketed as a way to achieve drastic tax simplification—something ...
In your Nov. 7 editorial "The Corporate Welfare State," you say that a "big rate cut would generate far more jobs and wealth than passing out checks to businesses one at a time." Why not propose that big rate cut be really big? Why not take ...
Consider these two points. Over 80% of federal revenue comes from individual income taxes and Social Security, Medicare and unemployment taxes. Most of that money is collected via automatic payroll tax withholding
From the City Journal Warren Buffett is worried that he doesn't pay enough in taxes. In an August op-ed in the New York Times, the billionaire pointed out that his effective federal tax rate—the percentage of all his income that he paid in ...
Subscriber Content Read Preview
With Herman Cain's leap in the Presidential polls, the businessman's campaign is suddenly being taken seriously and his plan to overhaul federal taxes is coming under scrutiny. Mr. Cain's 9-9-9 plan would certainly help the economy, but its ...
Herman Cain's surge in the polls is focusing new attention on his "9-9-9" tax plan, but also raising new questions about whether it does everything it claims.
The folks in Washington might not like to hear it, but the plain truth is the U.S. government spends too much. Taxes are too high, too complex, and too riddled with special interest loopholes. And our expensive entitlement system is ...
Washington has repeated nearly every economic policy mistake of the 1930s in recent years, so why not repeat one of the bigger blunders of the 1960s too? We refer to President Obama's proposal yesterday for a new "Buffett Rule" to raise ...
Sharon Kristjanson claims (Letters, Oct. 5), regarding the national sales tax proposed under Herman Cain's 9-9-9 plan, that the proliferation of a black market will negate much potential revenue collected under this new sales tax. It is ...
'Suddenly, liberal Democrats are making the same argument about the tax code that I've been making for 20 years," laughs former Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey. "Welcome to the party." Mr. Armey, who along with Steve Forbes has ...
The 2012 election is shaping up as a historic confrontation over the proper size and scope of government spending, taxes, deficits and debt. After three years of the Obama presidency, the Republican presidential candidates are offering ...
Whether the "millionaires and billionaires" are actually paying their fair share of taxes is a matter for the electorate to decide. After all, fairness is hardly an objective standard.
Hey, Harvey Golub -- I'm sorry to hear about your tax problems! In a rebuttal to Warren Buffett's call for higher taxes on the super-rich, you wrote in Monday's Wall Street Journal: "Of my current income this year, I ...
President Obama is now talking about a "balanced approach" to deficit reduction that includes a "revenue component" achieved by "tax reform."
Subscriber Content Read Preview
SHANGHAI—In a move that could ease fund-raising difficulties for the highly indebted railways ministry, China's State Council, the country's cabinet, has halved the income tax on coupon earnings of some bonds the ministry issues.
Subscriber Content Read Preview
'What is tax reform?" That's the Jeopardy-like question matching the answer: "The best step the government could take now to promote growth and employment." The Obama administration has been responding with ...
Subscriber Content Read Preview
State-budget officials from around the U.S. were huddled in Utah earlier this month for an annual meeting when someone glanced at a BlackBerry and announced that the Dow Jones Industrial Average had fallen 500 points.
Paul Gigot: This week on "The Journal Editorial Report," the banker baiters are back. As those Wall Street protests grow, Democrats jump on the bandwagon, railing against banks and the fees that the politicians helped create. Plus, Chris ...
Although 2010 is in your rearview mirror, it's not too late to make some moves that will save taxes on last year's Form 1040--and maybe on your state income tax return as well. Here are four possibilities.
While the U.S. remains mired in debt and slogs through a subpar economic recovery, Canada is moving ahead steadily. Its unemployment rate peaked at a little over 8.5% and is now 7.4%, and there were no bank bailouts. Real GDP growth is ...
Regulatory Gap To the Editor: We can only grimace at the plight of regulators as featured in Jim McTague's D.C. Current column ("Don't Count on the SEC," Feb. 7) in which he elucidates congressional failure to adequately ...
The Obama administration's National Labor Relations Board filed a complaint last month against Boeing to block production of the company's 787 Dreamliner at a new assembly plant in South Carolina—a "right to-work" state ...
Subscriber Content Read Preview
President Obama's response to congressional efforts to curb runaway federal spending is to emphasize, once again, his resolve to greatly increase tax rates on married couples whose joint incomes are above $250,000. This insistent ...
The Oracle of Omaha is at it again. On July 7, Warren Buffett told Bloomberg: "I think the rich have a responsibility to pay higher tax rates." Then he groused that his wealthy friends are "paying lower tax rates than the ...
As President Barack Obama pushes to raise income taxes on high earners, opponents are seizing on data that indicates these U.S. households already pay a large and growing share of taxes, even compared with high-tax European countries. And a ...
Subscriber Content Read Preview
LISBON—Portugal's new government said Thursday that it will impose a special one-time income tax charge as it seeks to control the country's budget deficit and meet targets set by the European Union and the International Monetary ...
DETROIT—Michigan's state legislature Thursday passed a broad new tax structure ending a raft of tax credits, replacing the state's complex business tax with a flat corporate tax, while imposing a new pension tax and raising income ...
The intelligentsia of the Democratic Party is growing increasingly enthusiastic about raising the highest federal income tax rates to 70% or more. Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich took the lead in February, proposing on his blog "a ...
Last year was the perfect storm for converting traditional IRAs into Roth accounts. Previous restrictions on conversions were removed, and you could spread the taxable income triggered by a 2010 conversion evenly over 2011 and 2012. What ...
Subscriber Content Read Preview
In the 1982 film "Fast Times at Ridgemont High," the character Jeff Spicoli expresses the Jeffersonian thesis that American democracy required "cool rules . . . pronto," lest our polity become just as "bogus" ...
Subscriber Content Read Preview
Gov. Rick Scott called Monday for overhauling Florida's Medicaid program, curbing its pension system and trimming government services as he detailed a budget proposal he had promised would be full of big cuts.
Subscriber Content Read Preview
Politicians don't want to tell you, so we will: Tax revenues are coming back smartly now that the economy is growing. California recently discovered $2 billion in unexpected tax revenue, even as Governor Jerry Brown promotes a ...
Stephen Moore is right (" Warren Buffett Is Wrong on Taxes ," op-ed, July 28). Mr. Buffett argues that billionaires like him should be paying more in taxes. Therefore, Congress should raise the income tax rate. He makes this ...
Subscriber Content Read Preview
CHICAGO—Sears Holdings Corp. is telling Illinois officials it may move its headquarters out of the state if a package of tax incentives is allowed to expire next year. The iconic retailer's warning comes as Illinois is fending off ...
Media reports in recent weeks say that Senate Democrats are considering a 3% surtax on income over $1 million to raise federal revenues. This would come on top of the higher income tax rates that President Obama has already proposed through ...
It's already March: time to get serious about filing your 2010 Form 1040 -- especially if you expect a refund. Here are several often overlooked tax-saving tips that could make your refund bigger or cut what you owe.
State tax collections continued to click up in January and February, thanks in part to tax increases, but remain well below their previous peak.
Subscriber Content Read Preview
President Obama says he wants corporate tax reform but hasn't proposed how to do it. Maybe he should take a look at the states, where as many as 10 new Governors are moving ahead to reform and reduce business taxes. The motive is to ...
Subscriber Content Read Preview
That's how Connecticut's Democratic Governor Dannel Malloy describes himself in contrast to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, and we'd have to say he's right. Nutmeg State residents will pay for the appellation.
Governors trying to cut business taxes are running into unexpected resistance from both Republican and Democratic lawmakers. Gov. Rick Snyder has proposed changes to Michigan's tax code that would reduce corporate income taxes by $1 ...
Subscriber Content Read Preview
Illinois gained nationwide notoriety in January when Governor Pat Quinn signed into law a 67% hike in the personal income tax rate while lifting the corporate tax rate to 9.5%, the fourth highest in the nation. How is that working out?
For 16 years prior to Ronald Reagan's presidency, the U.S. economy was in a tailspin—a result of bipartisan ignorance that resulted in tax increases, dollar devaluations, wage and price controls, minimum-wage hikes, misguided spending, ...
Costs to attend some colleges are approaching astronomical levels. For top-rated private universities, the annual hit can be $50,000 or higher. Some public schools charge out-of-state students $35,000 or more.
Subscriber Content Read Preview
One memorable phrase from the Reagan administration is "supply-side economics." These catchy yet misleading words pertain not to supply versus demand but rather to incentives, good or ill. For income taxes the key point is that ...
Subscriber Content Read Preview
California faces its most serious budget crisis since the Great Depression. Newly inaugurated Gov. Jerry Brown is inheriting a deficit that is expected to be at least $28 billion over the next 18 months. Nonpartisan legislative analysts ...
Subscriber Content Read Preview
When Americans look to Canada, they generally think of an ally, though one dominated by socialist economic policies. But the Canada of the 1970s and early 1980s—the era of left-wing Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau—no longer exists. ...
Americans like to tax the rich. As a nation, we rely more on progressive taxes—and less on regressive ones—than any other developed country. We impose no broad-based consumption tax, standing firm against the global popularity of ...
People can change the volume, the location and the composition of their income, and they can do so in response to changes in government policies.
Subscriber Content Read Preview
Illinois municipal bonds were unchanged Wednesday after the Legislature approved an income tax increase to ease the state's fiscal crisis and $3.7 billion of bonding to cover pension payments but rejected proposals to raise cigarette ...
Subscriber Content Read Preview
GIVE REP. PAUL RYAN, THE WISCONSIN REPUBLICAN, some credit for bravery. Many people in Washington are applauding him, though from a safe distance. He put down on paper a vision of national fiscal prudence, one that even his own party ...
Subscriber Content Read Preview
It's time to cut your tax bill. As we draw to the end of the financial year, which comes to a close on March 31, consider scanning your investments and expenditures to see which ones can be deducted from your income tax.
From the Cato Institute The U.S. corporate tax system has become unwieldy, inconsistent with world practice, and highly anti-competitive. The statutory corporate income tax rate is one of the highest in the world at about 40 percent, which ...
Subscriber Content Read Preview
Newark, N.J. With Rush Limbaugh fawning over him on talk radio and Fred Barnes comparing him to Ronald Reagan, New Jersey Republican Gov. Chris Christie is being hailed a conservative hero. But conservatives here in the Garden State ...
Subscriber Content Read Preview
Low Taxation With Repatriation To the Editor: The "Trillion-Dollar Challenge" column by Eric Savitz (Tech Trader, Sept. 20) described how companies have accumulated that amount in overseas earnings, but are hesitant to bring it back ...
Carl Paladino says he wants to put a muzzle on personal attacks and concentrate his campaign for governor around policy ideas. The Republican candidate is trying out a more buttoned-down approach this week after causing an uproar Wednesday ...
Subscriber Content Read Preview
President Obama has put tax reform on the agenda, but surprisingly little attention is being paid to fixing the most growth-inhibiting, anticompetitive tax of all: the corporate income tax. Reducing or eliminating the corporate tax would ...
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared recently at the Brookings Institution, "The rich are not paying their fair share." She then went on to praise Brazil as the tax holy grail for the rest of the world: "Brazil has the ...
Subscriber Content Read Preview
The battle between taxpayers and government unions will define the fiscal future of the 50 states, and the newest battlefield is Washington state. That's where a few rich taxpayers led by Bill Gates Sr. and the Service Employees ...
Subscriber Content Read Preview
TAIPEI--Taiwan's legislature Friday approved a cut in the island's corporate income-tax rate to 17% from 20%, the second cut in 12 months, as the government seeks to make the island more competitive and attractive to foreign ...
A cultural battle is under way in America, a battle between, in columnist Michael Barone's, words, "the culture of dependence and the culture of independence."
Subscriber Content Read Preview
At least 139 countries, including most major economies except the U.S., levy a value-added tax on goods and services. But as the U.S. faces swelling deficits, talk of adopting one has become more commonplace and is likely to intensify. The ...
WASHINGTON—Two senators Tuesday introduced a proposal to vastly simplify the nation's tax code by cutting the number of income tax brackets in half and flattening the corporate tax rate.
Subscriber Content Read Preview
Senior bankers and hedge fund professionals will pay more in personal tax and social security should they be based in London from April 6 onwards than they would if they were located in any other major financial centre, according to an ...
For the 2009 tax year, an estimated 47% of U.S. households did not pay any federal income tax. The percentage was a bit higher than normal due to the lousy economy and some allegedly temporary tax breaks that may not be renewed. The ...
This is not the time for a tax increase. But unless Congress acts, under current law the existing income tax rates will rise sharply at the beginning of next year. Congress should vote now to extend all of the current tax rates for two ...
Illinois Governor Pat Quinn is the latest Democrat to demand a tax increase, this week proposing to raise the state's top marginal individual income tax rate to 4% from 3%. He'd better hope this works out better than it has for ...
SANTA MONICA, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- Death tax. The term itself is controversial. Critics say it's wrong to call it that. It's an estate tax, they say.
Subscriber Content Read Preview
The Justice Department announced last week that it would defend the new federal health-insurance mandate as an exercise of Congress's "power to lay and collect taxes," even though Barack Obama had insisted before the ...
There's nothing like the prospect of an electoral rout to concentrate the incumbent mind, and so all of a sudden rank-and-file Democrats in Congress are saying maybe they shouldn't let the 2003 tax rates expire after all. Now if ...
As Americans rush to complete their annual tax returns today, there is still some consolation in knowing that it could be worse: Like Europeans, we could pay both income taxes and a value-added tax, or VAT. And maybe we soon will. Paul ...
Subscriber Content Read Preview
A year after enacting the largest increase in the state's personal income rate in generations, Albany is about to further raise taxes on wealthy New York City residents.
Subscriber Content Read Preview
As Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen grudgingly accepts a politically unpopular bailout to fix Ireland's economy, his government faces a mounting backlash from angry lawmakers and voters that could undermine his razor-thin grip on ...
WASHINGTON—The U.S. corporate tax system is "deeply flawed and in need of reform," according to a report released Friday by an advisory panel to the White House led by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker.
If you’re a SmartMoney regular, I’m pretty sure your overall financial literacy is good. However, your tax literacy may need some work. With the November election approaching, it’s a good time to get up to speed. Here’s the first of several ...
This may not be your grandfather's Great Depression, but many aspects of today's situation would remind him of the 1930s. If the recession that officially ended a year ago feels uncomfortably surreal to you yet familiar to him, ...
Subscriber Content Read Preview
The presumptive Democratic candidate for governor, Andrew Cuomo, would remedy New York state's dire financial situation by freezing state workers' salaries starting next year and etching into state law a tight cap on state ...
Taxpayers receiving a qualified retirement-plan payout after their retirement, termination or job change face a big question: Should they postpone paying taxes by arranging for a tax-free rollover of their retirement-plan balance into a ...
Subscriber Content Read Preview
President Barack Obama's new health-care legislation aims to raise $210 billion over 10 years to pay for the extensive new entitlements. How? By slapping a 3.8% "Medicare tax" on interest and rental income, dividends and ...
In Washington state, the fight over a proposed new income tax has been cast as a battle of the billionaires. In this narrative, the struggle is between wealthy people who believe in paying their fair share of taxes—and other wealthy people ...
Michael J. Boskin is so right about corporate taxes. ("Time to Junk the Corporate Tax," op-ed, May 6.) What he fails to address, though, is the fact that Congress is full of lawyers, not businessmen. What I really want to hear is ...
Tax reduction thus sets off a process that can bring gains for everyone, gains won by marshalling resources that would otherwise stand idle—workers without jobs and farm and factory capacity without markets. Yet many taxpayers seemed ...
Framed on a wall in my office is a personal letter to me from Bill Gates the elder. "I am a fan of progressive taxation," he wrote. "I would say our country has prospered from using such a system—even at 70% rates to say ...
From the City Journal Advocates of the misnamed "millionaire's tax" enacted in New York State last year claimed that it would restore "fairness" to a tax code that favored the rich. After all, the statewide ...
Even amoebas learn by trial and error, but some economists and politicians do not. The Obama administration's budget projections claim that raising taxes on the top 2% of taxpayers, those individuals earning more than $200,000 and ...
Ireland's financial crisis morphed into political turmoil Monday, as the country's coalition government began to unravel in the wake of an unpopular international bailout and Prime Minister Brian Cowen pledged to call an election ...
Subscriber Content Read Preview
Ireland's cash-strapped government wants some of the country's workers to do something they haven't for years: pay income taxes.
Your editorial "Obamanomics Takes a Holiday" (Dec. 8) makes two important points in showing that the Obama-Republican tax compromise will not be a stimulative panacea. The two-year extension limit leaves in place the policy ...
State and local tax revenues continue to recover as the economy improves, but remain below pre-recession peaks and are likely to face continued pressure in 2011.

There's no better time to start than today.
A few steps to take to manage your property tax bill.
Small print has become a giant menace, costing consumers $250 billion a year. New ways to avoid the traps.
For the past five years, these funds have excelled. Can they do it for the next five?
A little light reading while you're on hold.
Why classroom experience may not pay off on Wall Street.