top stories in News Reel
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Preparing for 'Taxmageddon'
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Retire Here, Not There: Tennessee
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PLAYWealth: Why Advisers Shouldn't Go In....
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The 5 Biggest Muni Defaults Ever
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Cut Travel Costs With Free Gas
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PLAYArends: I Hate Tax Day
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7 Ways to Cut Moving Costs
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Grad School: Higher Degrees of Debt
How-To Guides
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How to Cut Property Taxes
A few steps to take to manage your property tax bill.
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How to Do Your Own Taxes
With advances in technology, filing and paying your taxes has become as easy as checking email.
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How to Give to Charity
You should be diligent when making charitable contributions.
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How to Manage Important Documents
Given how scattered our digital lives have become, it’s important to have a good system for storing and managing your important papers.
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Notable & Quotable; Allysia Finley on California Governor Jerry Brown's creative explanation for why his state has an even bigger budget deficit than initially estimated.
WSJ.comAllysia Finley writing May 15 in the Journal's online Political Diary: California Gov. Jerry Brown's revised 94-page budget isn't exactly a scintillating read, but literati might appreciate its irony. Just take the governor's narrative ...
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GOP vs. GOP in Kansas Tax Row
WSJ.comThe tax fight in the Kansas state legislature took a strange and unexpected turn last week, when the state House approved a previously passed state Senate bill that would provide what some consider the largest proportional tax cut in Kansas ...
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Will California Ever Learn?
WSJ.comDemocratic Gov. Jerry Brown is making California lawmakers out to be models of Franciscan frugality. Last year they made "tough cuts across state government to reduce General Fund spending as a share of the economy to its lowest level" in ...
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Saying No to State Bailouts; Congress must make plain that American taxpayers will not protect states from the consequences of their policies.
WSJ.comRight now, the world is wondering if European leaders have the political will to save their economies from fiscal collapse. Defaulting on their debts would trigger a domino effect that threatens the continued existence of the European Union ...
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Oklahoma Reform Showdown; A plan to phase out the income tax, if Republicans allow it.
WSJ.comDo Republicans stand for economic growth and tax reform, or not? That question is on the table in Oklahoma, where GOP Governor Mary Fallin has a plan to cut and eventually eliminate the income tax. Her main opposition: fellow Republicans in ...
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Buffett Rule Antidote
WSJ.comWhile the Senate voted this week on the Buffett Rule millionaire tax hike, House Republicans were pushing for a 20% business tax cut. The GOP House leadership plan cuts tax rates for every business with fewer than 500 employees. This means ...
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Romney Specifies Deductions He'd Cut
WSJ.comPALM BEACH, Fla.—Mitt Romney, speaking at a private fundraising event on Sunday, offered the first details of deductions he would eliminate or limit in order to offset the income tax cut he has proposed for all taxpayers.
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U.K. Treasury Under Pressure Over Tax
WSJ.comLONDON—The U.K. government Monday rushed to contain the growing backlash over its plan to limit tax relief on charitable giving, promising a full consultation on the controversial measure and saying it will work with charities to protect ...
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Taxes—Who Really Is Paying Up
WSJ.comDo you pay your fair share in taxes? Even as President Barack Obama pitches the "Buffett rule" to ensure that millionaires pay at least a 30% tax rate, some commentators are decrying the fact that about half of U.S. taxpayers don't pay any ...
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Grover G. Norquist: Trickle-Down Taxation; Americans know that politicians are getting elected by promising to tax only the rich and then going after the middle class.
WSJ.comIn his 1984 acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, Walter Mondale announced that if elected president he would raise taxes. He lost the electoral college 525 to 13, carrying only the District of Columbia and his home state ...
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AAA not what it used to be for British pound; Analysis: Government boxed self into unappetizing corner
MarketWatchFRANKFURT (MarketWatch) — British Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne may have done just enough in delivering the government’s new budget to ensure the U.K. government keeps its AAA rating.
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Gramm and McMillin: The Real Causes of Income Inequality; Any analysis of taxes paid in high tax-and-spend countries shows that the U.S. has the most progressive income tax system in the world.
WSJ.comIn the stagnant days of the Carter administration, when inflation was approaching 13.5% and interest rates were peaking at 21.5%, income was more evenly distributed than in any period in 20th-century America. Since the days of that equality ...
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Budget 2012: What's in Store for Individuals?
WSJ.comWith Friday's unveiling of the Union Budget fast approaching, speculation is rife about what Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee will announce.
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Osborne Finalizes U.K. Budget
WSJ.comLONDON—Preparations for the U.K. government's budget entered their closing stages Friday, with Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne seeking to stimulate the faltering economy while still adhering to his aggressive deficit ...
3 Last-Minute Ways to Lower Your Tax Bill; Bischoff: An IRA contribution made between now and April 17th can still be deducted from a 2011 return.
SmartMoney.comAlthough 2011 is way back in the rearview mirror, it's still not too late to make some moves that will save taxes on last year's Form 1040 and maybe on last year's state income tax return as well. Here are three possibilities.
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U.K.'s Osborne Will Target Low Earners in Budget
WSJ.comLONDON—The bulk of the measures in Wednesday's budget will be aimed at helping low and middle income earners, U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne said Sunday, in a move likely to appease junior coalition partners the ...
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Cut Corporation Tax Now; The economic gains of a 20% rate in the U.K. would be enormous.
WSJ.comThere are no votes in reducing corporate income taxes. Most Britons believe such taxes are paid by "companies" and that the elite fat-cats running said companies deserve to be taxed at punitive rates. Some do not even think ...
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A Tax Reform to Restore America's Prosperity; 'First, I will make an across-the-board, 20% reduction in marginal individual income tax rates.'
WSJ.comWhen generations of immigrants looked up and saw the Statue of Liberty for the first time, they surely had many questions and doubts about the life before them. Yet one thing they knew without a doubt—in America anything was possible, and ...
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State's New Trick: Old Dogs; Maine Sees Retirees as Assets, Seeks to Attract Them With Tax Cuts on Pensions
WSJ.comDAMARISCOTTA, 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 ...
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U.S. Income 'Tax Gap' Widens
WSJ.comThe 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.
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Will Sales-Tax Deduction Live On?
WSJ.comQ: Is there any hope that Congress will extend the sales-tax deduction on our federal income tax returns for 2012 and on? B.W.B., Lake Worth, Fla.
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Income Tax Rates Hit Small Businesses Much Harder
WSJ.comRegarding 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 ...
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Europe's Growth Deficit; The Continent tries to tax its way back to prosperity.
WSJ.comEuropean 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 ...
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The Conservative Case for a Wealth Tax; A modest levy on the overall wealth of the very rich would allow lower incentive-distorting income tax rates for them and everyone else.
WSJ.comThe 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 ...
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Christie Opens the Spending Spigot; Governor's Budget Leaves Behind Lean Years on Strength of Revenue Projection
WSJ.comTRENTON—After two years of austere budgets, Gov. Chris Christie changed course Tuesday with a budget that restores education spending, pays down pension liabilities and cuts income taxes.
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Both parties wrong on taxes? Commentary: Top 1% actually pay a lot
MarketWatchNEW YORK (MarketWatch) — That notorious top 1% actually is paying more in taxes. And most Americans face marginal income-tax rates that are relatively low in terms of recent history. Maybe both parties need to find another issue.
The Tax Guy's Tax Plan; Could decreasing the frequency of federal income tax payments alter how government spends?
SmartMoney.comConsider 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
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The Heartland Tax Rebellion; More states want to repeal their income taxes.
WSJ.comOklahoma Governor Mary Fallin is starting to feel surrounded. On her state's southern border, Texas has no income tax. Now two of its other neighbors, Missouri and Kansas, are considering plans to cut and eventually abolish their ...
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A Tax Code for Tomorrow; We need to encourage investment, not penalize it.
WSJ.comFrom 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 ...
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VAT Could Be a Threat or a Vehicle for Real Tax Reform
WSJ.comRegarding 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 ...
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Why Canada Is Beating America; It shrank government, and now unemployment and debt are declining.
WSJ.comWhile 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 ...
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Cain's Tax Mutiny; Creating a new national sales tax on top of the income tax is a political killer.
WSJ.comWith 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 ...
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Cain's 9-9-9 Plan Gets a Closer Look; Liberals Say '9-9-9' Proposal Will Hurt Poor; Conservatives Criticize Sales Levy
WSJ.comHerman 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.
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Warren Buffett Is Wrong On Taxes; Millionaires and billionaires pay a higher share of their income in taxes than the middle class.
WSJ.comThe 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 ...
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Portugal Unveils One-Off Income Tax
WSJ.comLISBON—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 ...
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My Tax and Spending Reform Plan; Individuals will have the option of paying a 20% flat-rate income tax and I'll cap spending at 18% of GDP.
WSJ.comThe 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 ...
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The Buffett Alternative Tax; The rich don't pay lower average tax rates.
WSJ.comWashington 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 ...
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The Folly of the Flat Tax; Eliminating the biggest deductions and exclusions is extremely unlikely, and flatter rates alone won't make the tax system any simpler. It would, however, make it far less progressive.
WSJ.comNext 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 ...
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Why 70% Tax Rates Won't Work; Memo to Robert Reich: The income tax brought in less revenue when the highest rate was 70% to 91% than it did when the highest rate was 28%.
WSJ.comThe 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 ...
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Sales Tax Evasion Versus the Income Tax
WSJ.comSharon 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 ...
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Flat Is the New Fair; Is President Obama paving the way for GOP tax reform?
WSJ.com'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 ...
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Not So Cool Rules; The regulatory tax on Americans is now larger than the income tax.
WSJ.comIn 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" ...
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Unleash Prosperity With a Zero Corporate Income Tax
WSJ.comIn 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 ...
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The GOP Candidates Square Off on Taxes; The proposals range from modest to bold. All include lower rates, which will stimulate growth.
WSJ.comThe 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 ...
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Raising Income Tax Rates Won't Hit the Warren Buffetts
WSJ.comStephen 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 ...
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A 62% Top Tax Rate? Democrats have said they only intend to restore the tax rates that existed during the Clinton years. In reality they're proposing rates like those under President Carter.
WSJ.comMedia 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 ...
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A Short History of the Income Tax; One original sin was the separation of the corporate and personal tax, giving lawyers, accountants and the wealthy a chance to game the system.
WSJ.comWhether 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.
Tax Tips for Harvey Golub (and Other Millionaires); The former CEO says he is paying more than 80% in taxes. We can fix that, writes Brett Arends.
SmartMoney.comHey, 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 ...
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A Value-Added Tax Fuels Big Government; In Europe the VAT hasn't substituted for income taxation. It's merely added to the tax burden.
WSJ.comPresident Obama is now talking about a "balanced approach" to deficit reduction that includes a "revenue component" achieved by "tax reform."
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China Halves Income Tax on Some Railway Bonds
WSJ.comSHANGHAI—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.
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Tax Reform Is the Swiftest Path to Growth; Broadening the tax base makes possible significant cuts in marginal rates.
WSJ.com'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 ...
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As Investors Get Bit, States Feel Pain
WSJ.comState-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.
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Class War Stories; A transcript of the weekend's program on FOX News Channel.
WSJ.comPaul 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. ...
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Illinois Tax Firesale; A case study in high corporate rates and special favors.
WSJ.comIllinois 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?
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Boeing and the Union Berlin Wall; Between 2000 and 2008, 4.8 million Americans moved from forced union states to right-to-work states—that's one person every minute of every day.
WSJ.comThe 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 ...
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Obamanomics Meets Incentives; Why cuts in marginal tax rates increase economic growth, but cash for clunkers merely created a boom and bust cycle in auto sales.
WSJ.comOne 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 ...
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High-Earning Households Pay Growing Share of Taxes
WSJ.comAs 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 ...
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How to Revive the California Dream; The decline in tax receipts from Golden State households earning more than $200,000 accounts for fully 93% of the decline in total tax revenues from 2007-08.
WSJ.comCalifornia 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 ...
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Michigan Legislature Passes New Tax Plan With Flat Corporate Tax
WSJ.comDETROIT—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 ...
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Tax Hikes and the 2011 Economic Collapse; Today's corporate profits reflect an income shift into 2010. These profits will tumble next year, preceded most likely by the stock market.
WSJ.comPeople can change the volume, the location and the composition of their income, and they can do so in response to changes in government policies.
Roth IRA Conversions: Still Smart? Here's what you need to know about the Roth option now
SmartMoney.comLast 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 ...
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Mailbag
Barrons.comLow 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 ...
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Tax Revenues Are Rising; Individual income tax receipts are up 25.9% this fiscal year.
WSJ.comPoliticians 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 ...
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Paladino Turns to Policy
WSJ.comCarl 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 ...
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Sears Tells Illinois It May Shop Elsewhere; State Finds Itself Scrambling to Retain Businesses Worried About Higher Taxes
WSJ.comCHICAGO—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 ...
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Canada, Land of Smaller Government; Its corporate income tax rate is 18% and falling. America's is 35%.
WSJ.comWhen 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. ...
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The 'Anti-Christie'; What Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy's tax hike plan tells us about liberal governance.
WSJ.comThat'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.
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Hillary Clinton: Accidental Supply-Sider; She's right about Brazil's growth. She's wrong about its tax rates.
WSJ.comSecretary 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 ...
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States Retain Business Levies
WSJ.comGovernors 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 ...
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The Gates of Confiscation; Look who wants to give Washington state an income tax.
WSJ.comThe 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 ...
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Taiwan Cuts Corporate Income Tax To 17%
WSJ.comTAIPEI--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 ...
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Illinois Bonds Flat as Tax Increase Allays Some Worry
WSJ.comIllinois 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 ...
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U.S. Weighs Tax That Has VAT of Political Trouble
WSJ.comAt 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 ...
Who Doesn't Pay Taxes and Why
SmartMoney.comFor 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 ...
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Death tax is income tax; Commentary: Debate over taxing the dead is heating up
MarketWatchSANTA 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.
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Why the ObamaCare Tax Penalty Is Unconstitutional; The federal power to tax is not unlimited, as the Supreme Court recognized when it struck down the first national income tax.
WSJ.comThe 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 ...
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Liberal Tax Revolt; Some Democrats decide they prefer lower rates. Obama isn't one of them.
WSJ.comThere'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 ...
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High Earners Face Tax Increase
WSJ.comA 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.
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Soaking the Wealthy: An American Tradition; From carriages and snuff to millionaires' income, two centuries of targets
WSJ.comAmericans 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 ...
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Ireland's Bailout Threatens Cowen
WSJ.comAs 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 ...
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Corporate Tax System Flawed, Report Says
WSJ.comWASHINGTON—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.
Tax Literacy 101
SmartMoney.comIf 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 ...
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Echoes of the Great Depression; As in the 1930s, policy uncertainty and hostility to business have retarded recovery. At least this time around the political price for economic failure promises to be swift.
WSJ.comThis 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, ...
Financial Aid and Taxes: What You Owe
SmartMoney.comCosts 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.
When a Job Ends, Pay Taxes Now or Roll Over?
SmartMoney.comTaxpayers 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 ...
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Washington State's Union Tax; Bill Gates Sr. supports a state income tax on wealthy Washingtonians, but public unions are the real muscle behind the initiative.
WSJ.comIn 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 ...
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The Soak-the-Rich Catch-22
WSJ.comTax 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 ...
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The Bill Gates Income Tax; If Washington's most famous billionaires are really worried about their state's finances, they'd write personal checks to the government and leave everyone else alone.
WSJ.comFramed 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 ...
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There's No Escaping Hauser's Law; Tax revenues as a share of GDP have averaged just under 19%, whether tax rates are cut or raised. Better to cut rates and get 19% of a larger pie.
WSJ.comEven 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 ...
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Mailbag
Barrons.comRegulatory 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 ...
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Lower Your Tax Bill Using Lesser-Known Breaks
WSJ.comIt'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.
7 Tax Tips for Your 2010 Return
SmartMoney.comIt'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.
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Irish Government Takes a Hit; Prime Minister Promises to Call Early Election as Coalition Weakens Amid Turmoil Over Bailout
WSJ.comIreland'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 ...
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State Tax Collections Tick Up; While Higher Levies Help Refill Capital Coffers, Cities Face Weakening Revenue
WSJ.comState tax collections continued to click up in January and February, thanks in part to tax increases, but remain well below their previous peak.
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Florida Governor Seeks Cuts in Budget
WSJ.comGov. 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.
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Reaganomics: What We Learned; From December 1982 to June 1990, Reaganomics created over 21 million jobs. The right policies can do it again.
WSJ.comFor 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, ...
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In Anticipated Budget, More Irish to Pay Taxes
WSJ.comIreland's cash-strapped government wants some of the country's workers to do something they haven't for years: pay income taxes.
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Obama's Soak-the-Rich Tax Hikes Won't Work; Income tax revenues have been remarkably stable at 8% of GDP, regardless of tax rates. The way to increase revenue is to grow the economy.
WSJ.comPresident 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 ...
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The Tax Compromise Doesn't Please the Left or Right
WSJ.comYour 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 ...
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Local Revenues Climb as Economy Recovers
WSJ.comState 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.
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How to Write a Will
There's no better time to start than today.
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How to Cut Property Taxes
A few steps to take to manage your property tax bill.
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10 Things
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10 Things Hollywood Won't Tell You
Now playing: sequels, 3-D reruns and long ads.
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The Stealth Wedding: Saying 'I do' in a Public Space
A new wedding trend trades "walking down the aisle" for a walk on the wild side.
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The Reignited Tech Sector
Technology stocks have rebounded and are once again the darling of the market. Can the resurgence last?
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Why a 'Balanced' Portfolio May Not Work
Arends: That 60/40 portfolio of stocks and bonds your adviser is pushing might not work.