Video: Freedom Ranking of the States
Written by Gary North on July 24, 2014
After the federal government gets finished with you, the state governments get their turn. Where will you be skinned least? The race is on.
Continue reading → Philadelphia Taxes Anything That Moves, Including Lap Dancing
Written by Gary North on July 17, 2014
Anyway, the city tried. But a judge said the city went too far. He said the City Council must pass a specific ordinance to this effect. “If the city wants to tax lap dances, they can go to City Council, ask City Council to amend the ordinance, and they can start imposing a tax on […]
Continue reading →Fewer IRS Audits Than Ever
Posted on July 16, 2014
The GOP-controlled House has voted to slash the budget for the Internal Revenue Service’s tax enforcement division by $1.2 billion, a 25 percent cut that would mean fewer audits of taxpayers and make it more likely that people who cheat on their taxes will get away with it. The House approved the cuts by voice […]
Continue reading →State University Professor Is Paid $2,400 Per Hour
Written by Gary North on June 28, 2014
It’s tough teaching at the University of North Carolina. The hours are killing. I mean, 75 whole hours a year! Can you imagine it? The class time is 50 minutes per class. You do this three times a week for a crushing 30 weeks per academic year. And all they pay you is $205,000. That’s […]
Continue reading →Good News: Household Debt Is Falling; Federal Taxes Will Not Rise.
Written by Gary North on June 21, 2014
We are told that household debt is a crushing burden in the United States. The statistics do not bear this out. Average household credit card debt is about $7,000. Half of Americans have zero credit card debt. For those American households that have credit card debt, the figure is $15,000. But this is down from […]
Continue reading →Tax Protestors, Witch Doctors, and the IRS
Written by Gary North on June 6, 2014
One of my goals with this website is to warn people against scams, or worse, dedicated suicidal nonsense, that can destroy their lives. One of these high-risk sinkholes of futility is the tax protest movement. These people do not simply protest income taxes; they adopt weird strategies to justify the refusal to pay the IRS. […]
Continue reading →French Fried Entrepreneurs: They Are Leaving
Written by Gary North on June 3, 2014
Rich people in France are pulling up stakes. They will escape the tax man. (Unlike the USA, if you are not living in France, you do not pay taxes to the French government.) Young people in France who want to start businesses say they want to leave France. A lot of them will. France’s taxes […]
Continue reading →Americans Pay Taxes Rather Than Saving
Written by Gary North on May 28, 2014
Americans pay around 40% of their income to various governments. Then they find that they have no savings. At least one-quarter of Americans have no savings for retirement. Actually, most of these zero-thrift people pay no federal income tax. But they do pay Social Security and Medicare taxes if they work. They hope that when […]
Continue reading →Money Up a Rat Hole: The “Space Fence” Boondoggle
Written by Gary North on May 9, 2014
Gravity was a popular movie. It was lots of fun, except for one thing: it’s going to happen. Statistically, it’s going to happen. The governments of the world have known this for over 35 years. Maybe you have heard of the tragedy of the commons. It’s where a valuable asset is not owned. There is […]
Continue reading →Wealthy Taxpayers Wound Up Paying 13% More On The Same Income As Last Year
Posted on April 25, 2014
It’s no secret that high-income households have historically paid more than their fair share of income tax relative to their numbers. For the 2013 filing season for 2012 individual income tax returns, as of July 25, 2013, IRS processed 137 million returns with adjusted gross income, or AGI ( gross income minus deductions for AGI […]
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