Is a tax a tax?

Is Obamacare a tax or what? The Obama administration can't get their story straight.

Sex and taxes

If you are shacking with with someone, you can blame the government. Unmarried couples who live together benefit under our tax code. So go right ahead. As Flounder said on Animal House, "isn't this great!"

The goose that laid the golden eggs is dead

Colorado voters have rejected a massive statewide tax increase that was favored by the big government/ big labor lobby. Voters are running out of money.

Government waste

Gallup: Americans believe that the Federal government wastes 51 cents of every dollar it collects in taxes. Same for state and local governments. That's enough for a tax revolt right there.

Paying no income tax

Did you know that 51 percent of households in this country pay no income tax.

Taxes and the rich

AP: Super rich see federal taxes drop dramatically. "As Monday's tax filing deadline nears, ponder this: The super rich pay a lot less taxes than they did a couple of decades ago, and nearly half of U.S. households pay no income taxes at all."

Well, I guess that leaves it all up to me. Joking aside, it means that people besides the super rich are getting taxed.

TaxProf: Some states are taxing themselves to death. This is another way of summing up the recent census results. The states that lost seats had an average tax burden of $2,267 per capita, and the states that gained seats had an average tax burden of $1,788. 

In an article entitled "Taxes and the Top Percentile Myth," Alan Reynolds, indicates that taxes are more "progressively distributed" in the U.S. than in Sweden or France.

Taxation is a topic that becomes irrational when discussed by left-wing politicians and sociologists.

Tax Prof: The real reason LeBron James moved from Cleveland (OK, Akron) to Miami was taxes. He will save between $6 million and $8 million by moving to Miami. Sounds good to me.

American Enterprise Institute: We are already raising taxes on the middle class. That was a given all along.

Yahoo Finance: Nearly half of U.S. households pay no federal income tax. That's 47 percent who will pay NO federal income tax for 2009.

I believe EVERYBODY should pay federal income tax, so they will know what's it's like.

IRS Commissioner: Buy health insurance or lose your tax refund. Change you can believe in.

Mark Hemingway: More on Obama's 17-minute response to the complaint about being over taxed. Maybe the problem is that for a Democrat, we can't be over taxed too much.

Woman: "We're over taxed as is." And Obama goes off on her in a 17-minute rant on health care. See Jennifer Rubin's comments: Obama is a bore.

Roger L. Simon:  "And I am now convinced of what I have long suspected — the United States has a president with a serious personality disorder."

Up, up, and away!

Wall Street Journal: Starting on January 1, your tax bill just went UP! Some 25 million middle class Americans now face the alternative minimum tax (AMT), the tax that was originally intended to apply to the few dozen richest taxpayers (actually rich people who were not paying any taxes at all). The AMT will hit families making as little as $75,000. The new homebuyer tax credit just went away. So did the tax deduction for state and local taxes. You also no longer get a federal tax deduction for college tuition and fees if you have a kid in college. There's more bad news.

Middle-class tax time bomb

Bob Herbert has an op-ed in the NYT that is highly critical of Obamacare. He calls it a middle-class tax time bomb.

The bill that passed the Senate with such fanfare on Christmas Eve would impose a confiscatory 40 percent excise tax on so-called Cadillac health plans, which are popularly viewed as over-the-top plans held only by the very wealthy. In fact, it’s a tax that in a few years will hammer millions of middle-class policyholders, forcing them to scale back their access to medical care.

The tax on health benefits is being sold to the public dishonestly as something that will affect only the rich, and it makes a mockery of President Obama’s repeated pledge that if you like the health coverage you have now, you can keep it.
Those who believe this is a good idea should at least have the courage to be straight about it with the American people.

When people realize what they are facing in so-called health care reform, we will have a revolt in this country.
Ann Althouse has this.