Operation FairTax, organized by members of FairTax Nation, is the first national conference for supporters of the FairTax — everyday citizens who are committed to actively promoting HR 25/S 296 and bringing it from an “It’s-a-great-idea-but-it-will-neverhappen” dream to a bill on the President’s desk. The conference promises to bring educational and motivational tools to volunteers who are willing to take the FairTax message to elected officials in Congress while here, and to spread the word to all Americans back home.
Arrive in DC at the Hyatt Regency Crystal City on Wednesday, April 14th and join us for an evening “Meet and Greet” and a briefing for plans to “Storm The Hill” on April 15th. Early sign-in begins.
On Thursday, April 15th, our “Storm the Hill” event promises to be one of the biggest public displays yet to create awareness of the FairTax, educating uncommitted and opposed members of Congress on why our country needs FairTax and why they must support it. We’ll make our presence known, alongside other rally-goers who have chosen this significant day for public awareness. Continued sign-ins throughout the day will facilitate head counts for Friday’ workshops, break-out groups and event seatings.
Friday, April 16th, the “meat” of the conference, will begin with late sign-ins. The day will be filled with inspiring speakers and grassroots workshops designed to provide attendees with new and creative tools to spread the word about FairTax far and wide.
Event registration fee is $45.00. Early registration (prior to February 15) is $35.00, so register early and save! Registration after April 6 is $55.00, but don’t wait! To register, each registrant must have a unique e-mail address. Hotel room reservations are iindependent of event registration, and a 3-day minimum stay is required to obtain the group rate. Go to https://resweb.passkey.com/go/fairtax for prices, details and hotel registration.. Be part of history! Attend the first annual conference of FairTax grassroots supporters!
Operation FairTax, organized by members of FairTax Nation, is the first national conference for supporters of the FairTax — everyday citizens who are committed to actively promoting HR 25/S 296 and bringing it from an “It’s-a-great-idea-but-it-will-neverhappen” dream to a bill on the President’s desk. The conference promises to bring educational and motivational tools to volunteers who are willing to take the FairTax message to elected officials in Congress while here, and to spread the word to all Americans back home.
Arrive in DC at the Hyatt Regency Crystal City on Wednesday, April 14th and join us for an evening “Meet and Greet” and a briefing for plans to “Storm The Hill” on April 15th. Early sign-in begins.
On Thursday, April 15th, our “Storm the Hill” event promises to be one of the biggest public displays yet to create awareness of the FairTax, educating uncommitted and opposed members of Congress on why our country needs FairTax and why they must support it. We’ll make our presence known, alongside other rally-goers who have chosen this significant day for public awareness. Continued sign-ins throughout the day will facilitate head counts for Friday’ workshops, break-out groups and event seatings.
Friday, April 16th, the “meat” of the conference, will begin with late sign-ins. The day will be filled with inspiring speakers and grassroots workshops designed to provide attendees with new and creative tools to spread the word about FairTax far and wide.
To register, each registrant must have a unique e-mail address. You must reserve the hotel room independently of event registration, and a 3-day minimum stay is required to obtain the group rate. Go to the hotel reservation information page for details prior to registering for this event. Be part of history! Attend the first annual conference of FairTax grassroots supporters!
Note: No refunds — your cancelled registration dues will be greatly appreciated as a FairTax donation. Donations to OFT are not deductible on federal income taxes. No registration information will ever be shared or sold to other organizations.
I remember the early days of the FairTax movement where we were greeted with laughter, ridicule, and — well you get the picture. A lot of things have changed since those early days. The political climate has changed and so have we. We have built a grassroots organization ready to take the next step – to lead the national tax reform movement — FairTax movement– in Washington DC.
We need you to join us in Washington DC on April 14, 15, and 16 to let Congress know FairTax is here to stay. Congressman, If you want to keep your job — you need to boldly support the FairTax.
The first step we need each of you to take is to make your best effort to join us in DC. We are asking for a small registration fee of $35 per person during the month of January to cover the basic per person cost of the event. Registration forms to follow next week
We have hotel rooms set aside for FairTaxers — and we need you to book them now!
IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman does not file his own taxes in part because he believes the tax code is complex.
During an interview on C-SPAN’s “Newsmakers” program that aired on Sunday, Shulman said he uses a tax preparer for his own returns.
“I’ve used one for years. I find it convenient. I find the tax code complex so I use a preparer,” Shulman said.
Pressed on how he would make the tax code simpler, Shulman responded, “I don’t write the tax laws. Congress writes the tax laws so that’s a whole different discussion.”
The IRS this month announced it will be scrutinizing the tax preparer industry. Shulman said the IRS is looking to set “a minimal level of competence in the preparer community.”
Later in the C-SPAN interview, Shulman downplayed his use of a tax preparer, saying he has used one for 10 years. He noted that he and President Barack Obama are proponents of simplifying the tax code.
Shulman said about 60 percent of Americans use tax preparers and another 20 percent use software to file their returns.
He added, “So you’re over 80 percent of people who aren’t just sitting down and filling out the forms themselves.”
As legislators wrestle with Washington state’s budget shortfall, it’s important that they recognize the effects of tax hikes on job preservation and creation, says Dr. Kriss Sjoblom, an economist with the Washington Research Council.
According to the Council’s new study, “The Economic Impact of Hiking Taxes to Close the Budget Gap”:
Increasing the state Business and Occupation tax (B&O) by $1 billion would eliminate up to 15,072 jobs.
A $2.6 billion B&O tax increase would cost 38,968 Washingtonian’s their jobs.
Raising the B&O tax on businesses, some of which are struggling and are not making a profit, would have serious ramifications not only on businesses but also workers, says Carl Gipson, Small Business Director for the Washington Policy Center (WPC). Thousands of jobs are at stake with this decision. Burdening small businesses with higher taxes today will lead to fewer jobs and lower economic output tomorrow. For example:
A $1 billion sales tax increase would eliminate 14,759 jobs.
A $2.6 billion sales tax increase would eliminate 38,024 jobs.
Washingtonians are already struggling in the worst economy since the 1930s. Lawmakers should not try to make balancing the budget easier by making people’s lives harder, says Paul Guppy, the WPC’s Vice President for Research.
The study shows job losses could be mitigated depending on how lawmakers chose to spend the new tax revenue.
To put Washington state on firm fiscal footing, any budget adopted must not raise taxes during a recession, or result in a projected deficit in the next biennium, says Jason Mercier, Government Reform Director for WPC. This will mean that some of the programs we’ve grown accustomed to during good times must be eliminated. Taking more money from businesses and cutting people’s take-home pay through higher taxes is not the solution.
Source: “Tax Increases Will Cost Even More Washingtonians Their Jobs,” Washington Policy Center, January 11, 2010.
A Maryland nurse accomplished two rare feats in her battle with the Internal Revenue Service: She defended herself against the agency’s lawyers and won, and she got a ruling that could help tens of thousands of students deduct the cost of an M.B.A. degree on their taxes.
The U.S. Tax Court handed Lori Singleton-Clarke her victory last month, saying the 47-year-old Bryantown, Md., woman had properly deducted nearly $15,000 in business school tuition. The Tax Court ruling should make it easier for many other professionals to deduct the expense of a Master in Business Administration degree.
Melissa Golden for The Wall Street JournalLori Singleton-Clarke, at her Maryland home, says she ’still can hardly believe’ her Tax Court victory.
After getting word of the court decision, “I nearly yelled the roof off the house,” Ms. Singleton-Clarke says. “I still can hardly believe it.”
The IRS’s rules on deducting work-related tuition are complicated and onerous, ultimately preventing most students from deducting their tuition. But this case clarifies the rules and will likely lead to more taxpayers taking the deduction, tax experts say.
Few taxpayers decide to go toe to toe with the IRS as Ms. Singleton-Clarke did, arguing her case without a lawyer. For good reason: In 2009, individuals won only about 10% of about 300 such cases, according to data from Tax Analysts. Ms. Singleton-Clarke fought her case in Tax Court, a venue where taxpayers don’t have to pay the contested tax before going to trial. The court has a special procedure for small cases.
Some of the losers, such as several dozen tax protesters who defended the filing of frivolous returns, were tilting at tax windmills. Others were simply on the wrong side of the law, including a horse enthusiast who wanted to deduct his hobby losses, an unsuccessful comedian who tried to classify his expenses as business losses, and an attorney who claimed over $100,000 in medical deductions for his visits to prostitutes.
Of the few who did prevail against the IRS, nearly half came to court on a single issue: requests for “innocent spouse” treatment that decouples a spouse from a partner who is a tax cheat. This provision has been used mostly to protect unknowing wives against their husbands’ tax misdeeds. One of the spouses granted relief last year was formerly married to an investment banker who didn’t pay his taxes after his bonus didn’t come though.
Ms. Singleton-Clarke’s encounter with the tax system shows what it can take for one individual to prevail over the IRS against the long odds: favorable facts, obsessive organization, and fearlessness. She says she didn’t have a lawyer because she couldn’t afford one.
Her odyssey began in 2006, when she filed her 2005 return. It showed just over $50,000 of income, several smaller deductions, and one large one—for $14,787 of expenses for an M.B.A. from the University of Phoenix, an online school. Ms. Singleton-Clarke deducted the tuition because her tax preparer told her she met the law’s narrow definitions.
When the IRS audited the return in late 2006, she conceded all the IRS’s challenges to her deductions but one. She dug in her heels on the tuition deduction because, after looking at a complex diagram in IRS Publication 970, she believed she qualified for it.
The audit process first involved several rounds of confusing IRS correspondence. “At one point I had three requests for the same records, each with a different contact name. I had to spend hours calling to figure out who needed what,” says Ms. Singleton-Clarke, a steely but soft-spoken woman.
After that she was summoned to an IRS office in downtown Washington where she had to provide more copies of her résumé, a job description, and other records. She felt overwhelmed and intimidated.
Melissa Golden for The Wall Street JournalLori Singleton-Clarke, in her battle against the IRS, was lauded for her meticulous record-keeping.
Both the IRS’s actions and her reactions are typical, says Christopher Bergin, president of Tax Analysts, a group that fights for tax-system transparency and since l972 has won a series of freedom-of-information cases against the IRS. “Without doing anything illegal, they muscled her. That’s what they do. The pressure can be terrifying,” he says.
A spokesman for the IRS says that it never comments on issues with specific taxpayers.
As Ms. Singleton-Clarke held fast to her conviction that she deserved the deduction, she drew on skills she developed as a nurse responsible for dealing with doctors who may have infringed hospital rules. That was why she studied for her M.B.A., she says: “I didn’t want to feel outmatched by surgeons who didn’t want to talk to me.”
When the IRS again denied her deduction by mail after her meeting with the agent, Ms. Singleton-Clarke wound up going to Tax Court to set a trial date. But when she came to court in November 2008, it seemed that everyone else had settled their cases: “There was just me by myself at one table and the [IRS] tax team of at another in a big courtroom.”
The tax team consisted of a two attorneys and several assistants or paralegals. Ms. Singleton-Clarke had been told to bring copies of her documents in triplicate, including a time line of her career. Judge Stanley Goldberg questioned her closely and complimented her on her record-keeping during the hour-long trial. “The whole time,” she says: “I was thinking, here is this god-like man who is going to make an important decision for me. But he wasn’t a bully. I had met with the bullies before.”
Reached Friday by phone, Judge Goldberg said: “I remember the case well because Ms. Singleton-Clarke was so articulate and well-prepared. Too many taxpayers are not.”
Ms. Singleton-Clarke’s victory came when the ruling was issued a year later. It is unusual in that it helps not only her but others as well. Decisions in small cases aren’t allowed to be cited as precedent. “But everyone uses them,” says Melissa Labant, a tax expert with the American Institute of CPAs. “This case definitely provides a road map others can use, especially M.B.A. students.”
President will seek modifications to the law that sent billions in bailout money in 2008 and 2009 to a flailing Wall Street that was approaching collapse, an official says.
Updated January 12, 2010
WASHINGTON — Targeting an industry whose political deafness has vexed his administration, President Barack Obama is weighing recovering tax dollars from government-rescued financial institutions with a levy.
The proposed levy could put Obama on the popular side of public opinion that is decidedly against Wall Street and angry over shortfalls in a $700 billion bank bailout fund.
A senior administration official said Monday that Obama would seek modifications to the law that sent billions in bailout money in 2008 and 2009 to a flailing Wall Street that was approaching collapse. The government official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the president’s thinking.
The idea received an early boost from Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the top Democrat in the House, where there have been calls for a hefty tax on bank bonuses.
“While we have not seen any specific language from the administration, Congress will certainly examine any serious proposals to lower the deficit and recoup even more of the TARP funds for the taxpayers,” said Nadeam Elshami, a spokesman for Pelosi, D-Calif.
The 2008 law that created the Troubled Asset Relief Program requires the president to seek a way to recoup unrecovered TARP money from financial institutions, but five years after the law was enacted. It does not specify how the money should be recovered.
An industry official said consideration of a levy now would be premature.
“Current law doesn’t trigger this tax proposal for another four years,” said Scott Talbott, chief lobbyist for the Financial Services Roundtable, an industry group for some of the largest financial firms.
“We look forward to seeing the details of the complexity of the formula, of who it’s applied to and what the assessment is based on and when it is applied,” he said.
Government officials have conceded that they don’t expect to recoup billions in TARP money used to rescue insurance conglomerate American International Group Inc. and the auto industry. Banks have been repaying their infusions, in part to get out from under compensation limits imposed on the bailout recipients. Banks have also paid dividends from the government help.
The administration is projecting the losses to the government from the bailout program will be about $120 billion, most of it due to auto and AIG assistance.
According to the law, the status of the TARP fund must be assessed by late 2013, five years after it passed. “In any case where there is a shortfall,” the statute says, “the President shall submit a legislative proposal that recoups from the financial industry an amount equal to the shortfall in order to ensure that the Troubled Asset Relief Program does not add to the deficit or national debt.”
It is unclear how the administration would seek to recoup shortfalls due to TARP infusions into the auto industry or AIG. And any fee could potentially be imposed on banks that have already repaid their TARP infusions in full. Congress would have to approve any fee plan.
Discussion of a bank fee to reduce the federal deficit comes as the administration is preparing to submit its 2011 budget proposal next month and as Wall Street banks this month prepare to hand out near-record compensation for last year’s performance.
Obama has been strident in his criticism of bankers, calling them “fat cats” last month in an interview that aired on the eve of their visit to the White House. With public anger over the bailout still strong, Obama has embraced populist rhetoric in an effort to shame bank executives into paying back the government more quickly and their executives less lavishly.
At the White House on Monday, Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs jabbed at the perceived disconnect between Wall Street executives and their customers. The spokesman said the disparity angered his boss.
“I don’t know anybody, save for a few that work for those banks, that don’t get visibly angry … in reading those stories,” Gibbs said. “I think they’re not listening to the American people.”
Funds collected from such a levy would go to pay down the $1.4 trillion deficit amid the Obama-backed stimulus package and aid to Detroit’s automakers.
Washington spent about $245 billion to help banks in the Troubled Asset Relief Program, much less than President George W. Bush’s Treasury Department secured to keep financial firms afloat.
So far, $162 billion of that has been repaid, including $20 billion each from Citigroup and Bank of America under a special targeted program.
Monday, January 11, 2010
By Staff, Associated Press
Washington (AP) – The Obama administration will announce on Monday funding for nine projects designed to significantly increase fuel efficiency in heavy trucks and passenger vehicles, with more than half the money coming from the $787 billion stimulus package.
Energy Secretary Stephen Chu will detail the projects during a ceremony in Columbus, Ind., home of Cummins Inc., which is to receive nearly $40 million to develop a more efficient and cleaner diesel engine, a more aerodynamic long-haul truck cab and trailer, and a fuel cell that would deliver auxiliary power to reduce engine idling while the vehicle was not on the road.
The White House said the nine projects would receive $187 million from the federal government, with more than $100 million coming from stimulus funds and the remainder from DOE appropriations. Recipients are expected to match government funding, creating a total investment of $375 million in the projects.
According to the administration, the nine recipients are expected to create more than 500 research, engineering and management jobs, with 6,000 more positions anticipated when the technologies go into production and assembly.
In detailing the project awards, the administration said the new technologies, when in broad use, “could save more than 100 million gallons of oil per day and reduce carbon emissions from on-road vehicles by 20 percent by 2030.”
Three of the projects, receiving $115 million, are aimed at improving long-haul truck fuel efficiency by 50 percent, with new designs to be ready by 2015.
In additions to Cummins, Daimler Trucks North America LLC, of Portland, Ore., will receive nearly $40 million; Navistar Inc., of Fort Wayne, Ind., is in line for $27.3 million.
The remaining six projects for passenger vehicles will spread more than $71 million among Chrysler, Ford, General Motors, Delphi Automotive Systems, Robert Bosch and a second Cummins project.
The money will go to companies based in economically hard-hit Michigan and Indiana, with the exception of Daimler Trucks.
If the complete government takeover of America’s health care system is to be stopped, the battle will be over federal funding for abortion. That important fight could still prove the stumbling block for the Democrats’ socialist health care bill.
The pressure is now back on the House of Representatives. Eleven of the Democrats who voted for the House version of the health care bill have repeatedly stated that they did so only because the bill contained firm language banning use of taxpayer funds to support abortion. Indeed, those 11 signed a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stating that they “cannot support any health care reform proposal unless it explicitly excludes abortion from the scope of any government-defined or subsidized health insurance plan.”
There is also one Republican, Louisiana Rep. Anh “Joseph” Cao, who voted for the House health bill but who will now oppose it without a prohibition on government-funded abortions. Every other Republican in the House voted against the massive government expenditure already.
The original House health care bill passed by a slim margin of 220 to 215. But with the 11 Democratic members and Mr. Cao promising to vote against the bill if it includes abortion funding (which is included in the Senate bill), Democrats will have to persuade 10 of the 38 Democratic congressmen who voted against the original bill to change their vote to make up the 12 lost votes. (The original number of Democratic dissenters was 39, but Alabama Rep. Parker Griffith has since crossed the aisle and become a Republican.)
Twenty-two of the 38 House Democrats who voted against the health care bill voted to support the Stupak-Pitts Amendment, which banned forcing taxpayers to pay for abortions. With that provision removed, these Democrats should have an even more difficult time voting for the government health care takeover. In a world where consistency matters, the Democratic leadership needs to get 10 of the remaining 16 Democratic congressmen to switch their votes. That will take serious arm twisting or some really expensive payoffs.
Thirty of the 38 Democrats represent congressional districts that voted for Republican John McCain in the 2008 presidential election. Many are freshmen who need to be extra sensitive to the views of their constituents.
There’s a belief in the nation’s capital that so-called “moderate” Democrats only vote against their liberal party line when their votes don’t count. We hope that’s not the case. Either way, constituents for all 38 of these congressmen need to let their voices be heard. These 38 individuals will make the difference. Rasmussen polling finds that Americans by a 14-percentage point margin disapprove of the health care bill passing through Congress. Presumably that opposition is even stronger in the Republican-leaning districts that these congressmen represent. Hopefully, these politicians will listen to their constituents.
Below is a list of the 38 representatives and the districts they represent. The following information indicates which ones voted for the pro-life Stupak-Pitts Amendment, the percentage of the time they have voted for pro-life legislation this year, and the telephone numbers for their Washington and main district offices. In the National Right to Life Voting Rating following the member, a higher percentage indicates a more pro-life voting record.
John Adler (N.J. 3) 0%
Call (202) 225-4765 and (732) 608-7235
Jason Altmire (Pa. 4) 50%
Voted for Stupak-Pitts Amendment
Call (202) 225-2565 and (724) 378-0928
Brian Baird (Wash. 3) 0%
Call (202) 225-3536 and (360) 695-6292
John Barrow (Ga. 12) 25%
Voted for Stupak-Pitts Amendment
Call (202) 225-2823 and (912) 354-7282
John Boccieri (Ohio 16) 50%
Voted for Stupak-Pitts Amendment
Call (202) 225-3876 or (330) 489-4414
Dan Boren (Okla. 2) 100%
Voted for Stupak-Pitts Amendment
Call (202) 225-2701 and (918) 687-2533
Rick Boucher (Va. 9) 0%
Call (202) 225-3861 and (276) 628-1145
Allen Boyd (Fla. 2) 0%
Call (202) 225-5235 and (850) 561-3979
Bobby Bright (Ala. 2) 100%
Voted for Stupak-Pitts Amendment
Call (202) 225-2901 and (334) 794-9680
Ben Chandler (Ky. 6) 25%
Voted for Stupak-Pitts Amendment
Call (202) 225-4706 and (859) 219-1366
Travis Childers (Miss. 1) 100%
Voted for Stupak-Pitts Amendment
Call (202) 225-4306 and (662) 841-8808
Artur Davis (Ala. 7) 50%
Voted for Stupak-Pitts Amendment
Call (202) 225-2665 and (205) 254-1960
Lincoln Davis (Tenn. 4) 100%
Voted for Stupak-Pitts Amendment
Call (202) 225-6831 and (931) 879-2361
Chet Edwards (Texas 17) 0%
Call (202) 225-6105 and (254) 752-9600
Bart Gordon (Tenn. 6) 25%
Voted for Stupak-Pitts Amendment
Call (202) 225-4231 and (615) 896-1986
Tim Holden (Pa. 17) 25%
Voted for Stupak-Pitts Amendment
Call (202) 225-5546 and (717) 234-5904
Larry Kissell (N.C. 0%
Call (202) 225-3715 and (704) 786-1612
Co-host George Stephanopoulos: “Let’s talk about the bonuses you mentioned. Is the President going to tell them [bankers], flatly, ‘Don’t take them?’”
White House advisor David Axelrod: “Well, I think he’s going to talk to them about the implications of those bonuses….But our principal focus is how do we get the economy moving again? How do we create jobs? And that means getting credit to small businesses and medium-sized businesses.”
Stephanopoulos: “David, why not tax the bonuses? Britain last week announced that they’re going to have a big windfall tax, a one-time tax on these big bonuses this year because the banks got so much help. Why not do that?”
Happy New Year. Your tax bill just went way up. When the clock hit midnight on Jan. 1, some 70 new taxes on the middle class and small businesses went into effect, thanks to Congress’s failure to prevent the expiration of popular and economically vital tax breaks on time, says Stephen Moore, a senior economics writer for the Wall Street Journal.
For example:
Some 25 million middle class Americans are now slated to get hit with the alternative minimum tax (AMT) this year; the tax that was originally supposed to only hit the richest 100 Americans.
This year, the alternative minimum tax will gather $63 billion from American families with an income of as little as $75,000, according to the Senate Finance Committee.
The AMT may now hit tax filers who are school teachers, construction workers and bus drivers; call them the new rich.
The nation’s employers are none too happy either with Congress’s failure to extend these tax cuts before the New Year:
The research tax credit, which businesses depend on for new innovation and R&D, has been suspended. This will raise R&D costs by more than $7 billion in 2010.
The 50 percent write-off for small businesses for capital purchases — such as expanding their facilities, purchasing new equipment or machinery, or building a new plant — has vanished.
Without those tax incentives, small businesses are likely to put any plans to expand their operations on hold. That means less jobs and fewer pay raises.
A study by the National Center for Policy Analysis found that about 90 percent of the benefits from capital investment goes to workers in the form of higher wages due to increased productivity.
But the biggest debacle is the estate tax, says Moore:
On Jan. 1 it fell to zero for the year, and then in 2011 it goes back up to 55 percent.
Estate tax attorneys are full of stories of wealthy heirs with living wills that ask their dependents to take account of the estate tax when determining when to pull the plug on the life support system.
Don’t be surprised if death rates of wealthy Americans rises substantially this year.
Source: Stephen Moore, “The New Year Brings Tax Chaos; At least 2010 is a good year to die,” Wall Street Journal, January 8, 2010.
The Democrat-dominated Congress has come up with a new way for President Obama to violate his campaign pledge to not raise taxes on families earning less than $250,000 per year. It’s a tax on securities transactions — trading in stocks, options, futures and so on. And why not single out trading for special taxation? We levy special taxes on tobacco, alcohol and other vices. Except that trading isn’t a vice. The exchange and hedging of business interests is a virtuous — and utterly essential — activity in a free economy, say Donald L. Luskin, chief investment officer at Trend Macrolytics LLC, and Chris Hynes, chief executive officer of Hynes Capital.
Setting aside the critical issue of why certain types of securities are singled out for tax and others are not, the tax as currently proposed does not even succeed in fairly targeting speculators as opposed to investors. In fact, like most tax schemes, it is riddled with arbitrariness and capriciousness, say Luskin and Hynes:
Suppose you’re an investor and you buy a stock and hold the position for 20 years.
Suppose the person who sold it to you was a day trader — who might end up buying the stock again 10 minutes later from someone else and then selling it after an hour.
You both pay the same tax.
And don’t believe the proponents of the tax when the say it’s so small you’ll never notice it, say Luskin and Hynes:
At one quarter of 1 percent, that would be a cost of $0.33 on a share of IBM.
If you were to buy or sell $100,000 worth of IBM (or any stock), the tax would be $250.
Single taxpayers would get an annual exemption of that amount, but trade again, and you’re taxed $250; again, another $250, over and over.
Each time, that’s about 20 times the commission that a typical online broker would charge you to make that trade — yes, the greedy broker, the one on Wall Street.
Source: Donald L. Luskin and Chris Hynes, “Why Taxing Stock Trades Is a Really Bad Idea,” Wall Street Journal, January 6, 2010.
College football fans can’t even get a respite from big government on game day. Yesterday’s matchup between Central Michigan and Troy was particularly insulting to taxpayers because it’s the annual GMAC Bowl, says Tad DeHaven, a financial analyst with the Cato Institute.
GMAC, the former in-house financing arm of General Motors, has been sponsoring the bowl game since 2000, when it paid $500,000 for the right.
More recently, the firm was battered by the collapse of GM and the housing market, and it was allowed to restructure as a bank holding company, which made it eligible for TARP bailout funds.
The federal government has given GMAC $12.5 billion in return for 35.4 percent ownership stake in the company, however, the bailout just got larger.
From last week’s Wall Street Journal:
The Treasury Department last week said it will provide GMAC Financial Services with an additional $3.8 billion in capital and assume a majority stake in the firm.
The money, along with adjustments to existing aid already provided to the firm, aims to close a capital shortfall identified by government stress tests in May.
The additional aid brings the total U.S. investment in GMAC to $16.3 billion and raises the government’s ownership interest to 56 percent from the current 35 percent.
In exchange for committing more funds, the Treasury will appoint a total of four directors to the company’s board instead of two as previously planned.
The company will also continue to be subject to pay limits set by U.S. pay czar Kenneth Feinberg.
Whatever GMAC is currently paying to sponsor the bowl game, it’s not a large sum compared to the billions in funds it has received. Nonetheless, it is a poke in the eye to bailout-fatigued taxpayers that a government-owned corporate failure continues to blow money on a largely irrelevant football game, says DeHaven.
Source: Tad DeHaven, “The Bailout Bowl,” Cato Institute, January 4, 2010.
When the University of Alabama and the University of Texas meet tonight for the college football national championship, you’d better take in all the game. After all, you’re paying for it, says Neal McCluskey, associate director of the Cato Institute’s Center for Educational Freedom.
Many bowls receive generous taxpayer subsidies:
According to Mark Yost, author of “Varsity Green,” seven bowls received more than $21.6 million in government aid between 2001 and 2005.
And the majority of bowls are tax-exempt, supposedly because they’re good for local tourism.
That bowl executives often make big money and corporate sponsors get prominent advertising is apparently irrelevant.
Then, while playing in a bowl comes with a minimum payout of $750,000 for participating schools, many institutions end up spending much more than that to participate — losses that taxpayers bear, says McCluskey:
Schools must agree to buy several thousand tickets for whichever bowl they’re in, with the hope of selling those tickets to thousands of fans.
But with more than 30 bowls being played, many schools participate in games contested far from campus that aren’t exactly must-see football.
The result is often big ticket losses.
Bowl participants also incur huge travel and lodging expenses for players, athletic staffs, and bands, and they spend considerable sums wining and dining school and football officials. As a result of all these costs, even big-name institutions playing in elite bowls may be thrown for serious losses, says McCluskey. For example, in 2007:
West Virginia University lost more than $1 million on the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl.
National-championship combatants Florida and Ohio State ended a combined $600,000 in the hole.
Source: Neal McCluskey, “College Football Very Taxing,” Cato Institute, January 4, 2010.
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Welcome
Welcome to FairTaxSOWEGA (which stands for SouthWest Georgia for the non-natives). This is the site we will use to communicate and support the FairTax movement in Southwest Georgia. The state of Georgia is the biggest supporter of the FairTax and until now has been virtually nonexistent in our area. We intend to change that! We need the FairTax and the FairTax movement needs us to spread the word! Please feel free to look around and learn about the FairTax and how YOU can make a difference. Thanks for visiting!
If we didn’t see this before- How we wish this was today
Words of Widsom
"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have ...
The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases." Thomas Jefferson
"The largest source of compliance burdens for taxpayers, and the IRS, is the overwhelming complexity of the tax code. The only meaningful way to reduce these burdens is to simplify the tax code enormously. Nina Olson, National Taxpayer Advocate at the IRS, January 8, 2009
""It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather, a tireless, irate minority keen to set brush-fires of freedom in the minds of men." Samuel Adams
"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." Albert Einstein
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world: indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” Margaret Mead
“We in America do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate.” Thomas Jefferson
"Those who can not remember the past are condemned to repeat it." American Philosopher, George Santayana
"Please remember that under the sixteenth Amendment, Congress can take 100% of our income anytime it wants to. As a matter of fact, now it imposes a tax as high as 91%. This is downright confiscation and cannot be defended on any grounds." T. Coleman Andrews, Commissioner of Internal Revenue Service, 1953-1955
I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do. Helen Keller
Our present tax system...exerts too heavy a drag on growth...It reduces the financial incentives for personal effort, investment, and risk-taking...and the present tax load...distorts economic judgments and channels an undue amount of energy into efforts to avoid tax liabilities. John F. Kennedy, November 20, 1962
“You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that, my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.” Dr. Adrian Rogers
"Our Constitution gave us the rights for
Under God
The freedom of life, with liberty and justice for all and to the Republic which we stand the right to pursue happiness
For ownership of any individuals to own the rights to their property.
This property includes the ownership of their time as they work for their wages to own as they see fit
for the pursuit of happiness
Personal wages not to be given to OUR government to be taken by taxation against the will of the people
In doing so this is an individual's right and property taken by force from our government in which shall not stand for against it's people
That the Constitution was written for
We the People of United States of America"
Charlie Prochaska 4-2009
"Would it not be better to simplify the system of taxation rather than to spread it over such a variety of subjects and pass through so many new hands." Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Madison, 1784
At the conclusion of the Constitutionl Convention, Benjamin Franklin was asked, "What have you wrought?"
He answered, "...a Republic, if you can keep it."
"Hold on, my friends, to the Constitution and the Republic for which it stands. Miracles do not cluster, and what has happened once in 6,000 years, may not happen again. Hold on to the Constitution, for if the American Constitution should fail, there will be anarchy throughout the world." Daniel Webster
The few who look forward, while always knocking on new doors, no matter how futile it may seem or how insignificant their progress, will carry the many who just keep waiting for things to get better. Mike Dooley
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![[tax2]](http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/MI-BA738_tax2_D_20100108173515.jpg)
Melissa Golden for The Wall Street JournalLori Singleton-Clarke, in her battle against the IRS, was lauded for her meticulous record-keeping.
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