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Rich Paying Less Income Tax, Half of Households Pay None
By not in system - AOL NewsWASHINGTON - Still scrambling to file your taxes? You'll probably take little consolation in hearing that 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. The Internal Revenue Service tracks the tax returns with the 400 highest adjusted gross incomes each year. The average income on those returns in 2007, the latest year for IRS data, was nearly $345 million. Their average federal income tax rate was 17 percent, down from 26 percent in 1992. Over the same period, the average federal income tax rate for ...
One Tax Preparer Doubles as a Sex Worker, The Other Does Psychic Readings
By David Moye - AOL NewsMost of Lydia Tinker's customers come to her because she does a great tax return, but some come back because they want a psychic reading. For the past 35 years, Tinker, a licensed tax preparer in La Mesa, Calif., has offered psychic readings from the spirit world to her customers, many of whom would simply be happy with a big refund check. "Numbers speak to me," Tinker, 64, told AOL News. "I look at a birth date or a Social Security number and information comes to me about a person connected with the client. I'm cautious about who I tell this to, but sometimes I just have to reveal it. ...
IRS Awards $4.5M to Whistleblower
By not in system - AOL NewsPHILADELPHIA -- An accountant who tipped off the IRS that his employer was skimping on taxes has received $4.5 million in the first IRS whistleblower award. The accountant's tip netted the IRS $20 million in taxes and interest from the errant financial-services firm. The award represents a 22 percent cut of the taxes recovered. The program, designed to encourage tips in large-scale cases, mandates awards of 15 to 30 percent of the amount recouped. "It ought to encourage a lot of other people to squeal," Sen. Charles Grassley told The Associated Press. The Iowa Republican helped get the IRS ...
Schedule M: The 2010 Tax Credit Explained [VIDEO]
By Mary Phillips-Sandy - AOL News"M" may stand for "money." Part of the 2009 stimulus package was President Barack Obama's Making Work Pay tax credit, or Schedule M, which adjusted federal withholding tables to increase take-home pay by up to $400 for working individuals and up to $800 for working married couples. As the New York Times reported last year, this caused confusion for taxpayers, many of whom didn't know they had to complete a brand-new Schedule M IRS form in order to claim the credit on their returns. The situation got even messier for retirees who could claim the Making Work Pay credit, but only after ...
Opinion: What Does Government Do?
By John Merline - AOL NewsPop quiz. What's the biggest single job the federal government undertakes? National defense? Nope. Homeland security? Wrong. Transportation? Not even close. Law enforcement? No way. Education? Getting colder. Foreign aid? Are you kidding? Nope, the biggest single thing the federal government does these days is ... cut checks. Lots and lots and lots and lots of checks that go to individual citizens -- $2.3 trillion worth last year alone. In fact, according to a table buried deep inside the little-noticed Historical Tables volume of the White House's 2012 budget, these "direct payments ...
Rep. Michele Bachmann, Stay Out of My Bra
By Sarah Wildman - Politics DailyDear Representative Bachmann: I am part of the "nanny state." You don't know me. Nor, as far as I know, do you know any of the women I see each week at my daughter's preschool: moms of toddlers and infants, many of whom have had the good fortune of knowing their mothers' milk. Though, I'm sure, plenty of your constituents are me. I understand you, too, breast-fed. Mazel tov. I'm so glad it worked for you, for your children, for your family. But I can't help but wonder -- after you falsely claimed the government of buying breast pumps for everyone, and decried the new IRS tax deduction for ...
Michelle Obama to Promote Breastfeeding as IRS Gives Tax Breaks for Nursing
By Lynn Sweet - Politics DailyFirst lady Michelle Obama will be speaking out to remove barriers to breastfeeding, Politics Daily has learned, throwing the spotlight on nursing as a way to reduce childhood obesity. This comes as the Obama administration in the past year has made several moves to encourage breastfeeding -- including a push for more flexible workplace rules and an Internal Revenue Service ruling on Thursday that breast pumps and other nursing supplies qualify for tax breaks. Mrs. Obama -- who has spoken in public about nursing her youngest daughter, Sasha -- is going to tread carefully in what might be a ...
IRS Says Breastfeeding Expenses Are Tax Write-Offs. Finally.
By Sarah Wildman - Politics DailyEveryone markets it as cheap and easy. As in, "You can whip it out at any time." And, "It doesn't cost anything." And, "There's nothing to warm up." To a degree, that's true. Traveling and doing it is liberating. And the middle of the night? You can do it in bed; you can do it while you watch TV. But "cheap" isn't really a good descriptor for something so time-consuming and ultimately, especially, but not only, for women who work or want to step away from their child, so many accoutrements. And cheap isn't a good way to applaud something that provides so many benefits down the road. Cheap ...
IRS Announces Amnesty Deal for Offshore Accounts
By Mara Gay - AOL NewsThe Internal Revenue Service is offering a new amnesty deal for offshore accounts, promising that tax evaders who pay their debts won't face prosecution but making it clear that those who do not could end up behind bars. IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman said the agency is making the offer ahead of ramped-up enforcement against Americans who use offshore accounts to evade federal taxes. "We are not letting up on pursuing offshore tax evasion, and there will continue to be more in the works," he said, according to The Wall Street Journal. "If you come in voluntarily, you pay a steep price but ...
Justice Clarence Thomas Failed to Report Wife's Earnings, Watchdog Says
By Christopher Weber - Politics DailySupreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas failed to report nearly $700,000 of his wife's income from a conservative foundation during a four-year span, according to a government watchdog. Common Cause cited IRS records from the Heritage Foundation that that show the think tank paid Virginia Thomas $686,589 between 2003 and 2007. Clarence Thomas did not note the earnings in his Supreme Court financial disclosure forms for those years. Where "spousal noninvestment income" would be disclosed, the justice checked the box next to "none," the watchdog said. Related ...
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