taxes

Terri Lynn Land's column wrote a column today on how to fix roads. She wants to fund road repairs ... by cutting taxes.

How do you make the IRS even more scary? Hire private firms to relentlessly harass Americans that owe it money.

Alabama's lack of marriage equality means that same sex couples can't file joint returns forcing them to pay more in taxes than they would otherwise. After DOMA's demise, the federal government recognized gay marriages the way they did all legal marriages, but some states — including Alabama — still require for separate tax filings.

President Barack Obama's top economists say the nation is on track to make economic progress over the next two years, but say it would do even better if Congress would enact the additional spending he proposed in his most recent budget. A divided Congress in an election year is not likely to heed that call.

The state of New Jersey has filed an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court in a last-ditch effort to legalize sports betting at the state's casinos and horse racing tracks. Currently, sports betting is only legal in Las Vegas.

Rep. Louie Gohmert rallied a fawning audience at a Tea Party gathering in South Carolina two weeks ago for his proposal for a massive expansion of federal taxes, a plan based on the right-wing myth that too many Americans lack “skin in the game.”

“The bill does two things,” says Colorado State Senator Pat Steadman. “It changes last year’s civil unions law to remove the prohibition against civil union partners filling joint returns… And it removes language from the state income tax law that talks about married couples or makes reference to husbands and wives. Basically, it makes the language gender neutral.”

Every year, the Obama administration pushes to raise the royalty rate on onshore oil-and-gas production, looking to channel more of the profits from extraction on public lands to federal and state coffers. The efforts have been unsuccessful. Today’s 12.5 percent rate hasn’t changed since the 1920s. Analysts say that low rate has cost Colorado taxpayers an estimated $300 million since Obama took office in 2008.

As we enter into yet another round of budget discussions, the Democratic Party is confronted with an opportunity – and a challenge. There’s an opportunity to shift the budget debate to an area where they hold the high ground. But it will be a challenge for some Democrats to take the initiative on a subject they seem reluctant to discuss. The subject is taxes.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich signed the state's $62 billion state spending plan into law Sunday after vetoing an attempt by legislators to block his administration from expanding Medicaid to additional low-income residents — but he left in place a new requirement that doctors inform pregnant women seeking abortions of any fetal heartbeat.