With Washington gridlocked again over whether to raise their taxes, it turns out wealthy families already are paying some of their biggest federal tax bills in decades even as the rest of the population continues to pay at historically low rates.
The fiscal cliff compromise has been signed, clearing up a host of questions about taxes for the near future, and the year that just ended. But the long wait for answers left the IRS in limbo, and that may mean millions of refund checks will be delayed too.
A weary House of Representatives passed legislation late Tuesday night that will prevent the long-feared fiscal cliff of broad tax increases and spending cuts. The bill's passage on a bipartisan 257-167 vote sealed a hard-won political triumph for President Barack Obama.
Many of America's rich are complaining that top tax rates are rising in 2013. But, really, they should be glad the new rates will be so low. France is boosting its top tax rate from 48 percent to as high as 75 percent -- and driving some businesspeople and celebrities to bid their home country adieu.
Just two weeks before the economy-threatening "fiscal cliff" is due to kick in, both President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner are making significant concessions to each other, backing off what had once been ironclad positions on how to avoid the huge automatic spending cuts and tax increases.
Despite an intensifying pace, little progress is being reported in talks on averting automatic spending cuts and tax increases that economists fear could send the U.S. economy off a "fiscal cliff."
The dealmakers who warn that a year-end plunge off the "fiscal cliff" would be disastrous don't seem to be rushing to stop it. Why aren't they panicking? Because those master procrastinators know that Washington deadlines are rarely firm, and they know precisely how they can finagle more time.
Deep divisions among Senate Democrats over whether cuts to Medicare and Medicaid should be part of a plan to slow the growth of the federal debt pose a big obstacle to a deal for avoiding a potentially economy-crushing "fiscal cliff," even if Republicans agree to raise taxes.
President Barack Obama plans to make a public case this week for his strategy for dealing with the looming fiscal cliff, traveling to the Philadelphia suburbs Friday as he pressures Republicans to allow tax increases on the wealthy while extending tax cuts for families earning $250,000 or less.
Allowing income tax rates to rise for wealthy Americans, and maintaining rates for the less affluent, would not hurt U.S. economic growth much in 2013, the Congressional Budget Office said on Thursday, stepping into a dispute between Republicans and Democrats over how to resolve the so-called "fiscal cliff."
Last month, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton suggested that elites the world over are under-taxed, and that governments everywhere should change that. Most commentators just assumed she was trying to export the "tax the rich" meme. But what if she's really trying to avoid exporting the rich?
Mitt Romney says the key to getting America's growth back on track is cut taxes even further on the wealthy. But would cutting taxes on "job creators" actually do that? No -- at least not according to the data compiled by nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.
Debate all you like about whether the rich pay their fair share in taxes, but this is certain: Some high earners pay no taxes at all. A recent IRS study found that 35,000 U.S. taxpayers earning $200,000 or more paid no income tax in 2009. Curious how they pulled it off? Read on...
Under his own tax proposal, Mitt Romney would pay half what he would under President Obama's tax plan, saving him almost $5 million a year. But if Romney wins, Obama could save as much as $90,000 a year.
President Obama is making the Buffett Rule -- a minimum tax on millionaires who get off easy under the current tax code -- one of the centerpiece of his re-election campaign. Here's what adoption of the tax might mean for all of us.