It’s Fix the Tax Code Friday! It’s also election time. Folks are throwing their hats into the ring left and right… literally. So today’s question is:
Should contributions to political candidates be tax deductible (psst, currently, they’re not!)?
I am a recovering rewards program junkie. My husband used to refer to me a “marketer’s dream” and he was right. My keychain was cluttered with those little bar code cards for everywhere from Genuardi’s to CVS to the local hardware store. I couldn’t resist the lure of a bargain. The truth is that most…
The American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act of 2010 (also referred to as HR 4213) may need to be renamed the American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act of 2011. More than six months after its introduction, the bill is still sitting in Congress with just about a month and a half to go…
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has released a study concluding that many companies that contract with the federal government have been avoiding paying taxes. The GAO told a House subcommittee on April 19 that more than 50,000 federal contractors were delinquent with respect to their taxes, including 27,000 Department of Defense contractors, 33,000 civilian agency…
Just one week after I published my primer on Alabama state taxes, an article was posted on TheRoot.com touting a new tax in Alabama: the fat tax. It’s not as literal as it sounds. The Alabama State Employees’ Insurance Board has approved a plan which requires state workers to pay up if they don’t utilize…
Kids, put on some good clothes and get in the car! We’re going out to celebrate! As it turns out, the country is only $1.28 trillion short this year. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released its updated Budget and Economic Outlook today (downloads as a pdf) and it’s not all that bad. Okay, it’s not…
The Senate has introduced a massive bill intended to provide direct economic relief in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-19 is the official name for the infectious disease caused by the most recently discovered coronavirus. According to the World Health Organization, as of March 20, 2020, there are 209,839 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in 168 territories…
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I am very much against unlimited tax deduction by individuals and against any deduction by corporations. The same for public financing of candidates. Offering more incentives to use more money, other folks money will continue to drive the expense of being a candidate for public office. Level the playing field by limiting expense by the candidates. Too many American candidates, those qualified and those poorly qualified, spend recklessly because the money is available and they make a career of it. The British system restricts spending by candidates and the time of the campaign. Offering oneself for a specific public office two years before the election allows one to live off campaign funds, well before the election. I doubt US candidates have the desire to end the current generous system. Offering tax deductions and more public financing just makes the current system spiral out of control.
No tax break for choosing to support a political candidate. Maybe then the amount spent on campaigns will return to a reasonable limit. And who knows, instead of commercials…maybe the candidates will do something really wacky-meet their constituents and hold good old fashioned debates.