Submitted by KRISTEN YUNKER I can appreciate all the good intentions behind the Affordable Healthcare Act. I’ve spent my life working in low-wage service jobs, without benefits; I’ve only been to hospitals for stitches and tetanus shots – which would’ve been devastating expenses for me had they not been Workers’ Comp claims. Even moving into…
Submitted by RICHARD N. THOMPSON I am a small business owner. I am a sole practitioner. I feel I personally pay plenty in taxes. My employees don’t have benefits. They have jobs. I can’t afford to pay benefits. But I expect to pay more in employer taxes. I cannot imagine with the size of the…
Submitted by DAVID CAMPBELL Is it fair to require online retailers to collect and remit state sales tax? In a word, yes. Most governors who have taken a stance on the issue have supported online sales tax collection, including New Jersey’s Chris Christie, Tennessee’s Bill Haslam, Iowa’s Terry Branstad, and Michigan’s Rick Snyder (all Republicans,…
Submitted by ERIKA THACKER Recently, President Obama called Mr. Romney’s view of extending the tax cuts for all a “reverse Robin Hood”. Instead, the President wants to eliminate tax cuts for those with an income higher than $250,000 a year. The analogy of Romney as a reverse Robin Hood draws parallels to history. Recall that…
Submitted by JOSH KING Should the Bush-era tax cuts be extended? Should they be extended just for those making less than $250,000 a year? A lot of the predictable talking points are being bandied about when it comes to the question of extending the tax cuts – that the rich should “pay their fair share,”…
Submitted by AMY DALEN The financial problems that this country and its citizens are currently facing are due in part to Congress’s haphazard way of passing “patch” legislation – legislation that extends provisions, implements temporary fixes, and ultimately delays the need to thoroughly analyze the underlying problems. Unfortunately, this type of legislation has become…
Submitted by ORAYNAB MOHAMAD Although our elected leaders have agreed for years that health care reform is inevitable, they are either unwilling or unable to agree on a comprehensive bill. This gridlock has persisted after the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) in 2010. Though the Supreme Court has ruled…
Submitted by KARA HAAS In recent years online shopping has become an unspoken tax haven. It seems as though it is similar to offshore bank accounts for the rich, but this dealing with unpaid sales tax. It is only when I decided to venture out to the stores during Florida’s “Back to School Sales Tax…
Submitted by STEN R. WILSON Everyone seems to think that online sales tax collection is about large online companies, like Amazon, trying to crush small online businesses. My experience as a small business owner has been exactly the opposite. State efforts at online sales tax collection have made it much, much easier to run my…
It’s Guest Post Week on Taxgirl! No, I don’t have the flash and panache of Vanna White during theme weeks on Wheel of Fortune. There won’t be any glitter or sequins (at least on my end) and no fantastic trips to Aruba to be won – though there might be some less spectacular giveaways. But…