The U.S. Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations had some tough questions for Tim Cook, CEO of computer giant Apple which stands accused of tax avoidance to the tune of billions of dollars. Questions like: "Why the hell do I have to keep updating my apps on my iPhone all the time and why you don't fix that?"
The link between drug smuggling and terror usually spurs images of Afghan poppy fields under the wary eye of men in fatigues. Sometimes, though, it's garbage bags filled with money from selling illegal cigarettes in Brooklyn.
A House bill would bar the IRS from offering taxpayers software that would compete with programs like TurboTax. Tax activist Grover Norquist and others wrote a letter to members of Congress that urged them to support the bill — what they called a "pro-taxpayer, anti-IRS power grab legislation." At issue is how Americans file their taxes and whether electronic filing can be offered directly through the IRS.
Nothing about the federal tax system is especially pleasant: it requires a lot of forms, expends precious mental energy, and of course involves parting ways with your money. But according to a new poll commissioned by The Washington Post, 53 percent of Democrats gave a favorable opinion of the federal tax system; 66 percent of Republicans didn't.
Why can't you file your taxes in five minutes — and for free? Well, it doesn't help that simpler a system for filing your taxes has been opposed for years by the company behind the most popular consumer tax software — Intuit, maker of TurboTax.
February really is the cruelest month because, on top of all this snow, one is forced to start contemplating death, or at least filling out one's taxes. You might be left scratching your head, and wishing you had a better accountant, when you hear how Facebook is getting hundreds of millions in a tax refund this year.
David Kravets on Obama's drone problem, Michael Kugelman on global agribusiness, Doyle McManus on the mortgage interest taxes, Duncan Black on the failure of 401Ks, and Alec MacGillis on Eric Cantor's call to cut the medical device tax.
Headlines blared over the weekend that golfer Phil Mickelson was considering giving up the sport that made him rich, because he feels besieged by higher tax rates. Don't worry: He's not quitting and he never really suggested he would.
The tax hike, which takes effect immediately for wages earned in 2013, doesn't have too many fans.
In the midst of a French flap over taxing the rich, Putin publicly offered Depardieu a Russian passport. But that was only the start: According to the Kremlin's official Twitter account, Depardieu is now an actual citizen of Russia.
The heated fiscal cliff negotiations are over — for now — so it's time to assess your wallet: The payroll tax hike cancels out some other tax cuts, but that doesn't necessarily mean your take-home income will decrease.
The best thing you can say about the New Year's Day fiscal cliff deal is that it's unlikely to hurt the U.S. economy. Unfortunately, it does almost nothing to help it.
We've been batting around this fiscal cliff debate for months, and now with just hours left until the deadline, Senators say they remain "apart on some pretty big issues." What are they? And what will we learn on Monday morning?
The latest poll numbers show that a record number of Americans favor raising taxes on the rich as a solution to our budget problems. With the fiscal cliff just weeks away, one question remains: Who cares?
A summary of the best reads found behind the paywall of The New York Times.
A summary of the best reads found behind the paywall of The New York Times.
President Obama's sit down session with 14 chief executives on Wednesday afternoon went swimmingly. At least from the Obama administration's point of view it did.
America's biggest anti-tax advocate has gotten the vast majority of congressional Republicans to sign his pledge to never raise taxes. But with the fiscal cliff looming, some influential Republicans are suddenly offering to break the pledge. Here's why.
As Congress attempts to negotiate a way to cut the budget deficit and avoid a fiscal cliff, it's worth remembering that one sticking point of the negotiations was supposed to eliminate the deficit problem entirely: the Bush tax cuts.
The key players in the budget negotiations finally sat down for the first time on Friday, but are still feeling each other out as they establish their opening gambits.
Now that the Democratic Party has fully abused and discredited Mitt Romney's economic vision for America, they've suddenly decided that maybe that one idea he had about tax deductions wasn't so crazy after all.
Thanks to a complex network of offshore accounts and cleverly named subsidiaries, Apple, the world's most valuable company, paid just $713 million on its $36.8 billion in foreign earnings last quarter.
David Rohde on Sandy and inequality, Yonah Freemark and Lawrence J. Vale on housing aid, David Weigel on glamorizing the flip-flop, Kathleen Parker on the race card, and Ted Galen Carpenter on the Mexican drug war.
Mitt Romney established a tax shelter in 1996 that allows him to take advantage of the tax-free status of a charity without actually giving much to the charity at all.
A summary of the best reads found behind the paywall of The New York Times.
The Democratic National Committee released a single-serving joke site—RomneyTaxPlan.com—that displays an enticing button promising to allow you to "GET THE DETAILS" on the plan but that scurries away from your pointer when you try to click on it.
Critics say moderator Jim Lehrer let President Obama and Mitt Romney walk all over him in the first presidential debate, but because Lehrer let the candidates go long on their answers, and because both are technocratic candidates, the debate had a surprising level of substance.
There's more to France's new austerity budget than its proposed record-high tax rate, but the 75 percent tax on those making a million euros ($1.29 million) or more is certainly the thing that has people talking.
Mitt Romney has released his 2011 tax return, and it shows he paid an effective tax rate of 14.1 percent tax rate -- and if he'd taken all the deductions he's allowed, it would have been lower.
There's a pattern emerging to Mitt Romney's worst gaffes: his biggest political missteps come whenever he repeats something the conservative opinion complex has already repeated endlessly. Instead of being the candidate that conservative bloggers feared as a moderate, he's been exactly the candidate they wanted. And he's losing.
This might be a different presidential campaign if Mitt Romney's spokesmen weren't so often clarifying things their candidate has said.
Gawker's John Cook has posted 950 pages of financial documents related to Mitt Romney's investments during his time at Bain Capital, but the trick now is finding experts willing to read through them all and explain what they might mean.
Paul Ryan released two years of tax returns in a late Friday evening news dump, so you would think there's something evil or scandalous in there, but it turns out he pays a pretty normal rate.
The Romney and Obama campaigns appear to be negotiating their way to some kind truce about taxes, as Romney conceded he paid a 13 percent rate over the past 10 years, and President Barack Obama's campaign offered to drop it if he would just release five years of returns.
Combatting rumors that he paid zero taxes for 10 whole years, Mitt Romney spilled the beans on Thursday that he paid a tax rate of at least 13 percent on his income over the last decade.
In the Republican presidential nominee, Democrats have the embodiment of the rich guy who pays lower taxes than you, and in the Republican vice-presidential nominee, they have the face of the plan to let the rich guy pay even lower taxes than he is already.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says he heard from a Bain investor who heard that Mitt Romney paid exactly zero taxes for 10 years, Reid tells The Huffington Post's Sam Stein and Ryan Grim.
By only releasing one year of tax returns, Mitt Romney has done something really fun: given us a mystery to solve!
Politicians like to have a character to refer to in their stump speeches to dramatize their abstract disagreements with their opponent's position -- a widow without health care, a Wall Street banker with a fat bonus, a plumber -- but after unrelenting emphasis on Mitt Romney's career at Bain, President Obama has made his opponent and prop one and the same.
During the Republican primary, it seemed like Mitt Romney was the luckiest guy in the world -- he was born rich and handsome, and his competitors were buffoons. Now it seems like President Obama is the lucky one.
President Obama is planning to gear up for a new election-year tax battle, by asking Congress for a one-year extension of the Bush-era tax cuts for those earning less than $250,000 a year.
Mitt Romney still gets money from Bain Capital through a blind trust held by his wife Ann and investments in the Cayman Islands. In addition to his Swiss bank account, closed in late 2010, he has other accounts in the tax haven Bermuda.
Your chance to enter and win a contest to eat a meal with Mitt Romney and Donald Trump has sadly ended, but if you forgot to enter, you can at least rejoice that you'll avoid paying taxes on the value of the winnings.
The New York Times' coverage of a proposed $1-per-pack tobacco tax increase in California raises an incongruity with the state's reputation as tough on tobacco: It has, for now, some of the cheapest cigarettes in the country.
There's a new criminal trend spreading across America and it's producing billions of dollars in profits for the people smart enough to pull it off. People are filing fake tax returns and collecting the checks.
President Obama's Federal income tax rate is 20.5 percent, which is actually higher than Mitt Romney's 15.4 percent despite making around $20 million less than the Republican frontrunner.
It's less than a week to Tax Day, but we're not judging you for putting off that filing until the last minute. In fact, it's quite the opposite--we're here to help you gather your last-minute deductions.
Obama will be giving a speech in Florida on Tuesday about the "Buffett Rule," which would make sure that rich guys like Warren Buffett won't pay a lower tax rate than middle class workers like their secretaries. It would make the tax code more fair, but as a new poll from ABC News and The Washington Post shows, fairness doesn't yet look like a winning strategy for Obama.
There may be another benefit for corporations from the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision that opened up the way for unlimited corporate spending on politics: tax breaks.
Among the many reasons to do your taxes this year is the distinct possibility that you're owed a few bucks from years past and, potentially, a little piece of the $1 billion in unclaimed refunds that's just hanging out at the Internal Revenue Service.
The Obama administration has a new corporate tax plan that is sensible, supported by both parties, and sure to fail.
Have a story we missed? A link we have to click? A sharp opinion about the news? Instead of waiting for us to post it, tell us on the Open Wire.
Submit your news and ideas | See all reader postsThe Atlantic Wire is your authoritative guide to the news and ideas that matter most right now. Our team tracks newsmakers and opinions across the entire media spectrum: newspapers, web sites, television, radio and magazines.
But we do more than just collect information. By synthesizing, analyzing and summarizing what’s out there, and adding new information when we can, we are a news engine that gives you a quick and valuable account of the issues of the day.
Have a hot tip? A story we missed? Tell us on the Open Wire
How to send us editorial or technical feedback
Get Five Best Columns in your inbox each morning (preview)
