Posts Tagged ‘Obama Taxes’

Obama Jobs Summit – Real Results or More Smoke & Mirrors

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009

With trillion dollar deficits and national unemployment in excess of 10% (before factoring in employees forced into part-time positions and those terminally unemployed), President Obama is under significant pressure to create the jobs he promised during the campaign.

Interestingly the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was not invited to the Summit – even though the Chamber represents over 3,000,000 businesses throughout the U.S.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/dec/02/obama-policy-critics-not-invited-to-jobs-summit/

http://www.ajc.com/news/atlantans-others-head-to-222929.html

While various corporate tax incentives, including hiring credits are being considered as part of the Summit, there are already a myriad of federal and state tax incentives which provide annual hiring credits ranging from $500 to $15,000 per “qualified” employee hired.  Many of these programs are Location-Based Incentive Credits (LBICs), requiring the business to be located in specific economically disadvantaged regions (over 8,000).  In addition there are a number of programs which can generate hiring credits regardless of the business location.

Hopefully the Administration will explore and add additional hiring credits.   Congress and the states should also invest funds to improve the marketing and education of the existing federal and state hiring credit programs to make sure employers understand that they can dramatically reduce their labor costs on new hires – as well as some employees hired in prior years.  Read more about these valuable incentives @: www.blakechristian.com

 

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich held his own “Real” Jobs Summit today to highlight his proposed fixes.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125980635501974009.html

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=34637

 

Republican Congressman Boehner’s job creation/ retention letter to the President can be found at:

http://www.employernation.org/letter.aspx?utm_source=whereoware&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=OpenLetter-Prosp-Dec09

 

Obama Tax Hikes and California Freefall

Wednesday, February 25th, 2009

Obama National Health Care Plan – More Taxes / Less Medicare Funding

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123559630127675581.html

Following through on his campaign promise of raising taxes on the "wealthy", the Obama Administration will be rolling out their $318 BILLION tax hike including expiration of the Bush tax cuts and an increase in personal tax rates from 33% to 35% over the next few years.  In addition, a scale-back of home mortgage interest and contribution deductions are also anticipated under President Obama's proposal.   Not-for-Profit entities are suffering from the economy just like taxable businesses; therefore, this is an odd time to reduce the tax benefit for home mortgage deductions and reducing the incentive to support charitable organizations, which are typically very efficient in their operations. 

Another $316 BILLION of spending cuts tied to: i) reductions in government payments to private health-care providers supplying Medicare services and ii) other healthcare reductions are also planned.

These combined tax increases and spending cuts of $634 BILLION are designed to pay for President Obama's planned Single-Pay Medical Plan.

Download Obama Tax Hikes Feb 26 2009 WSJ

    ****************************************************************************************************************

The Fall of California 

Dennis Prager insightfully summarizes the steady decline of the California economy and identifies the architects of its demise.

Download California Destroyed by Left – Dennis Prager

Download CA Tax Rates article 12.2007

  

2008 Federal and State Year-End Tax Planning – Changes Require New Strategies

Sunday, November 30th, 2008

Download 2008 AICPA Corporate Tax Losses 12.11.08

Download 2008 AICPA Federal Rescue Package 11.2008

With over $150 billion of 2008 federal tax benefits adopted as part of the federal Rescue Package, along with over $5 billion of California tax increases due to the California budget challenges, year-end tax planning for businesses and individuals offer numerous opportunities to reduce taxes, increase cash flow, and/ or lock into lower rates this year compared to next year.  

With the volatile year and continuing economic challenges, year-end is also a great time to review your overall financial and estate plan.  In particular, a careful review of the investment allocations within your qualified retirement plans (e.g. IRAs/ 401(k)s, etc) as well as other "taxable" investment  accounts is critically important.  Year-end is an excellent time to jettison your poor performing stocks and harvest your tax losses to offset any capital gains you might be lucky enough to have this year.

The following December 1, 2008 L.A. Times article covers a variety of tax planning ideas and the second item provides detailed tax planning ideas for both businesses and individuals.

http://www.latimes.com/business/investing/la-fi-smallbiz1-2008dec01,0,6684885.story

Download 2008 Year-End Tax Alert