by taxnick on January 6, 2012
President Barack Obama welcomed a stronger than expected December unemployment report on Friday and urged Congress to extend a payroll tax cut until the end of 2012 to help the country’s economic recovery maintain momentum.
“We’re making progress. We’re moving in the right direction. And one of the reasons for this is the tax cut for working Americans that we put in place last year,” he said.
“When Congress returns they should extend the middle class tax cut for all of this year, to make sure we keep this recovery going,” he told workers at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to welcome its new director, Richard Cordray.
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by taxnick on January 6, 2012
The Internal Revenue Service estimates that U.S. companies and individuals failed to pay $385 billion in taxes they owed in 2006, an increase from $290 billion five years earlier.
The agency said the rate of compliance remained almost unchanged at 85.5 percent, down slightly from 86.3 percent in 2001. The IRS announcement today is the first update to the so- called tax gap estimate in five years. The gap grew because the income base expanded between 2001 and 2006, the agency said.
“Despite what seems to be increasing complexity, Americans’ compliance remained steady,” Frank Keith, an IRS spokesman, said in a telephone interview today.
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by taxnick on December 15, 2011
Democrats are abandoning their demand for a surtax on millionaires to help finance payroll tax cuts in a sign that lawmakers are trying to broker a compromise on Congress’ highest-profile year-end dispute.
Even so, there is no clear path to quick bipartisan agreement on the legislation, which would prevent an automatic Social Security tax increase on 160 million workers and the expiration of jobless benefits for people out of work the longest. Both would occur Jan. 1 without congressional action.
Lawmakers are also embroiled in a squabble over a huge, separate spending bill, a dispute that would force a shutdown of most of the government on Saturday unless it is resolved. Neither party wants to risk the wrath of voters by shuttering government doors.
Republicans say they plan to try winning House approval for a $1 trillion measure financing dozens of agencies through next September.
But that means a conflict with the White House, whose communications director, Dan Pfeiffer, said President Barack Obama had problems with some social, environmental and other provisions in the legislation. Pfeiffer said Congress should approve a short-term bill to keep the government open while final disputes are resolved.
House Republicans officially unveiled the massive, bipartisan spending bill late Wednesday to fulfill transparency rules, but Senate Democrats had yet to officially sign on. However, the measure wasn’t expected to change much, if at all, before a vote Friday, despite White House protests and an explicit veto threat regarding provisions placing limits on the ability of Cuban immigrants to visit families on the island or send money back to them.
The pre-Christmas wrangling caps a contentious year in a capital hindered by divided government, with Democrats controlling the White House and Senate while Republicans run the House. Lawmakers have engaged in down-to-the-wire drama even when performing the most mundane acts of governing, such as keeping agencies functioning and extending federal borrowing authority, tasks that are only becoming more politically delicate as the calendar nears the 2012 election year.
That finger-pointing was reflected Wednesday in some of the back and forth between party leaders.
“My friend is living in a world of non-reality,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who had suggested that Congress quickly complete its spending work. Reid said unresolved disputes made that impossible.
“The House has done its work. It’s time for the Senate to do theirs,” said House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, referring to House approval this week of payroll tax legislation.
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