Federal Tax & Bailout 2008

Last week, the search term “2008 tax rebate” was among the fast moving search terms based on volume of searches. Not a big surprise. What I found interesting was that I could use this bit of data to try to figure out what segment of America is most excited about the tax rebate. [...]

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Bush is going to hold a press conference to urge Congress to pass the FISA bill. There are two versions right now: one is the Senate bill, which gives retroactive immunity to telecom companies for breaking the law and the House bill, which does not include immunity. Bush said he would veto any bill that [...]

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By Flexo in Retrospective. If you’re new to Consumerism Commentary, these articles from the archives will be new to you. From the Second Half of February 2007 The Case Against a Life Without Debt Tips for Purchasing a Musical Instrument for the Non-Professional How Much Do You Pay in [...]

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You only get one tax refund and one tax rebate (if you qualify for them). Of course, that makes sense. So why should I point that out? Because many people get excited when they see they are getting a tax return or any other form of unexpected money. The temptation is to think about [...]

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The Illinois State Senate, led by Emil Jones (D-Chicago) is going to try, once again, to advance a “tax swap”bill that would raise Illinois‘ income tax and corporate tax rates by 66%. The idea is that you raise income taxes from 3% to 5% and corporate taxes from 4.8% to 8%, then have the state [...]

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Thirteen Things From My Week By Frances 1.) Rented and watched a British comedy called Death at a Funeral. Highly recommended. I’m also a big fan of Brit cons on TV. Favorites include Absolutely Fabulous, Chef, Keeping Up Appearances, The Vicar of Dilby, The Thin Blue Line, Are You Being Served? & [...]

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A consumer alert for seniors hoping to get the tax rebate approved by Congress earlier this month. If you didn’t plan to file a tax return this year, don’t plan on getting that rebate. In order to get the tax rebate, you have to have a tax return for 2007 on file.
Link to the [...]

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As usual, Washington doesn’t get it. They don’t understand that times have changed and that the old smoke-and-mirrors tricks they employed in the past are not going to work this time around. How anyone could have assumed, as detailed in the following Bloomberg report, “Americans Plan to Save, Not Spend, Tax-Rebate Checks, Poll Says,” [...]

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I am under attack by a shadowy special interest group who is practicing the politics of division, fear and destruction. These partisan tactics are the old ways that got us into trouble the last eight years. This weekend Defense of Democracies, a group of political extremists, launched a deceitful ad [...]

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The Hong Kong government has for the past few years been wildly inaccurate in its fiscal estimates. This year’s budget surplus of $15bn is more than four times the government‘s previous estimate, as a booming property market lifted revenues from stamp duties and land sales. - Financial Times Much has been said about [...]

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