Apr 28th, 2008
Rebate relief languishes in Legislature
Barring quick action by the Alabama Legislature, some of the federal tax rebate will have to go to pay state income taxes. A bill that would exempt the federal rebate checks is stalled as the Legislature enters the final six days of the 2008 regular session.
The bill to exempt the rebates from state income taxes is waiting to be considered in the House and still must go to the Senate. The bill is stalled behind the state’s education budget and a controversial corporate income tax measure.
Debates on the corporate income tax bill and the $6.3 billion education budget are expected to take up all of the time in the House next week, leaving just two days for the bill to pass in time to be considered in the Senate.
Early in the session, Gov. Bob Riley and the Democratic and Republican caucuses in the House and Senate had made it a priority to exempt the rebate checks from income taxes. But since the bill by Rep. Terry Spicer, D-Elba, was approved by the House Education Appropriations Committee in March it has been sitting on the calendar in the House.
“It is in line to be considered,” House Speaker Seth Hammett, D-Andalusia, said.
Spicer said he hoped to be able to bring the bill to the floor for a vote after the House passes the education budget.
The bill was amended by the education appropriations committee to remove an incentive for businesses that’s offered in the federal tax rebate package.
The federal package allows businesses to increase the amount that they deduct for the depreciating value of equipment. State law ties Alabama’s depreciation schedule for businesses to the federal schedule, which means Alabama’s schedule would go up automatically under the federal legislation. But the House committee voted to allow businesses to take only the current deduction.
Tags: checks, relief, tax
16 Responses to “Rebate relief languishes in Legislature”
This doesn’t sound like a particularly brilliant or fair plan, but the thing about Obama that I like is that I don’t feel like he’s basing his decisions and plans on polls. If I had my way, the financial decisions would be made by a panel of economists, the scientific decisions would be made by scientists, and the only thing left to the politicians would be smiling and lying to other countries and stabbing them in the back.
No, not at all. This guy actually cares about people who are not wealthy.
Obama supports PayGo, or “pay as you go”, which would require lawmakers to show how they will pay for any new government program. As for cutting spending, how about we get out of Iraq?
He’s a CFR member, which excludes him from the “great candidate” group.http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=497251819335380093&q=zeitgeist&total=1124&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=2http://www.ronpaulwnc.com/content/view/25/40/
50-60 trillion of promised obligations, and yes, those are two biggies. Many of of those promises are coming due all at once and pretty soon from baby boomers retiring. There is no money waiting for them. The burden will be left with the tax payers paying into the system at the time. Most taxes come from the middle class, which would have to grow by leaps and bounds to cover what’s coming, and in reality it’s shrinking. At the same time, there’s something like 20-30 million illegals, and increasing, leeching off the system: medical, schooling, food, housing, you name it, and people want to give that a free pass, wave them in, which is already causing many hospitals to close from the burden, and politicans promising “free” health care for all, and other varios promises of “free” assistance. The ones who pay for everything are shrinking, and those they are expected to support are ballooning; it’s a recipe for a collapse. The reason why medical cost are high is because the governnment got invovled. They gave medical vendors a range to pay for goods and services of medicare and medicaid, which the vendors charged the maximum allowed, from which the whole medical industry followed this gouging precedent. That gouging arrangment has to go, those who don’t have a right to services have to go, the bases around the world for the military empire have to go, the illegal military invasions have to go. Those things need to happen merely for the fiscal reason that there simply aren’t enough tax payers to pay for it all. On legal grounds, the IRS, the Federal Reserve, medicare, medicaid, etc entitlements are illegal/unconstitutional. On principled grounds, following the Constitution’s individualists ideology, they have to go because one person doesn’t have the right to take from another. It’s easy to get lost in the mess we’re in; there’s so many fires to put out.
Free is good.
Mashups are great. Particularly when they translate to offline cash. Cool idea.
It’s about the CFR, not a particular candidate, Obmama is yet another CFR member, truth is truth no matter where it comes from, I could have linked to the CFR youtube videos directly but they were already collated into one spot, it’s a matter of convenience, it’s a lame reason to discount information.
Does this sound a little like Bush-lite?
The Obama plan the article describes is a robin hood plan. Tax wealthy(undefined) investors and give to poorer people. Shuffling the same amount of money around doesn’t solve the problem as the books are already grossly unbalanced, an unbalance that’s untenable. It can’t be sustained, it will fall apart. Requiring lawmakers to show how they’ll pay for new stuff is a nice thought, it doesn’t solve the already present problem. There has to be spending cuts of what’s already being spent. Iraq is a start, but the US was already in trouble prior, and as wasteful as it is, the cost of Iraq is small relative to the other bills.
good
Don’t fall for the Fair Tax fraud!http://www.mises.org/story/1814
May?? Wow… By then, at the way inflation on food is rising, you might be able to afford a carrot. Or half a gallon of gasoline to drive to the store to get your carrot, just to realize you spent your rebate on that half a gallon of gas, then you have to buy the carrot with your credit card.
Come on, man. I’m a Ron Paul supporter, but don’t post anti-candidate links from other candidate sites!
The FairTax rate of 23 percent on a total taxable consumption base of $11.244 trillion will generate $2.586 trillion dollars – $358 billion more than the taxes it replaces ( http://snipurl.com/whatratewks ). [BHKPT]The FairTax has the broadest base and the lowest rate of any single-rate tax reform plan ( http://snipurl.com/baserate ). [THBP]Real wages are 10.3 percent, 9.5 percent, and 9.2 percent higher in years 1, 10, and 25, respectively than would otherwise be the case ( http://snipurl.com/realwages ). [THBNP] The economy as measured by GDP is 2.4 percent higher in the first year and 11.3 percent higher by the 10th year than it would otherwise be ( http://snipurl.com/econbenes ). [ALM]Consumption benefits ( http://snipurl.com/econbenes ) [ALM]:• Disposable personal income is higher than if the current tax system remains in place: 1.7 percent in year 1, 8.7 percent in year 5, and 11.8 percent in year 10. • Consumption increases by 2.4 percent more in the first year, which grows to 11.7 percent more by the tenth year than it would be if the current system were to remain in place. • The increase in consumption is fueled by the 1.7 percent increase in disposable (after-tax) personal income that accompanies the rise in incomes from capital and labor once the FairTax is enacted.• By the 10th year, consumption increases by 11.7 percent over what it would be if the current tax system remained in place, and disposable income is up by 11.8 percent. Over time, the FairTax benefits all income groups. Of 42 household types (classified by income, marital status, age), all have lower average remaining lifetime tax rates under the FairTax than they would experience under the current tax system ( http://snipurl.com/kotcomparetaxrates ). [KR]Implementing the FairTax at a 23 percent rate gives the poorest members of the generation born in 1990 a 13.5 percent improvement in economic well-being; their middle class and rich contemporaries experience a 5 percent and 2 percent improvement, respectively ( http://snipurl.com/kotftmacromicro ). [JK]Based on standard measures of tax burden, the FairTax is more progressive than the individual income tax, payroll tax, and the corporate income tax ( http://snipurl.com/lessregress ). [THBPN]Charitable giving increases by $2.1 billion (about 1 percent) in the first year over what it would be if the current system remained in place, by 2.4 percent in year 10, and by 5 percent in year 20 ( http://snipurl.com/moregiving ). [THPDB]On average, states could cut their sales tax rates by more than half, or 3.2 percentage points from 5.4 to 2.2 percent, if they conformed their state sales tax bases to the FairTax base ( http://snipurl.com/staterates ). [TBJ]The FairTax provides the equivalent of a supercharged mortgage interest deduction, reducing the true cost of buying a home by 19 percent ( http://snipurl.com/homebenes ). [WM]ALERT: Kotlikoff refutes Bruce Bartlett’s shabby critiques of the FairTax ( http://snipr.com/bbrebuke ).