Congress is set to make it illegal for the IRS to create free tax preparation software, software that could save millions of Americans from wasting their money on TurboTax, H&R Block, and other tax preparers currently profiting from the IRS’s failure to help taxpayers.

Just in time for Tax Day, the for-profit tax preparation industry is about to realize one of its long-sought goals. Congressional Democrats and Republicans are moving to permanently bar the IRS from creating a free electronic tax filing system. Last week, the House Ways and Means Committee, led by Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., passed the Taxpayer First Act, a wide-ranging bill making several administrative changes to the IRS that is sponsored by Reps. John Lewis, D-Ga., and Mike Kelly, R-Pa.

A miserable annual ritual survives because of corporate lobbying and Republicans’ long anti-tax crusade.

Feminine hygiene products are going to be a little cheaper in Denver starting in July after the city council voted Tuesday night to get rid of a 'tampon tax.' The Denver City Council voted unanimously on Tuesday night to remove a local sales tax on feminine products sold within the city. The 'tampon tax' bill will get rid of the city’s 4.3 percent tax on products like tampons and pads. Consumers will still be required to pay state taxes on feminine hygiene products.

Nobody won last night’s Powerball drawing, sending the jackpot soaring to $750 million for the next drawing on Wednesday. That makes this a good time to remind ourselves that the lottery is a regressive tax disproportionately paid by the poorest Americans. The average adult in the U.S. spends $325 a year on lottery tickets, 63% of which goes to prizes, the rest of which goes to state and local governments.

To the extent that economic historians can rampage, Rutger Bregman is on one — speaking truth to power in Switzerland and enraging Tucker Carlson.

Everyone, it seems, has ideas about new tax strategies, some more realistic than others. The list of tax revolutionaries is long. The short list includes Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who wants a top tax rate of 70 percent on incomes above $10 million a year; Senator Elizabeth Warren, who wants a wealth tax; Senator Bernie Sanders, who wants an estate tax with a 77 percent rate for billionaires; and even Senator Marco Rubio, who recently proposed a tax on stock buybacks.

With a net worth of $97 billion, capitalism has been good to Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, and he thinks it's a good system. Still, "There's no free lunch here. You'd have to collect more money," Gates told CNN's Fareed Zakaria on Sunday.That money should come from rich people in the form of higher taxes, he said. "As you go about doing this additional collection, of course you want to be progressive. You want the portion that comes from the top 1 percent or top 20 percent to be much higher," Gates said.

Major U.S. banks shaved about $21 billion from their tax bills last year -- almost double the IRS’s annual budget -- as the industry benefited more than many others from the Republican tax overhaul.

Whether you paid $8.99 for basic, $12.99 for standard, or splurged for the $15.99 premium package so you would have the privilege of watching endless streaming shows and movies on Netflix last month, a new analysis shows you still paid much, much more than the company paid in federal and local income taxes for the entire year. According to Matthew Gardner, senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), "The popular video streaming service Netflix posted its largest-ever U.S. profit in 2018­­—$845 million—on which it didn't pay a dime in federal or state income taxes."

Anand Giridharadas is an author and professor whose book “Winners Take All” is a scathing critique of the way elites treat philanthropy. Bill Gates called him a communist.

France called on Thursday for a new global system of taxation, including a tax on digital giants, as governments look to prevent companies from shopping around for tax havens. Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said the Group of Seven (G7), of which France holds the rotating presidency, should consider setting a joint minimum corporate tax and tackle the power of giant multinational corporations.

Arizona state Rep. Gail Griffin (R-Hereford) has presented a bill to the state legislature that could end the stalemate between Congressional Democrats and President Donald Trump over $5.7 billion for a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border. According to KOLD TV, House Bill 2444 would impose a porn tax on residents of Arizona and require payment of at least $20 in order to view pornography on the internet.

When Ronald Reagan took office, affluent Americans paid a 70 percent tax rate on all income above $216,000. In the decades since, our country’s highest earners have seen their annual pay skyrocket, while the median household’s has barely budged. As a result, America’s 160,000 richest families now lay claim to 90 percent of its wealth. Studies suggest that this kind of inequality erodes social trust, abets plutocracy, and depresses economic growth. Politicians from both major parties routinely suggest that they see inequality as a major problem.

On September 7, finance ministers from the European Union met in Vienna to discuss the volatile nature of digital assets. Theirs but also other politicians’ concern about cryptocurrencies is in regard to crypto’s general lack of transparency and their potential to get misused by black marketers.

Last December, Republicans relied on the support of conservative economists who predicted that the party's corporate tax cuts would boost productivity and investment in the United States substantially. The forecasts were wrong, and the silence of those who made them suggests that they knew it all along.

If you claim the earned income tax credit, whose average recipient makes less than $20,000 a year, you’re more likely to face IRS scrutiny than someone making twenty times as much. How a benefit for the working poor was turned against them.

The scheme is hitting the poorest Americans—and making less money than IRS in-house collectors. By Max de Haldevang, Justin Rohrlich.

By now you’ve probably heard that eating too much red and processed meat is bad for you. Not only is it associated with increased rates of coronary heart disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes, but there is also convincing evidence that red and processed meat can cause cancer. The cancer agency of the World Health Organisation (WHO) classifies the consumption of red meat, which includes beef, lamb, and pork, as carcinogenic – or having the potential to cause cancer if eaten in processed form.