Displaying items by tag: tax

RALEIGH — State lawmakers voted unanimously Wednesday to block an automatic tax increase on employers. Senate Bill 311 would maintain the state's current tax for funding unemployment insurance.

As P.T. Barnum is so famously credited with observing a century and half ago, Americans can be a surprisingly credulous people. Whether it’s a circus sideshow curiosity, a new cure-all elixir or a supposedly surefire “get rich” scheme, ours is a nation of hopeful people who like to believe in and celebrate the claims of convincing and seemingly successful salespeople, while averting our eyes from their transgressions and excesses.

WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service (Tuesday) began its “Dirty Dozen” list for 2021 with a warning for taxpayers, tax professionals and financial institutions to be on the lookout for these 12 nefarious schemes and scams. 

As a fiscal conservative who thinks government is generally too large and taxes too high, I am grateful for the gas tax.

ROCKINGHAM — City residents won’t see a property tax increase this year, but several fees could go up.

RALEIGH — Lawmakers in the North Carolina House have fast-tracked a bill that would allow businesses that received Payroll Protection Program loans from the federal government to have any expenses the funds were used for deducted from state tax.

Moonshining began very early in American history, shortly after the Revolution. The U.S. found itself struggling to pay for the expense of fighting a long war. The solution was to place a federal tax on liquors and spirits (don’t that just sound like our government today). Well those folks won’t gonna put up with that new whiskey tax, no siree. They just decided to just keep on making their own whiskey; completely ignoring the federal tax.

RALEIGH — Less than a year after an audit of the N.C. Department of Transportation found massive overspending, a blue-ribbon panel is recommending the department get a 40% budget hike.

RALEIGH — The 2019 session of the N.C. General Assembly began Jan. 9, both in the House and the Senate. The session ended on Halloween, which was Wednesday, Oct. 31. Lawmakers left without a budget, failing to override Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto, which came in June. To date, Cooper has vetoed 37 bills — 23 of which the General Assembly has overridden. During the session, however, lawmakers passed a host of mini-budgets, redrew N.C. legislative districts under a court order, and funded teacher pay and other raises for state workers.