Top 400 Taxpayers See Tax Rates Rise, But There’s More to the Story

As Americans were gathering party supplies to greet the New Year, the Internal Revenue Service released their annual report of cumulative tax data reported on the 400 tax returns with the highest reported income in 2013. The media widely reported the surprising news that these highest-income taxpayers saw their average tax rate jump to 22.9 percent in 2013, up from 16.7 percent in 2012.

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New Report: CEO Stock(ing) Stuffers

10 companies shaved $182 million off their taxes, thanks to 20-year-old 'performance pay' loophole

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The Tax-Dodging Marriage of Viagra and Botox

Throughout the fall, Pfizer, the maker of Viagra, has been courting Allergan, the manufacturer of Botox. Pfizer was not attracted by Allergan's wrinkle-free face or full lips, but by its Irish citizenship.

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Don’t Pave Our Potholes with Corporate Tax Cuts

If drivers won’t pay 21st century prices for 21st century roads, our once world-class infrastructure will go the way of dial-up Internet.

Life was different in the 1990s. Back in ‘93, a lucky few used dial-up Internet to access one of 800 websites available worldwide. Smart phones were a distant dream. The TV dinosaur Barney had just started “edutaining” America’s children.

And gas cost about $1.30 a gallon — including 18.4 cents in federal taxes to build and maintain our roads, bridges, and transit systems.

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New Research Finds Excessive Stock Option Compensation Leads CEOs to Ignore Product Safety Problems

When CEOs receive a large quantity of stock options in their pay packages, they are more likely to ignore safety problems with the products they market, concludes a new study, Throwing Caution to the Wind, by a trio of professors at Notre Dame’s Mendoza School of Business –Adam Wowak, Michael Mannor, and Kaitlin Wowak.

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Five Laws That Made America a Better Place: What Congress Accomplished in 1965 Puts Today’s Lawmakers to Shame.

Our country has no shortage of big problems. While big challenges are nothing new for Americans, how we deal with them has changed.

Fifty years ago, rising social unrest forced Congress to deal with big things — like voting rights, immigration, and access to health care and education. Over a seven-month period in 1965, Congress passed five significant laws that dealt with these pressing issues of the day. These laws forever changed life in America.

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Meet You in the Pitchfork Aisle?

Businessman Peter Georgescu issued a clarion call for capitalists to respond to the growing crisis of economic inequality in an op-ed entitled “Capitalists, Arise” in the Aug 9 edition of the Sunday New York Times. Georgescu warns his fellow capitalists that if they fail to take effective action to reduce economic inequality, they will soon face “intolerable taxes and social unrest” that will threaten their wealth and their businesses.

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Silencing Factory Farm Whistleblowers Violates the First Amendment

For decades, the meat and dairy industries have been subjected to undercover investigations by organizations and individuals who are concerned about inhumane and unhygienic conditions on industrial farms and in slaughterhouses. As a result of a 2008 investigation Americans witnessed the largest meat recall (143 million pounds of beef) in our nation’s history.

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Voting Rights: The Struggle Continues

Fifty years ago today, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act, which many consider the most important civil rights legislation of the 1960s. The law gave the federal government oversight responsibility over elections in all or part of 15 states (including parts of New York, Michigan, and California) where there had been systemic exclusion of voters based on race, ethnicity, or economic status. Under the Voting Rights Act, states had to pre-clear any changes to voter eligibility rules or election conduct prior to implementing these changes.

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Happy Birthday, NASA! We’re Celebrating the Thousands of Ways NASA Has Improved Our Lives.

One of my earliest childhood memories is of our mailman, Mr. Harmon, taking a break from his daily deliveries and joining my Mom and me to watch some of the early space launches. I didn’t know it at the time, but the influence of government filled my family’s living room – from the presence of our caring letter carrier to the visionary work of NASA scientists exploring the world far beyond Earth.

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