Taxes, Taxing The Wealthy | featured news

California’s top earners are now facing a combined 51.9 percent federal and state income tax — the highest rate in the nation — a cause for grumbling and, maybe, an incentive to move.

A last-ditch tax deal in the Senate might let the U.S. economy will escape the worst of the so-called fiscal cliff and avoid going back into recession. But even if the House goes along, the tax increases likely coming in 2013 will dent economic growth anyway. In the early hours of the new year, the Senate voted to end a long stalemate and raise taxes on upper-income households, extend long-term unemployment benefits and postpone decisions over government spending cuts, officials said. But any deal needs approval from the House.

Politico is reporting that one of its sources claims John Boehner has placed tax increases for the wealthy on the table. He has been adamant that Republicans would never agree to a tax increase for anyone. President Obama has said that there would be no agreement to end the chance of falling over the “fiscal cliff”, without increasing taxes on the wealthiest 2 percent.

President Obama is ready for difficult concessions to reach a deficit deal, but GOP lawmakers must first commit to higher tax rates on the rich and specify what additional spending cuts they want in a deal to avoid the looming "fiscal cliff," Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said.

Six in 10 Americans support a tax increase on annual income of more than $250,000, according to a nationwide poll released Wednesday.

Warren Buffett, the legendary investor who changed the debate about U.S. tax reform in 2011 with a call for the rich to pay more, is now calling for minimum tax rates for millionaires.

President Barack Obama is lobbying business and labor groups to support his plan to avoid an impending fiscal cliff, telling the two sides he remains committed to requiring the wealthy to pay more in taxes.

France’s new 75 percent income tax on the rich may not be popular with millionaires. But it’s being cheered by another group: Paris real-estate buyers. Real estate agents say that the number of multimillion-dollar real-estate listings in Paris has jumped more than 25 percent over last year – due in part to the threat of the new income tax. More than 400 new listings have come onto the luxury real-estate market over the past six months, they say.

President Francois Hollande's Socialist government unveiled sharp tax hikes on business and the rich on Friday in a 2013 budget aimed at showing France has the fiscal rigour to remain at the core of the euro zone.

The new tax is expected to be formally announced in the government's first budget on 28 September, but that does not mean there is a sense of panic in France. This new tax will only hit very rich individuals and only for a year or two, to help bring down the government deficit.