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(Reuters/Jason Reed)
President Barack Obama and the first family paid $453,770 in federal taxes on an adjusted gross income of $1,728,096 in 2010, the White House said Monday.
The president is paid a salary of $400,000 for his day job and took home quite a hefty paycheck because his books — “The Audacity of Hope,” “Dreams From My Father” and “Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters” — continue to register strong sales. Get the full story »
You had three extra days to file your taxes this year, but the time has finally come to hand over your paperwork to Uncle Sam. The IRS has already processed nearly 96 million tax returns this season, according to the agency’s latest filing statistics. That’s a 2.8 percent increase from this same time last year. Get the full story »
From Crain’s Chicago Business | Sales tax receipts throughout the metropolitan area increased in 2010, according to the Illinois Department of Revenue, signaling the first rise in retail spending since 2008. Overall, sales tax revenue in the six-county area advanced 3.4 percent to $7.46 billion last year. Get the full story>>
Internet search giant Google has released data suggesting that more Chicago residents are filing their taxes online, with searches for tax software provider TurboTax featuring prominently on the company’s list of top tax-related search terms. Get the full story »
More taxpayers this year are choosing to save rather than spend.
A survey by job website CareerBuilder found that 46 percent of taxpayers who will receive tax refunds plan to use them to pay off bills, down from 56 percent who had those intentions last year. Meanwhile, 36 percent plan to put the funds into their savings accounts, up from 34 percent last year. Get the full story »
Starting next year, Illinois businesses will see a tax increase and the recently unemployed will lose a week of jobless benefits, according to a compromise bill passed earlier this month in the Illinois Legislature. Get the full story »
A Rockton, Ill., Internet retailer is moving its headquarters across the border to downtown Beloit, Wis., Friday to escape Illinois’ recently enacted Internet sales tax. Get the full story »
An in-house accountant who raised a red flag about a tax lapse that his employer then ignored, leading him to tip off the IRS, has received $4.5 million in the first IRS whistleblower award. The accountant’s tip netted the IRS $20 million in taxes and interest from the errant financial-services firm. Get the full story »
The wealthy should pay the largest portion of U.S. taxes, JPMorgan Chase Chief Executive Jamie Dimon said Tuesday, injecting himself into the budget debate as the threat of a government shutdown looms. Get the full story »
Of the more than 1.6 million Americans who were slapped with audits last year, 78 percent dealt with correspondence audits, while only 22 percent were asked to come in for an in-person examination. Get the full story »
Gov. Pat Quinn plans to talk to the head of Caterpillar Inc. about Illinois business climate, countering the efforts of other states to lure the company away. Quinn and Caterpillar CEO Doug Oberhelman are scheduled to meet Tuesday morning. Get the full story »
From the Chicago Sun-Times | Rockford-based FatWallet.com, an online partner of Amazon.com and Overstock.com, is leaving Illinois for Wisconsin after losing business ties with major online retailers since Gov. Quinn signed of the “Amazon.com tax” earlier this month. Get the full story>>
Jeffrey Immelt is head of GE and of President Barack Obama's business innovation task force. (Reuters/Molly Riley)
The chief of General Electric on Thursday defended the conglomerate’s zero tax rate in 2010 and called for reform of the U.S. tax code.
In his first public speaking engagement since a barrage of criticism about not having to pay taxes in 2010, GE Chief Executive Jeff Immelt told the Economic Club in Washington that his company did nothing wrong. Get the full story »
This year’s “Tax Freedom Day” was pushed back three days to April 12 because of rising income taxes that accompany rising income, the Tax Foundation said.
With Americans spending an average of 28 percent of their income to pay federal, state and local taxes this year, they will need to work 102 days — more than three months — to earn enough to pay their tax bill. Get the full story »
