Tax

EVERY potential voter has heard by now that, as president, Barack Obama is going to give a middle-class tax cut and tax subsidies to 95 percent of Americans. These will be funded by income-tax increases on the country's richest 5 percent, in addition to hikes on the capital-gains tax, dividends tax, death tax, payroll tax and windfall-profits tax. You'd think that if 95 percent of Americans would save (or possibly make) money from electing Obama, he would be polling at 95 percent.

A day after Sen. Bob Dole was said to be poised to unveil a dramatic package of measures to cut and simplify taxes, the Republican presidential candidate courted blue-collar, swing voters in the battleground state of New Jersey. "I think he is going to do something very bold," magazine publisher Steve Forbes, a former Dole rival and a leading proponent of the flat tax, said over the weekend on NBC's "Meet the Press. " During the primary campaign, Forbes had run advertisements criticizing Dole's past votes for higher taxes and his lack of a tax reform plan.

WASHINGTON, Pa. - More than two centuries after George Washington called out the militia to quell a fight over taxes imposed on whiskey-making in the United States, residents of western Pennsylvania marked the event with the inaugural Whiskey Rebellion Festival. The festival in Washington County on Saturday honored the 1794 rebellion in which local farmers protested the tax approved by Congress three years earlier to help pay for $80 million in Revolutionary War debt. Tripp Kline, a board member of the Bradford House Historical Association, calls the event one of the 10 most important in American history because it showed that the government was committed to unifying the fledging country.

Philadelphia was once again the subject of head-scratching and ridicule on Monday, this time with the "blog tax" controversy. On BuzzFeed, a popular website for stories, photos, and video competing to go viral, "Philadelphia Blogger's License: $300" was in the running, in between videos of a bored cat having a birthday party and Lady Gaga dancing at a Kiss concert. New York magazine's website weighed in, as did the Washington Post's. The New York Daily News had a story about "Cash-strapped Philly" resorting to a blog "tax.

When news of Philadelphia's "blogger tax" went viral online, it seemed like another OMG moment for a city whose antics regularly make the rest of the nation LOL. OMG (web talk for "Oh, my God") as in images of city revenue agents kicking down doors and shaking down pajama-clad bloggers in mid-key stroke. LOL ("laughing out loud") wondering if this city can do anything right. Well, as the blogs say: UPDATE. Philadelphia doesn't have a tax on blogging. What it has is a requirement that anyone who operates a business in the city purchase a business privilege license.

Fiscal responsibility, taxes and concern for the needs of residents are the key issues before Waterford Township voters as they ponder whether Republicans or Democrats will control the Township Committee in January. The Republicans hold three of the five seats on the Township Committee. Two of the incumbent Republicans - Mayor Stanley Banes, 55, and Committeeman Stephen A. Miller, 41 - are up for re-election. Opposing them for three-year terms are Democratic newcomers Howard S. Wilson, 40, and Susan Lynn Ritchie, 34. Ritchie and Wilson pointed to a 22 percent tax increase this year as a major reason the Republicans should not be left in control.

I have been following the series "Disorder in the courts" and finished up with Steve Lopez's Feb. 3 column. It may well be that we are getting the government we deserve, but I still don't believe it. People stay away from the polls because they know that their choices always are the lesser of two evils. But the solution to the problem it seems to me is suggested by the remark of Common Pleas Court Judge David N. Savitt: "The court operates not in a vacuum. A court administrator cannot tell a city councilman to go fly a kite.

A proposed tax on over-the-bar drinks was withdrawn by its City Council sponsor yesterday after a consultant concluded the move would further harm the city's declining retail liquor industry. After a brief public hearing, Councilman John F. Street told a cheering crowd of around 100 bar and restaurant representatives that "there are sufficient questions that should cause us to hesitate and not act on this tax. " As a way to raise money for the Philadelphia School District, Street last fall proposed a tax of up to 10 percent on alcoholic beverages served at bars and restaurants.

MR. Mayor and City Council: How can you allow the business-privilege tax to continue now that you know the city has a budget surplus that more than offsets the revenue that would have been lost by phasing it out? This tax clearly drives businesses out of Philly and prevents new businesses from locating here. It can only contribute to the city's long, slow population decline. And frankly, I don't see much in the way of return through improved services. I want Philly to stop being a high-tax, low-services city that is losing jobs and people.

Many of you by now have received your 1987 federal income tax forms - and probably tucked them away, leaving the dreaded chore of computing your taxes for another day. This year, more than any other, that could be a bad mistake. You may find you owe the government more than you anticipated because too little tax was withheld from your paycheck. That could leave you scrambling at the last minute to come up with cash to cover the shortfall. The problem stems from the new tax law and the Internal Revenue Service's new W-4 tax withholding forms.