Taxes

If you think Bluetooth is a rare dental condition and an app is what you eat before the entree, you might not be a candidate for today's high-tech, whiz-bang smart phones. Instead, you might be happier with a mobile phone geared toward seniors. Those phones typically don't have Web-surfing capability, GPS maps and video games. Instead they have large buttons, oversized digital readouts and hearing-aid compatibility, along with a relatively simple calling plan. Although senior-friendly phones aren't new, their lower prices and variety are. A recent price skirmish among wireless companies means seniors can get an easy-to-use cellphone and cheap service to go with it, said Mac Haddow, senior fellow on public policy for the independent and nonprofit Alliance for Generational Equity.

SAN JOSE - After a morning of closed-door campaigning here Thursday, President Obama plans to talk about tax credits for clean energy production during a visit to Iowa. As he focuses on his administration's efforts to boost job creation, Obama plans to call on Congress to extend tax credits designed to encourage businesses to invest in clean energy production, senior officials said. Obama is scheduled to make his remarks on a visit to TPI Composites, a global provider of composite wind blades to major turbine manufacturers.

Gasoline prices are keeping up their record-setting ways. California drivers paid an average of $4.358 for a gallon of regular gasoline, up 6.6 cents from a week earlier, the Energy Department said Monday. That's a fresh record high for this time of year and is 48.4 cents above the year-earlier price. Nationally, the average rose 7.2 cents to $3.793, also a record for this week, according to Energy Department statistics. A year earlier, the average U.S. price was 27.3 cents lower.

WASHINGTON -- One week after proposing a law that would punish Americans who avoid paying large tax bills by renouncing their citizenship, Sen. Charles E. Schumer scolded anti-tax activist Grover Norquist for comparing the legislation to efforts taken in Germany in the 1930s . Schumer, a New York Democrat, took to the Senate floor Thursday with a fiery speech to defend legislation he had introduced with Sen. Robert Casey (D-Penn.),...

Auto leasing deals abound these days, with offers that often seem too good to be true. How about a well-equipped Honda Accord for $250 a month with no down payment or any other drive-off fees? Or better yet, $199 a month for a Chevrolet Malibu? So, what's the catch? There isn't any if you know what you're getting into. There are always details. You need top-tier credit to qualify. You pay a penalty if you turn that Honda in with more than 36,000 miles. And the payment is not $250 a month because of that little matter of tax. It is more like $275, depending on where you live.

Most voters have by now received their sample ballots, and those who plan to vote by mail are sending in their applications. The June 5 election is underway right now. It is noteworthy for several reasons. Los Angeles County voters will be selecting a new district attorney, and this is the first time since 1964 that there is no incumbent trying to hold onto the seat. The field is wide open. To win outright in this nonpartisan race, a candidate must get more than 50% of the vote.

WASHINGTON - Eduardo Saverin fled Brazil as a boy and lived the American dream by helping found Facebook Inc. Now two U.S. senators want to make sure he never sets foot in the U.S. again unless he pays tens of millions of dollars in taxes he will owe after the company's initial public offering Friday. Saverin renounced his U.S. citizenship this year and is living in Singapore, a country with no capital gains tax. Sens. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Bob Casey (D-Pa.) denounced him Thursday as a tax dodger and introduced legislation to punish anyone who gives up citizenship to duck big tax bills.

When Gary Teunissen decided to add 400 square feet to his 40-year-old ranch home in Orange, he realized the extra space created by extending the kitchen and enclosing a breezeway would boost his annual property tax bill by about $500. "The key decision was whether to remodel or buy," said Teunissen, a financial analyst for a national home builder. "The property tax issue was a big part of my analysis."

Every time you rent a car at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, you are paying a tax that helps reduce local property taxes in Euless, Texas, the airport's home city. You are also paying for new NHL and NBA arenas. Renting a car in Charlotte, N.C.? Your taxes go to fund a downtown arts center. In Milwaukee, the latest municipality to increase car rental taxes, where is the money going? Toward a study to make recommendations about local mass transit options.

The most persistent misconception about Californians is that we hate to raise taxes. The truth is that we adore raising taxes -- as long as someone else is paying, that is. So nonsmokers vote to raise cigarette taxes, teetotalers to raise liquor taxes. The middle and working classes want to hike taxes on the rich, who are happy to return the favor. Yet this only compounds the mystery of why we're so resistant to raising taxes on perhaps the biggest, fattest target of all: the oil industry.

Re "GOP hopefuls could sidestep tax orthodoxy," May 19 Hooray for the candidates who are willing to stand up to Grover Norquist by refusing to sign his anti-tax pledge. We need more brave souls in the GOP who want to compromise rather than obstruct. As for those Republicans who have already signed the pledge to never vote for tax increases, I challenge you to do your part: refuse to take a government salary, benefits or use expense accounts. Doing so won't cost voters anything if you support a tax increase because you can say you eliminated an expense.

WASHINGTON - The Congressional Budget Office warned that the country could be thrown into a recession if Congress tries to reduce the nation's deficit quickly with a combination of budget cuts and higher taxes scheduled to take place at the end of the year. The nonpartisan budget office laid out the stark choices Tuesday over what has been called the coming fiscal cliff as congressional leaders square off in an expected partisan showdown from now through December. The office warned that the growth of the nation's gross domestic product - the value of goods and services produced - would slow to just 0.5% next year if Congress did nothing.

After years in which California Republican lawmakers took their marching orders from out-of-state anti-tax groups, some GOP candidates are now refusing to sign no-tax pledges. It's a welcome development. The candidates should be applauded for their independence. The difference between today and two years ago is stark, as Times staff writers Michael J. Mishak and Anthony York reported Saturday. Back then, candidates seeking the Republican nomination for the Assembly and state Senate weren't serious contenders unless they signed the so-called taxpayer protection pledge, which was enforced by Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform.

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Jerry Brown defends his soak-the-rich tax proposal as just. And besides, he says, it's popular with the non-rich. Never mind that it's the opposite of reform, that it would make California's roller-coaster tax system even more volatile. But maybe things do have to get worse before they get better. The state treasury is starved for more revenue. The governor is trying to avoid massive cuts to K-12 schools and more swats at the universities. It's probably not practical to wait for reform.

Re "Payback for a tax refugee," Opinion, May 16 In calling for Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin to be exiled from the United States, Bruce Ackerman seems to argue that people should not be able to move freely around the world, even as our policies embrace free trade. Ackerman ignores that Saverin has always had two national loyalties and now lives in a third country. Such "third culture kids" are increasingly common today, and many are not super-rich. Rather, their statuses reflect a beneficial global market of talent moving across borders.

PATTERSON, Calif. - Amazon.com Inc.for years has fought government efforts to tax e-commerce. Now it's poised to pocket millions of dollars in sales taxes paid by California customers. As part of a pact reached last year with state lawmakers, some online retailers agreed to begin collecting sales taxes this fall. About half of the projected $316 million raised in the first full year is expected to come from merchandise sold by Amazon, which is also setting up two California fulfillment centers that will employ at least 1,000 workers each.

A few months after he was hired as El Segundo's city manager, Doug Willmore learned that his efforts to force Chevron, the town's oldest employer, to pay higher taxes had made him some enemies. He found a note on his car reminding him this was a Chevron town. "Beat it," the note concluded. Last week, a divided City Council took that advice and fired him, less than 10 months after appointing him to the job. Willmore said that the council gave no reason for his dismissal but that he felt the council had fired him "in retaliation about Chevron.

Re "A truly loopy tax loophole," Column, May 3 It's deja vu all over again. A provision of Proposition 24 on the November 2010 ballot would have eliminated the option that multi-state businesses have to choose between two tax formulas. Proposition 24 was defeated. Sandra Wolber Granada Hills ALSO: Letters: Getting Bin Laden Postscript: An anti-Vatican bias? Letters: A truth filter for political ads

SACRAMENTO - For years, running for office as a Republican in California boiled down to one core pledge, bound by a candidate's signature and enforced with a vengeance: no new taxes. Not anymore. The state's new political landscape, scrambled by freshly drawn voting districts and new election rules, has given rise to a handful of GOP hopefuls proudly bucking the anti-tax orthodoxy. Their candidacies have the potential to end years of partisan gridlock here. It would have been unimaginable in the last election, just two years ago: At least five viable Republican contenders for the Assembly are refusing to sign the no-tax pledge that helped ensure protracted budget negotiations and gimmick-laden spending plans as California limped from one fiscal crisis to another.