States may hold onto tax refunds for months

clipped from www.usatoday.com Residents eager to get their state tax refunds may have a long wait this year: The recession has tied up cash and caused officials in half a dozen states to consider freezing refunds, in one case for as long as five months. States from New York to Hawaii that have been hard-hit by the economic downturn say they have either delayed refunds or are considering doing so because of budget shortfalls. "It's an indicator of how bad it is," says Scott Pattison, executive director of the National Association of State Budget Officers. "You know things are bad when you have to do that." New York, hit with a $9 billion deficit, may delay $500 million in refunds to keep the state from running out of cash, says Gov. David Paterson. Hawaii's Department of Taxation says some residents may not see state income tax refunds until the end of August,

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The Mayor Of Detroit’s Radical Plan To Bulldoze One Quarter Of The City

clipped from theeconomiccollapseblog.com How do you save a city that is dramatically declining like Detroit?  Well, for the mayor of Detroit the answer is simple - you bulldoze one-fourth of the city.  Faced with a 300 million dollar budget deficit and a rapidly dwindling tax base, Detroit finds itself having to make some really hard choices. Detroit is estimated to be somewhere around 45 to 50 percent, and poverty and desperation have become entrenched everywhere.  In many areas of the city, only one or two houses remain occupied an an entire city block.  Well, Detroit Mayor Dave Bing believes that the answer is to downsize on a massive scale.  Bing believes that Detroit simply cannot continue to pay for police patrols, fire protection and other essential services for areas that resemble ghost towns. So his plan is to bulldoze approximately 10,000 houses and empty buildings over the next 3 years and direct new investment into stronger neighborhoods. So which areas would be bulldozed and which areas would be left standing?

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HIGHLIGHTS-Greek FinMin unveils tax reform, wage policy

Image via Wikipedia

clipped from www.reuters.com ATHENS, Feb 9 (Reuters) - Greece outlined on Tuesday its public sector incomes policy and a tax reform bill, as part of an EU-endorsed plan to increase state revenues and reduce its huge deficit. "EU partners and markets will closely monitor the implementation of our fiscal plan, I believe that the response will be positive. The measures that we have announced are becoming action" "From 1. Jan. 2011, every transaction above 1,500 euros between natural persons and businesses, or between businesses, will not be considered legal if it is done in cash. Transactions will have to be done through debit or credit cards" "We all know that the public sector wage policy is full of injustices ... which have been formed by adding up various allowances without a central direction. "The wage cuts will begin from 18 euros a month, reaching 345 euros a month for court officials. In percentages, it will be between 1 and 5.5 percent"

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Will Baby Boomers Bankrupt Social Security?

clipped from www.cnbc.com As the record federal budget deficit draws increasing scrutiny from Washington to Wall Street to Main Street, deficit hawks may take aim at entitlement programs including Social Security. Photo: Jonathan D. Colman And, the nearly 80 million Baby Boomers phasing into retirement will set in motion a dynamic that—if not addressed by Congress—could result in the next generation getting fewer benefits. By 2017, Social Security is expected to start paying out more than it collects in payroll taxes, according to the 2009 Annual Report from the Social Security and Medicare Board of Trustees. There is currently a large surplus, but it will be drained by the year 2037. At that point, Social Security will only be able to pay out 75 percent of its benefits. A separate report, done by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, concludes much the same thing, but gives the system another 10 years before it begins to fall apart.

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China, India boost defence as crisis takes toll on West | Top News | Reuters

Image by x-ray delta one via Flickr

• China, India boost defence as crisis takes toll on West | Top News | Reuters

  "LONDON (Reuters) - China and India sharply raised defence spending in 2009 despite the economic crisis but most European NATO members face a squeeze on defence budgets as they rein in gaping deficits, a report said on Wednesday. The impact of the global financial crisis on defence and security spending varied across regions and countries, the International Institute for Strategic Studies thinktank said in its annual report "The Military Balance". U.S. defence spending almost doubled under former President George W. Bush but President Barack Obama had signalled that the need to tackle a big budget deficit would require "a dramatic reprioritisation within defence spending," it said. Obama asked Congress this week to approve a record $708 billion in defence spending for fiscal 2011 -- including a 3.4 percent increase in the Pentagon's base budget -- but said he would continue his drive to eliminate wasteful programmes. A sharp recession had led the Russian government effectively to abandon a comprehensive military re-equipment plan due to run from 2007-15 and to replace it with a new 10-year plan starting in 2011, the report said. "In contrast to developments in advanced economies, both India and China have maintained their recent trend of double-digit increases in defence spending," it said. India boosted defence spending by 21 percent in 2009 after the 2008 Mumbai attacks killed 166 people, it said."

  tags: defence, China, India, News, Government, Global

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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