taxes

Millions of paper tax returns piled up while the IRS was out of the office during the worst of COVID, and the agency has yet to catch up.

Next week the State Senate next is expected to put the finishing touches on a bill to reduce personal income tax rates. A similar bill was unanimously approved by the House a couple of weeks ago thus almost assuring the long sought tax cut being enacted.The Senate bill would lower the top income tax rate from seven to five-point-seven percent. It also would eliminate the tax on military retiree income, and reduce manufacturers property tax from nine percent to six percent.Many state and business leaders have advocated a reduction of the income tax for years maintaining the rate is too high and puts the state at a competitive disadvantage with other southeastern states.

Republican leaders in the South Carolina House appear ready to tackle cutting income taxes in the state before this year's General Assembly session ends in May. A House subcommittee plans to pass a bill cutting the state's top income tax rate from 7% to 6% over five years in time to be considered along with the budget later this month. The cut would cost about $750 million when fully in effect. Republicans and Democrats want to talk taxes. The question may be whether some lawmakers only want to cut income taxes as part of a broader effort to reform all kinds of taxes.

A federal judge has blocked the U.S. Treasury from enforcing a provision of the American Rescue Plan that prohibited states from using the pandemic relief funds to offset new tax cuts. U.S. District Judge L. Scott Coogler ruled Monday that Congress's exceeded its power under the Constitution in putting the so-called tax mandate on states. Thirteen states had filed a lawsuit in federal court in Alabama challenging the provision of the pandemic relief package. The American Rescue Plan steered $200 billion in relief funds to states but specified that states could not use it as a means to cut taxes and then use the federal relief dollars to offset the revenue reduction.

The tax paid on a gallon of gasoline in the state increases by two cents this July 1 putting it at just under 27 cents-per- gallon. It marks the fifth year of a six year, phased-in 12 cents a gallon increase in the gas tax to generate more money for highway and bridge improvements.

South Carolina continues to have more money to spend because the state is collecting more tax money than expected as the economic impact of COVID-19 is less than predicted.

As drivers in the state gas-up for the Fourth of July holiday, they’ll find the lowest gas prices in the nation. Six cents lower than at this time last…

A recent survey by WalletHub, a website that helps consumers and small businesses to make better financial decisions, found South Carolina’s tax system to…

It’s the height of tax-paying season, and phone fakers and cyber criminals are out in force, trying to steal tax refunds, fool victims into sending them…

How many times in February through April of each year have you looked at your tax situation and wondered if there was anything you could have done last…