Taxes

Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson's campaign promise to reduce income taxes for thousands of middle-class residents advanced to a Senate vote Wednesday, after lawmakers amended the proposal to repeal a $21 million capital gains tax cut approved two years ago.

Wal-Mart is launching a service allowing customers to pick up their tax refunds in cash at its stores.

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder is announcing plans to "dramatically" restructure state government to help the poor enter society's mainstream.

Democrat Tom Wolf took office Tuesday as Pennsylvania's 47th chief executive, portraying himself as a political outsider while appealing for cooperation in a divided state government plagued by budget deficits and partisan stalemate.

President Barack Obama used his last State of the Union to declare 2014 a "Year of Action," and he can claim credit for accomplishing several of the goals he laid out.

New rules aimed at curbing the wasteful burning of natural gas in North Dakota and making crude oil safer for shipment would be void under a proposal by some Republican lawmakers.

After tackling pension changes for public employees and teachers, Gov. Jerry Brown is now setting his sights on another big debt: retiree health care benefits.

President Barack Obama is turning to his biggest television audience of the year to pitch tax increases on the wealthiest Americans and put the new Republican Congress in the position of defending top income earners over the middle class.

Inside the Democratic Party, economic policy is often seen as a contest between President Barack Obama's track record and the anti-Wall Street approach advocated by Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

After years of being flush with oil money, Alaska now faces drastic budget cuts and having to dip into well-stocked savings to offset unprecedented deficits exacerbated by an unexpected plunge in oil prices.

President Barack Obama will call for increasing taxes on the wealthiest Americans by raising the capital gains rate and eliminating a tax break on inheritances, then using the revenue to fund new tax credits and other cost-saving measures for the middle class.

The White House says President Barack Obama will propose in his State of the Union address a plan to impose higher taxes on the wealthy and use the revenue to help middle-class families.

Washington's legal marijuana market opened last summer to a dearth of weed.

Gov. Rick Snyder's budget director said there will be "real" cuts to government services after economists agreed Friday that revenue is $289 million short of projections in the current state budget and $527 million below what was expected in the next fiscal year.

Vermont could reap hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue if it were to legalize marijuana, but only if other nearby states don't also jump on the bandwagon, according to a study released Friday.

Kansas would nearly triple its cigarette tax, raise taxes on alcohol and slow down promised income tax cuts to balance its budget under proposals Republican Gov. Sam Brownback outlined Friday.

Puerto Rico's governor signed a law Thursday that will increase the excise tax on a barrel of crude oil by 68 percent to help generate funds and sell an anticipated $2.9 billion in bonds.

The new Republican-controlled Congress is facing an old problem: where to find the money for highway and transit programs.

The IRS is cutting taxpayer services just as President Barack Obama's health law is making filing a tax return more complicated.

An Ohio law that singles out professional athletes and entertainers for taxation even when they're in the state just a few days a year is unconstitutional, say several sport leagues including the NBA, NFL and NHL who want the state Supreme Court to strike the law down.