Some say young voters are apathetic this election year and not likely to go to the polls.

Popular YouTube personality Soul Khan tackles this challenge head on—with messages that resonate about what’s at stake for young voters if they don’t get out and vote to re-elect President Obama.

With an entertaining rap, Khan gets in the face of young people with messages like:

Those of us in the middle and working classes will see our taxes raised big time if Mitt Romney is elected president, according to a new report released today by the Center for America Progress at a day-long event examining Romney’s proposals. Romney is proposing a set of so-called tax reforms that would increase taxes for 18 million working families, meaning an average income couple with two kids would pay $850 per year more in taxes.

In sharp contrast, Romney would gain $4.5 million in tax cuts in just the first year, and rake in more than $100 million in tax breaks over his lifetime (click chart at left to expand).

There are responsible tax cuts—and then there are tax giveaways for the already really rich.

In discussions over extending the Bush tax cuts, Republicans propose massive tax giveaways for the wealthy while the middle- and lower-income families would pay slightly more, according to a new analysis by Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ) and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP).

The nation’s growing income inequality recently has generated considerable attention—and has sparked a backlash by billionaires. TED’s Chris Anderson showed what a hot button issue it is when he tried to repress a video talk on the subject by venture capitalist Nick Hanauer. Hanauer, like billionaire investor Warren Buffett, supports increasing taxes on corporations and wealthy individuals for the good of the nation. Buffett and other billionaires have joined forces in a new pro-tax-increase-for-the-rich organization to assert: “We are the 1 percent, we stand with the 99 percent.”

Now the issue has hit the presidential campaign trail.

There's always a lot of noise on campaign trails about cutting taxes. But as the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) points out, the real question is: Whose taxes? 

A new report by EPI finds that since 1995, the wealthiest of the wealthy in this country have gotten far more tax breaks than those in the middle- and lower-income brackets, with the average effective federal tax rates falling more than 9 percentage points for the top 0.01 percent of households and more than 6 percentage points for the remaining households in the top 1 percent. Effective tax rates also have fallen for households between the 20th and 99th percentile, but by less than 3 percentage points.

Bob Soutier, president of the Greater St. Louis Labor Council, spoke today before hundreds gathered outside of Peabody Opera House as the Peabody Energy Corp. held its shareholders' meeting. Union activists and other members of the 99% Spring want the giant coal company to pay its fair share of taxes—because right now, Peabody's tax breaks take funds from those who need it most, such as St. Louis schools and social services.

When we talk about letting the Bush tax cuts for the rich expire, or asking the wealthy to pay more, it’s often described in terms of “tax fairness” and “paying their fair share.” And indeed that's a big part of it. But there is more to it than that. As Eduardo Porter writes in The New York Times today, the math works, too.

Tax season. Ouch.

Zachary Teutsch, director of the AFL-CIO’s Investor Education Project, offers several resources to help you learn how to file your taxes for free, maybe get a bigger refund and avoid the pitfalls of refund anticipation loans.

Republican presidential candidates and party and conservative leaders holler that the rich are paying far, far too much in taxes. Here are the facts: Rich Americans are not overtaxed. Not by a long shot. From 1996 to 2007, the overall federal tax rate for the richest 1 percent fell by more than 6 percentage points. The top marginal income tax rate dropped from 70 percent in 1980 to 35 percent today. And that’s just for starters.

Billionaire Warren Buffett is a thorn in the side of Republicans. This pillar of the capitalist community and CEO of the corporate conglomerate Berkshire Hathway, continues to press Congress to raise taxes wealthy people like him. When congressional Republicans answered him by proposing a voluntary check-off box on tax-filing forms for people who want to pay more taxes, Buffet threw down a gauntlet. He’d happily match the voluntary tax contributions made by GOP lawmakers, he said—and he’d even triple-match those made by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.