What's Really "Nauseating": Tax Subsidies for Bain Capital
Boehner Threatens Debt Default, Insists on Tax Cuts that Increase the Deficit
How to End Apple's Offshore Tax Shenanigans
House GOP Leader Calls for Tax Increases on Lower-Income Americans
CTJ Figures Disprove Myth of Americans "Not Paying Taxes"
Who Pays Taxes in America?
America's Tax System Is Just Barely Progressive
Loopholes for Sale: Campaign Contributions by Corporate Tax Dodgers
Contribution Data for Each Lawmaker
Ryan Budget Plan Would Cut Income Taxes for Millionaires by at Least $187,000 Annually
Eleven Options for Congress to Reform the Tax Code and Raise Revenue
President Obama’s “Framework” for Corporate Tax Reform Would Not Raise Revenue, Leaves Key Questions Unanswered
President's 2013 Budget Cuts Revenue by Trillions, Makes Permanent 78 Percent of Bush Tax Cuts
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How to End Apple's Offshore Tax Shenanigans
On Friday, May 4, the New York Times ran a letter from CTJ's director, Robert McIntyre, responding to a recent Times article describing Apple's tax dodging. In its latest annual report, Apple said that as of last September, it had a staggering $54 billion parked offshore (since grown, as the Times points out, to $74 billion). Most of these untaxed profits are almost certainly United States profits that Apple has artificially shifted offshore to avoid its United States tax responsibilities...
05/04/2012
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Fact Sheet: What You Need to Know about America's Tax System
This one page fact sheet includes the information you need to understand the debates taking place around Tax Day.
04/16/2012
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Tax Tips with Mitt
Millions of Americans will spend part of this upcoming weekend trying to navigate tax preparation software or filling out the actual paper forms to file their income tax returns before the Tuesday deadline. For those wishing they could pay less tax, outlined below are some tax planning ideas taken from a review of presidential candidate Mitt Romney's tax returns.
04/13/2012
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Buffett Rule Bill Before the Senate Is a Small Step Towards Tax Fairness
Congress should approve Senator Sheldon Whitehouse's proposal to implement the "Buffett Rule" to raise badly needed revenue and make our tax system fairer, but should also recognize that this must be followed by far more substantial reforms. In particular, Congress can't stop at limiting breaks for millionaire investors but should completely repeal the personal income tax preference for investment income, as President Ronald Reagan did in 1986.
04/10/2012
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Big No-Tax Corps Just Keep on Dodging
Last November, Citizens for Tax Justice and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy issued a major study of the federal income taxes paid, or not paid, by 280 big, profitable Fortune 500 corporations. That report found, among other things, that 30 of the companies paid no net federal income tax from 2008 through 2010. New information for 2011 shows that almost all these 30 companies have maintained their tax dodging ways.
04/09/2012
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The U.S. Has a Low Corporate Tax
America has one of the lowest corporate income taxes of any developed country, but you wouldn't know it given the hysteria of corporate lobbying outfits like the Business Roundtable. They say that because Japan lowered its corporate tax rate by a few percentage points on April 1, the U.S. now has the most burdensome corporate tax in the world. The problem with this argument is that large, profitable U.S. corporations only pay about half of the 35 percent corporate tax rate on average, and most U.S. multinational corporations actually pay higher taxes in other countries.
04/05/2012
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The Alternative Minimum Tax Is Not a Middle-Class Tax
For the 2011 tax year, 97 percent of the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) will be paid by the richest five percent of taxpayers and 58 percent of the AMT will be paid by the richest one percent of taxpayers. Even in the (very unlikely) event that Congress fails to enact AMT relief for 2012, the tax will still largely be borne by the well-off.
04/05/2012
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Who Pays Taxes in America?
It's often claimed that the richest Americans pay a disproportionate share of taxes while those in the bottom half pay nothing. These claims ignore the many taxes that most Americans are subject to -- federal payroll taxes, federal excise taxes, state and local taxes -- and focus instead on just one tax, the federal personal income tax.
04/04/2012
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Presentation: Tax and Revenue Decisions Facing Congress and the President
This presentation was given to participants of the Ecumenical Advocacy Days, an event that brings the perspectives of faith-based organizations to Capitol Hill. The presentation explains federal tax issues that are being debated today.
03/24/2012
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Ryan Budget Plan Would Cut Income Taxes for Millionaires by at Least $187,000 Annually and Facilitate Corporate Tax Avoidance
The Ryan budget would provide income tax cuts for millionaires averaging at least $187,000 in 2014. The plan would also reduce corporate income taxes and would increase the (already considerable) incentives for corporations to shift profits and jobs overseas.
03/22/2012
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Loopholes for Sale: Campaign Contributions by Corporate Tax Dodgers
Thirty major profitable corporations with a collective federal income tax bill of negative $10.6 billion over three years have made Congressional campaign contributions totaling $41 million over four election cycles. This report identifies what each of those corporations spent on political contributions and those members of Congress who were the top recipients.
03/21/2012
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Policy Options to Raise Revenue
This report describes eleven options for Congress to raise revenue by reforming our tax system, including taxing capital gains the same as other income, ending corporations' ability to "defer" paying taxes on offshore profits, enacting the "Buffett Rule," ending tax subsidies for oil and gas companies, and several other sensible reforms.
03/08/2012
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GE Tries to Change the Subject
In response to CTJ's recent finding that GE had an effective federal corporate income tax rate of two percent over ten years, GE's press office issued a short statement designed to divert attention from its tax-avoiding ways. GE has nothing to say to contradict the figures we cite from its own annual reports.
02/29/2012
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President Obama's "Framework" for Corporate Tax Reform Would Not Raise Revenue, Leaves Key Questions Unanswered
The Obama administration has proposed a "framework" for corporate tax reform. Unfortunately, it is designed to be "revenue-neutral," meaning it would not raise needed revenue to fund public investments, protect important programs such as Social Security and Medicare, or address the budget deficit. The President's plan also fails to answer key questions.
02/23/2012
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Obama Promoting Tax Cuts at Boeing, a Company that Paid Nothing in Net Federal Taxes Over Past Decade
On February 17, the President plans to visit a Boeing plant in Washington state to tout his proposed new tax breaks for American manufacturers. This is an odd setting to discuss new tax cuts, because over the past 10 years (2002-11), Boeing has paid nothing in net federal income taxes, despite $32 billion in pretax U.S. profits.
02/16/2012
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President Obama's 2013 Budget Plan Reduces Revenue by Trillions, Makes Permanent 78 Percent of Bush Tax Cuts
President Obama's fiscal year 2013 budget plan would cut taxes by $4.1 trillion over ten years. Most of this cost results from his proposal to make permanent 78 percent of the Bush tax cuts, which would reduce revenues by $3.5 trillion over a decade. The budget plan does include some good proposals that, together, would raise $1.1 trillion over a decade. Of course, these revenue-raising proposals don't come close to offsetting the costs of the tax cuts.
02/14/2012
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Putting a Face(book) on the Corporate Stock Option Tax Loophole
Facebook announced this month that it plans to give its co-founder and controlling stockholder, Mark Zuckerberg, a $2.8 billion cash windfall. Amazingly, Zuckerberg's bonanza will cost Facebook absolutely nothing. Well, actually, a lot less than nothing, since it will help save Facebook, Inc. a staggering $3 billion in federal and state corporate income taxes.
02/07/2012
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The Revenue Impacts of the Buffett Rule and Other Policy Options
The revenue impact of the Buffett Rule, as proposed by President Obama, depends on how it is implemented and whether or not the Bush tax cuts are extended again. Ending the breaks for investment income in the personal income tax would be a more straightforward approach that raises more revenue.
02/01/2012
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The President's Speech: Right about Stopping Offshore Tax Dodgers, Wrong about Cutting Taxes for Other Corporations
During his State of the Union address, President Obama said that "no American company should be able to avoid paying its fair share of taxes by moving jobs and profits overseas." We couldn't agree more. However, his proposed solutions, which the administration fleshed out with a fact sheet on Wednesday, fail to raise revenue, retain and expand the loopholes that allow corporations to avoid taxes, and mark a further retreat from earlier, stronger proposals.
01/26/2012
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GOP Presidential Candidates' Tax Plans Favor Richest in South Carolina
The cost of the tax plans proposed by Republican presidential candidates would range from $6.6 trillion to $18 trillion over a decade. Of the tax cuts going to South Carolina residents, almost half or more would go to richest five percent under these plans. The average tax cut received by the richest one percent of the state's residents would be up to 163 times as large as the average tax cut received by middle-income residents of the state.
01/19/2012
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