Right-Wing Spin Machine Uses Misleading Figures to Argue that the Tax Code Is More Progressive Under Bush

July 31, 2008 02:51 PM | | Bookmark and Share

A recent Wall Street Journal editorial1 touts new figures from the IRS2 as evidence that the rich are actually paying a higher share of federal taxes under President Bush and that the tax code has, therefore, become more progressive over the past eight years.

The Journal uses the IRS figures to create the impression that the poorer half of Americans are contributing almost nothing to federal revenue while the wealthy are providing the bulk of it. The figures illustrate that, for example, the richest one percent of taxpayers paid almost 40 percent of federal income taxes in 2006, up from almost 34 percent in 2001. Meanwhile, the poorest 50 percent paid only about 3 percent, down from about 4 percent in 2001.

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New Math: McCain Surrogate Claims that 23 Million Small Business Owners Are Among the Nation’s Richest 1.4 Million Taxpayers!

July 18, 2008 12:45 PM | | Bookmark and Share

Carly Fiorina, a surrogate for the presidential campaign of Senator John McCain, recently said that under the tax plan of McCain’s opponent, Senator Barack Obama, “23 million small businesses will see their taxes raised” because “23 million small businesses file their income tax as individuals.”

Senator Obama has promised that, if elected, he will allow the Bush tax cuts for people in the top two tax brackets to expire (as current law already provides).1 According to the U.S. Treasury Department, only 1.4 million taxpayers will be in the top two tax brackets this year.

Although it’s impossible to determine how many of those 1.4 million taxpayers are smallbusiness owners,2 two things are crystal clear: It’s a lot less than all of them, and it’s certainly not 23 million.

“John McCain has admitted that economics is not his strong suit,” noted Robert S. McIntyre, director of Citizens for Tax Justice. “Apparently, he and his surrogates don’t even grasp basic arithmetic.”

Fiorina previously achieved notoriety as head of Hewlett-Packard, where she spearheaded HP’s 2002 merger with Compaq Computer. That merger, which led to Fiorina’s firing, turned out to be one of the biggest corporate follies since Dick Cheney, as head of Halliburton, asbestos company in 1998, a deal that subsequently cost Halliburton billions of dollars to settle hundreds of thousands of medical-injury claims.

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Only 1% of Taxpayers Would Be Affected By Obama’s Proposal to Increase the Social Security Payroll Tax for the Rich

July 7, 2008 03:58 PM | | Bookmark and Share

Presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama has proposed increasing the Social Security payroll tax on wealthy Americans to enhance the program’s solvency for years to come. While several commentators and politicians have suggested that this would burden the middle-class, only around 1 percent of taxpayers would actually be affected by this proposal.

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House GOP Tax and Entitlement Plan Would Raise Taxes on Four Fifths of Americans While Slashing Taxes on the Wealthy

July 7, 2008 02:16 PM | | Bookmark and Share

Representative Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.), the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee, introduced legislation on May 21 that would cut Social Security benefits and create private accounts, end Medicare as it is currently structured, dramatically reduce the revenues available to fund federal public services, and radically reduce the fairness and revenue sufficiency of the federal tax system.

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First Step in Shifting to Cleaner Energy: End Unjustified Tax Loopholes for Oil and Gas

July 2, 2008 01:43 PM | | Bookmark and Share

In the past month, lawmakers beholden to the oil industry blocked consideration of a bill (S. 3044) that would shift tax subsidies away from oil and gas companies to alternative energy investments. This legislation also included a windfall profits tax on oil companies.

If Congress wants to raise revenue to encourage the development of alternative energy, it makes sense to start, as this bill would, by closing the tax loopholes that favor oil and gas companies. These loopholes in effect provide a subsidy to oil and gas companies that other firms do not receive.

Many of these subsidies have existed for years and have surely helped boost the profits of oil company shareholders. As this paper explains, the American public has received little, if anything, in return. Congress can recoup some of the benefits showered on the oil and gas industry over the years by implementing a windfall profits tax.

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