Month: March 2012

General Electric Cites its “Deferred” (Not Yet Paid) Taxes and Taxes Paid to Foreign Governments, Offers No Evidence It Paid More in U.S. Corporate Income Taxes

In response to CTJ’s recent finding that GE had an effective federal corporate income tax rate of just 2.3 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.

A short report from CTJ responds to each of GE’s claims and provides all of the numbers used to calculate GE’s ten-year corporate income tax rate of 2.3 percent.

The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) testified this week in favor of a bill that would reinstate Maryland’s recently expired “millionaires’ tax.”  As ITEP explains in its testimony, the millionaires’ tax would make the state’s regressive tax system slightly less unfair.  And despite predictable claims from the anti-tax crowd, there’s no reason to think that the tax would harm the state’s economy.

Confirming our fears, it looks like Idaho lawmakers’ plan to cut taxes for the wealthiest and businesses in Idaho is moving forward. Legislation to reduce the top income tax rate passed out of the House Revenue and Taxation Committee.  In more bad Idaho news, it will not be joining the ranks of states with an Amazon tax this year as the bill failed to gain enough support.

It’s only March, yet Sales Tax Holiday season is already rearing its head. Alabama Governor Robert Bentley supports a “storm gear” holiday in advance of tornado season.  Lawmakers in Georgia are combining a sales tax holiday (bad idea) with a proposal to require online retailers to start collecting sales taxes from Peach State e-shoppers (good idea) in an effort “to kill any talk that a tax increase is afoot.”  And, Florida House members have already approved another year of a back to school tax holiday planned for August. 

ITEP’s Who Pays study was cited in an Associated Press article about heroic efforts to start taxing capital gains and other reforms in Washington State.  Because Washington has no personal or corporate income tax, and instead relies heavily on sales taxes, it has the most regressive tax system in the country.  At a press conference this week in support of the capital gains tax, Rep. Laurie Jinkins said, “Our fundamental problem in this state, in terms of revenue long term, has to do with fairness, adequacy of resources and stability of the resources that we bring into this state.”

After CTJ released its report last week criticizing the President’s corporate tax reform “framework” for not raising revenue and leaving key questions unanswered, CTJ staff spent a couple days speaking out about the framework.

Bob McIntyre, CTJ’s director, explained on Reuters TV why corporate tax reform is needed, how GE, Google and other companies get unwarranted breaks and why the President needs a better plan.

Rebecca Wilkins, CTJ’s Senior Counsel for federal tax policy, spoke on C-SPAN about the President’s framework and the need for real reform. Wilkins said that “the administration is leaving a lot of money on the table, and we think there’s a lot of room to raise revenue from corporate tax reform.”

Steve Wamhoff, CTJ’s Legislative Director, wrote in U.S. News and World Report’s “Debate Club” that the President’s framework “does not include what should be the main goal of reform—raising revenue to fund public investments and address the budget deficit.”

While poll after poll has long confirmed the overwhelming public support for progressive taxation in principle and increased tax revenues for deficit reduction, some polls that pop up every so often seem to contradict these results. Below we deconstruct two common errors seen in recent polls.

Marginal vs. Effective Tax Rates

Some survey questions fail to distinguish between marginal and effective tax rates. A marginal tax rate is the percentage of the last dollar of income received (by a given taxpayer) that will be paid in taxes. An effective rate is the total amount of taxes a person pays as a percentage of his or her entire income.

For example, when we say a person is in the “25 percent income tax bracket” that means that (generally) 25 percent of the last dollar of income received by that person will go towards federal income taxes. This person has a marginal income tax rate of 25 percent. But his effective income rate might only be around 15 percent or less. That’s because some of his income is taxed at lower rates and because some of his income is not included in taxable income at all (because of deductions).

The recent poll from The Hill is a case study in how conflating the marginal and effective tax rate can create bogus poll results. The Hill survey asks what the respondent believes is the most appropriate “top tax rate” for families earning $250,000 or more and corporations, and then lists out percentage options.

The problem is that the survey does not clearly distinguish whether the “top rate” being discussed is the effective or marginal top rate. In their coverage of the poll, The Hill reports that about three-quarters of likely voters support lower taxes on corporations and wealthy individuals, which just doesn’t sync with what the majority of current polling tells us.  The Center for American Progress’s Seth Hanlon explains why.  He points out that if respondents believed that the ‘top rate’ mentioned in the survey was meant to indicate the effective rate, then most respondents actually came out in favor of higher taxes. For example 67 percent of the respondents favored a 25 percent or higher rate on corporations, which, according to one important measure, is more than twice the current effective rate.

Cutting  Government vs. Cutting Specific Programs

Some misleading polls in recent years have concluded that the public prefers spending cuts over tax increases as the best method to decrease the deficit. The most recent example is an AP-GFK poll, which found that 56 percent of people prefer cutting government services, compared to just 31 percent who support tax increases.

As Citizens for Justice explained last year while examining a New York Times-CBS News poll, these questions are misleading because they ask about cutting “government services” more generally, rather than allowing the respondent to consider specific program spending cuts. When faced with a choice between vague service cuts and taxes, it’s not surprising that the public favors cutting spending because it’s not clear how they might lose out. Americans are famously wary of government spending, but ask them if they’re willing to cut, say, Medicare, the answer is a resounding ‘No!’.

When faced with specific choices, tax increases actually become one of the most popular ways to reduce the deficit. For example, a May 2011 Pew Research Poll which gave respondents a list of specific spending cuts and tax increases, found that two-thirds of the public favored raising income taxes on those making over $250,000 and raising the payroll tax cap, whereas nearly 60 percent opposed raising the Social Security retirement age and 73 percent opposed reducing funding to states for roads and education.

Next time you see news about a poll and it doesn’t sound right, it’s worth taking a look at the actual questions. The way they are worded makes the difference between good and bad polling.