Month: January 2014

Citizens for Tax Justice has long argued that offshore tax avoidance by corporations will never be fully addressed until Congress reforms our laws to tax the domestic profits and the offshore profits of our corporations at the same time and at the same rate. Only then will corporations have no incentive to make their U.S. profits appear to be generated in tax havens like Bermuda and the Cayman Islands. But a new report from US PIRG explains that state governments can at least protect state corporate income taxes from the worst offshore abuses with reforms newly adopted by Montana and Oregon.

As PIRG explains, these two states

“simply treat profits that companies book to notorious tax havens as if it were domestic taxable income. This simple loophole closing uses information that multinational companies already report to states. The reform could be introduced anywhere, but is readily available to the 24 states and District of Columbia that have already modernized their tax codes by enacting “combined reporting,” which requires companies to report on how profits are distributed among jurisdictions so that they are taxed based on how much business activity they do in those places. All told, closing this tax haven loophole could save the remaining 22 states and District of Columbia over a billion dollars annually.”

Read the US PIRG report.

In his State of the Union address, President Obama touched on tax issues a few times, most prominently in connection to business tax reform.

“Both Democrats and Republicans have argued that our tax code is riddled with wasteful, complicated loopholes that punish businesses investing here, and reward companies that keep profits abroad.  Let’s flip that equation.  Let’s work together to close those loopholes, end those incentives to ship jobs overseas, and lower tax rates for businesses that create jobs here at home.”

Which companies does President Obama think should get these tax breaks for creating jobs here in the U.S.? In 2012, President Obama told a crowd at a Boeing plant in Washington State that companies that use tax breaks to shift operations and profits offshore ought to pay more U.S. taxes and the revenue “should go towards lowering taxes for companies like Boeing that choose to stay and hire here in the United States of America.” At that time CTJ pointed out that over the past ten years, Boeing had paid nothing in net federal income taxes, despite $32 billion in pretax U.S. profits.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: A lot of the corporations doing business in the U.S. already are paying little or nothing in taxes, as demonstrated by CTJ’s 2011 study of consistently profitable Fortune 500 corporations – a study that examined the U.S. taxes paid on the corporations’ U.S. profits. Even for those companies that do pay a reasonable effective tax rate in the U.S., there is no real economic evidence that lowering their tax rate will lead to economic growth for America. 

In fact, the U.S. corporate tax is far lighter than the corporate taxes imposed by other countries. According to the Department of the Treasury and the Congressional Budget Office, federal corporate tax revenue in the U.S. was equal to 1.2 percent of our economy in 2011 (1.5 percent if you include state corporate taxes). The average for other OECD countries (which include most of the developed countries) in 2011 was 2.9 percent.

While the President did say that savings from closing tax loopholes could be used to lower tax rates, he immediately followed that by saying:

“Moreover, we can take the money we save with this transition to tax reform to create jobs rebuilding our roads, upgrading our ports, unclogging our commutes – because in today’s global economy, first-class jobs gravitate to first-class infrastructure.”

But notice the fine print – he says this is revenue that would be raised in the “transition to tax reform,” rather than a permanent, sustainable increase in tax revenue. As we have explained before, some revenue that would be raised if business tax loopholes were closed would be permanent, sustainable revenue – but the President wants to use that revenue to offset reductions in the corporate tax rate. But closing these tax loopholes would also produce some revenue that is temporary, meaning it would only show up in the first few years or so. This temporary revenue increase cannot be used to pay for anything that is permanent (like the reductions in tax rates). Instead, the White House argues, reasonably, that a temporary revenue increase should be used to pay for something that is temporary, like a boost in infrastructure investments.

But the main goal of tax reform should be to raise revenue on a permanent basis from both the personal income tax and the corporate income tax. When budget cuts have literally led to children being kicked out of Head Start and reductions in investments like medical research, the need for revenue is obvious. The need to lower Boeing’s effective tax rate further below zero is not.

Many expect that during his State of the Union address tonight, President Obama will speak of income inequality, which he has previously called the “defining issue of our time.” As our nation hopefully begins this much-needed debate, everyone should be clear about one thing that has not been used much in recent years to reduce income inequality: the tax code.

The table below shows that effective tax rates were slightly higher in 2013 for all income groups (not just the rich) than they would have been if Congress had simply extended the tax rules in effect in 2012, as Congressional Republicans had called for in the debate over the “fiscal cliff.”

For the poor and middle-class, slightly higher effective tax rates resulted from the expiration of a Social Security payroll tax cut. For the rich, higher effective tax rates resulted from the end of parts of the Bush-era tax cuts and an effective increase in the Medicare tax as a part of health care reform.

The result is that the share of total taxes paid by each income group did not change much at all. As the table below illustrates, the richest one percent of Americans paid 24 percent of the total taxes in 2013, but would have paid 23.1 percent if the 2012 tax rules had been extended as Congressional Republicans called for. The shares of total taxes paid by the bottom four fifths of Americans were almost unchanged.

These figures are taken from one of the many CTJ reports that analyzed the impacts of the “fiscal cliff” deal that allowed certain tax cuts to expire. In other reports we have demonstrated that the tax code is not particularly progressive. For example, the richest one percent of Americans paid 24 percent of the total taxes in America in 2013, which may seem like a lot until you consider that this same group also received 21.9 percent of the total income that year. The poorest fifth of Americans paid only 2.1 percent of the total taxes in 2013, and received just 3.3 of the total income that year.

In other words, America’s tax system can just barely be called progressive.

Note to Readers: This is the third of a five-part series on tax policy prospects in the states in 2014.  Over the coming weeks, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) will highlight state tax proposals that are gaining momentum in states across the country. This post focuses on proposals to cut personal income, business, and property taxes.

Tax cut proposals are by no means a new trend.  But, the sheer scope, scale and variety of tax cutting plans coming out of state houses in recent years and expected in 2014 are unprecedented.  Whether it’s across the board personal income tax rate cuts or carving out new tax breaks for businesses, the vast majority of the dozen plus tax cut proposals under consideration this year would heavily tilt towards profitable corporations and wealthy households with very little or no benefit to low-income working families.  Equally troubling is that most of the proposals would use some or all of their new found revenue surpluses (thanks to a mostly recovering economy) as an excuse to enact permanent tax cuts rather than first undoing the harmful program cuts that were enacted in response to the Great Recession.  Here is a brief overview of some of the tax cut proposals we are following in 2014:

Arizona – Business tax cuts seem likely to be a major focus of Arizona lawmakers this session.  Governor Jan Brewer recently announced that she plans to push for a new tax exemption for energy purchased by manufacturers, and proposals to slash equipment and machinery taxes are getting serious attention as well.  But the proposals aren’t without their opponents.  The Children’s Action Alliance has doubts about whether tax cuts are the most pressing need in Arizona right now, and small business groups are concerned that the cuts will mainly benefit Apple, Intel, and other large companies.

District of Columbia – In addition to considering some real reforms (see article later this week), DC lawmakers are also talking about enacting an expensive property tax cap that will primarily benefit the city’s wealthiest residents.  They’re also looking at creating a poorly designed property tax exemption for senior citizens.  So far, the senior citizen exemption has gained more traction than the property tax cap.

Florida – Governor Rick Scott has made clear that he intends to propose $500 million in tax cuts when his budget is released later this month.  The details of that cut are not yet known, but the slew of tax cuts enacted in recent years have been overwhelmingly directed toward the state’s businesses.  The state legislature’s more recent push to cut automobile registration fees this year, shortly before a statewide election takes place, is the exception.

Idaho – Governor Butch Otter says that his top priority this year is boosting spending on education, but he also wants to enact even more cuts to the business personal property tax (on top of those enacted last year), as well as further reductions in personal and corporate income tax rates (on top of those enacted two years ago). Idaho’s Speaker of the House wants to pay for those cuts by dramatically scaling back the state’s grocery tax credit, but critics note that this would result in middle-income taxpayers having to foot the bill for a tax cut aimed overwhelmingly at the wealthy.

Indiana – Having just slashed taxes for wealthy Hoosiers during last year’s legislative session, Indiana lawmakers are shifting their focus toward big tax breaks for the state’s businesses.  Governor Mike Pence wants to eliminate localities’ ability to tax business equipment and machinery, while the Senate wants to scale back the tax and pair that change with a sizeable reduction in the corporate income tax rate. House leadership, by contrast, has a more modest plan to simply give localities the option of repealing their business equipment taxes.

Iowa – Leaders on both sides of the aisle are reportedly interested in income tax cuts this year. Governor Terry Branstad is taking a more radical approach and is interested in exploring offering an alternative flat income tax option. We’ve written about this complex and costly proposal here.

Maryland – Corporate income tax cuts and estate tax cuts are receiving a significant amount of attention in Maryland—both among current lawmakers and among the candidates to be the state’s next Governor.  Governor Martin O’Malley has doubts about whether either cut could be enacted without harming essential public services, but he has not said that he will necessarily oppose the cuts.  Non-partisan research out of Maryland indicates that a corporate rate cut is unlikely to do any good for the state’s economy, and there’s little reason to think that an estate tax cut would be any different.

Michigan – Michigan lawmakers are debating all kinds of personal income tax cuts now that an election is just a few months away and the state’s revenue picture is slightly better than it has been the last few years.  It’s yet to be seen whether that tax cut will take the form of a blanket reduction in the state’s personal income tax, or whether lawmakers will try to craft a package that includes more targeted enhancements to provisions like the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), which they slashed in 2011 to partially fund a large tax cut (PDF) for the state’s businesses. The Michigan League for Public Policy (MLPP) explains why an across-the-board tax cut won’t help the state’s economy.

Missouri – In an attempt to make good on their failed attempt to reduce personal income taxes for the state’s wealthiest residents last year, House Republicans are committed to passing tax cuts early in the legislative session. Bills are already getting hearings in Jefferson City that would slash both corporate and personal income tax rates, introduce a costly deduction for business income, or both.

Nebraska – Rather than following Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman into a massive, regressive overhaul of the Cornhusker’s state tax code last year, lawmakers instead decided to form a deliberative study committee to examine the state’s tax structure.  In December, rather than offering a set of reform recommendations, the Committee concluded that lawmakers needed more time for the study and did not want to rush into enacting large scale tax cuts.  However, several gubernatorial candidates as well as outgoing governor Heineman are still seeking significant income and property tax cuts this session.

New Jersey – By all accounts, Governor Chris Christie will be proposing some sort of tax cut for the Garden State in his budget plan next month.  In November, a close Christie advisor suggested the governor may return to a failed attempt to enact an across the board 10 percent income tax cut.  In his State of the State address earlier this month, Christie suggested he would be pushing a property tax relief initiative.  

New York – Of all the governors across the United States supporting tax cutting proposals, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has been one of the most aggressive in promoting his own efforts to cut taxes. Governor Cuomo unveiled a tax cutting plan in his budget address that will cost more than $2 billion a year when fully phased-in. His proposal includes huge tax cuts for the wealthy and Wall Street banks through raising the estate tax exemption and cutting bank and corporate taxes.  Cuomo also wants to cut property taxes, first by freezing those taxes for some owners for the first two years then through an an expanded property tax circuit breaker for homeowners with incomes up to $200,000, and a new tax credit for renters (singles under 65 are not included in the plan) with incomes under $100,000.  

North Dakota – North Dakota legislators have the year off from law-making, but many will be meeting alongside Governor Jack Dalrymple this year to discuss recommendations for property tax reform to introduce in early 2015.  

Oklahoma – Governor Mary Fallin says she’ll pursue a tax-cutting agenda once again in the wake of a state Supreme Court ruling throwing out unpopular tax cuts passed by the legislature last year.  Fallin wants to see the state’s income tax reduced despite Oklahoma’s messy budget situation, while House Speaker T.W. Shannon says that he intends to pursue both income tax cuts and tax cuts for oil and gas companies.

South Carolina – Governor Nikki Haley’s recently released budget includes a proposal to eliminate the state’s 6 percent income tax bracket. Most income tax payers would see a $29 tax cut as a result of her proposal. Some lawmakers are also proposing to go much farther and are proposing a tax shift that would eliminate the state’s income tax altogether.

Editorial boards at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and the Wisconsin State Journal have both (rightly) responded to Governor Walker’s property and income tax cut proposals by encouraging lawmakers to instead curb the state’s growing structural deficit, or put any surplus revenue toward serious problems like poverty reduction and enhancing K-12 education. Perhaps the editorial boards were persuaded by Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) findings that wealthier folks benefit more from the tax cuts than low-and middle-income families. For more on ITEP’s analysis read this Milwaukee Journal Sentinel piece.

Idaho’s House Speaker has proposed dramatically scaling back the state’s grocery tax credit in exchange for a regressive $70-80 million cut to the individual and corporate income tax rates. But economist Mike Ferguson of the Idaho Center for Fiscal Policy points out that the Speaker’s plan would amount to a giveaway to the rich, while further squeezing the middle class.  An Idahoan making $50,000 per year, for example, could expect to see about $305 tacked on to their state tax bill under this change. Governor Butch Otter has been saying the right things about taking a break from tax cuts (kind of) and instead making education spending a priority this year. But the Governor recently said he was open to the Speaker’s idea, and the Idaho Statesman provided a partial endorsement. Idaho legislators should tread carefully: raising taxes on the middle class to pass another trickle-down tax cut is bad public policy and even worse politics.

A Wichita Eagle editorial, “Pressure on sales tax”, shares our concerns about one of the major consequences of the tax cuts and “reforms” enacted in Kansas over the past two years.  With the gradual elimination of the state’s personal income tax and pressure on local governments to raise revenue, it is inevitable that the state’s sales tax rate will continue to rise at the detriment of low- and moderate-income working families who are stuck footing the bill. And, in order to have sufficient revenue to fund services over the long-run, Kansas lawmakers will need to make the politically difficult decision to broaden the sales tax base, something they’ve shown little stomach for so far. The editorial states, “as Kansas strains to deal with declining tax collections and reserves according to Brownback’s plan to become a state without an income tax, the sales tax will be one of the only places to go for more revenue.”

Indiana lawmakers want to get a better handle on whether their tax incentives for economic development are actually doing any good.  Last week, the House unanimously passed legislation that will require every economic development tax break to be reviewed ov

er the course of the next five years.  Our partner organization, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), recommends that all states implement these kinds of ongoing evaluations.

Illinois Governor Pat Quinn is pushing back against a string of bad publicity regarding film tax credits. Quinn says that an entertainment boom is occurring in Illinois in part because of the Illinois Film Services Tax Credit, an uncapped, transferable credit that was extended in 2011. What Governor Quinn fails to mention, however, is how much taxpayers lost in the process. The credit costs roughly $20 million a year, requiring higher taxes or fewer public services than would otherwise be the case. Research from other states indicates that only a small fraction of that amount would be recouped via higher tax receipts. Moreover, film subsidies often waste money on productions that would have located in the state anyway and are unlikely to do much good in the long-term since the industry is so geographically mobile. Indeed, one of the producers of Transformers 3 admitted that he would have filmed in Chicago even without the credit, which cost taxpayers $6 million. Instead, the decision was based on “the skyline, the architecture and the skilled crews here, among other factors.”

(Updated 1/24/2014 to reflect the fact the resolution passed.)

At its yearly winter meeting, the Republican National Committee approved a resolution calling for the repeal of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), a major law enacted in 2010 (as part of the HIRE Act) to clamp down on offshore tax evasion.

FATCA was enacted in the wake of revelations that the Swiss bank UBS had helped American citizens evade U.S. income taxes by illegally hiding income in offshore accounts. The most important provisions of FATCA basically require Americans, including those living abroad, to tell the IRS about offshore assets greater than $50,000, and apply a withholding tax to payments made to any foreign banks that refuse to share information about their American customers with the IRS.

Those who are directly affected by FATCA are likely to be few in number and they certainly have the means to fill out the disclosure form required with their federal income tax return under its provisions. The $50,000 threshold excludes housing and other non-financial assets. That means that even a relatively well-off American who works for a few years abroad and even someone who owns a house abroad will not be affected unless they hold over $50,000 in cash or financial assets in the other country.

Whatever inconvenience is caused by these requirements is far outweighed by the benefits to the U.S. and its law abiding taxpayers. According to the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT), FATCA’s anti-tax evasion measures are estimated to raise $8.7 billion (PDF) over their first decade of implementation. (JCT does have a history of underestimating tax enforcement measures.) Considering that the U.S. loses an estimated $100 billion (PDF) annually due to offshore tax abuses, this seems like a modest reform.

In May 2013, Senator Rand Paul introduced legislation to repeal the important parts of FATCA, claiming that this is necessary to protect privacy. But there simply is no right of Americans to hide income from the IRS. As we explained at that time, for a country with a personal income tax (like the U.S.), that kind of information sharing is indispensible to tax compliance, as the IRS stated in its most recent report on the “tax gap”:

“Overall, compliance is highest where there is third-party information reporting and/or withholding. For example, most wages and salaries are reported by employers to the IRS on Forms W-2 and are subject to withholding. As a result, a net of only 1 percent of wage and salary income was misreported. But amounts subject to little or no information reporting had a 56 percent net misreporting rate in 2006.”

Other opponents of FATCA, like the Wall Street Journal, have claimed that it is causing Americans living abroad to renounce their U.S. citizenship, but as we have pointed out, those renouncing citizenship make up a tiny fraction of one percent of the six million Americans living abroad.

On January 17, Senators Michael Bennet (D-CO) and Roy Blunt (R-MO) and nine of their colleagues introduced the Senate version of Congressman John Delaney’s proposal providing a tax amnesty for profits that corporations officially hold offshore on the condition that they purchase bonds to fund an infrastructure bank.

Instead of tapping corporate profits that are “locked” offshore as supporters claim, this proposal would provide an enormous tax break for profits that already are in the U.S. economy but which are booked in offshore tax havens in order to avoid taxes, a practice that will be more common  if this proposal is enacted. In fact, the net effect of this bill could be to reduce employment.

Background of Delaney Bill

In the spring of 2013, Congressman John Delaney, a Democrat from Maryland, proposed to allow American corporations to bring a limited amount of offshore profits to the U.S. (to “repatriate” these profits) without paying the U.S. corporate tax that would normally be due. This type of tax amnesty for repatriated offshore profits is euphemistically called a “repatriation holiday” by its supporters. The Congressional Research Service has found that a similar proposal enacted in 2004 provided no benefit for the economy and that many of the corporations that participated actually reduced employment.

Rep. Delaney and the 50 House cosponsors to his bill seem to believe they can avoid that unhappy result by allowing corporations to repatriate their offshore funds tax-free only if they also fund a bank that finances public infrastructure projects, which they believe would create jobs in America. How much a corporation could repatriate tax-free would be determined through a bidding process, with a maximum cap of six dollars in offshore profits repatriated tax-free for every one dollar spent on the bonds. Unfortunately, as explained below, the proposal is designed to give away two dollars in tax breaks for every one dollar spent on infrastructure.

So-Called “Offshore” Corporate Profits Are Largely Invested in the U.S.

Many lawmakers seem to mistakenly believe that the $2 trillion in “permanently reinvested profits” that American corporations officially hold abroad are locked out of the American economy. This has led many to support proposals to exempt American corporations’ offshore profits from U.S. taxes, either on a permanent basis (through a so-called “territorial” tax system) or a temporary basis (with a tax amnesty for repatriated offshore profits).

But the premise is wrong. As a recent report from the Center for American Progress explains, American corporations’ offshore profits are actually invested in the U.S. economy already because they are deposited in U.S. bank accounts or invested in U.S. Treasury bonds or even corporate stocks. The real problem is that our tax system traps badly needed revenue out of the country by allowing American corporations to “defer” (delay) paying U.S. taxes on profits characterized as “offshore” — even if they are really earned here in the U.S.

A study from the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (chaired by Carl Levin of Michigan) that examined the corporations benefiting the most from the repatriation amnesty enacted by Congress in 2004 found that almost half of their offshore profits were actually in U.S. bank accounts, Treasury bonds, and U.S. corporate stocks. Corporations are, in theory, restricted by law from using their offshore profits to pay dividends to shareholders or to directly expand their own investments. But even these rules can be circumvented when the corporations borrow money for these purposes, using the offshore profits as collateral.

Biggest Benefits Would Go to Corporations Disguising their U.S. Profits as Tax Haven Profits

The proposal would provide the biggest benefits to the most aggressive corporate tax dodgers. Often, an American corporation has offshore profits because its offshore subsidiaries carry out actual business activity. But a great deal of the profits that are characterized as “offshore” are really U.S. profits that have been disguised through accounting gimmicks as “foreign” profits generated by a subsidiary (which may be just a post office box) in a country that does not tax profits (i.e., an offshore tax haven). These tax haven profits are the profits most likely to be “repatriated” under such a proposal for two reasons.

First, offshore profits from actual business activities in foreign countries are often reinvested into factories, stores, equipment or other assets that are not easily liquidated in order to take advantage of a temporary tax break, but profits that are booked as “foreign” profits earned by a post office box subsidiary in a tax haven are easier to “move” to the U.S.

Second, profits in tax havens get a bigger tax break when “repatriated” under such a tax amnesty. The U.S. tax that is normally due on repatriated offshore profits is the U.S. corporate tax rate of 35 percent minus whatever was paid to the government of the foreign country. Profits that American companies claim to generate in tax havens are not taxed at all (or taxed very little) by the foreign government, so they might be subject to the full 35 percent U.S. rate upon repatriation — and thus receive the greatest break when the U.S. tax is called off.

Not a Way to Create Infrastructure Jobs

While infrastructure spending is economically stimulative, this plan is an absurdly wasteful and corrupt way to fund job creation. First, the proposal is designed to give away two dollars in tax breaks for every one dollar spent on infrastructure (and the jobs to build infrastructure) — to give away up to $105 billion in corporate tax breaks in order to raise $50 billion to finance the infrastructure bank. Because up to six dollars could be repatriated tax-free for every one dollar corporations spend on the bonds, up to $300 billion would be repatriated tax-free to raise $50 billion for the infrastructure bank. As already explained, the profits most likely to be repatriated have not been taxed at all by any government so under normal rules the full 35 percent U.S. tax rate would apply, and 35 percent of $300 billion is $105 billion.

Second, this proposal would be the second tax amnesty for offshore profits (the first was enacted in 2004), and once Congress signals its willingness to do this more than once, corporations could be encouraged to shift even more profits (and even jobs) offshore in hopes of benefitting from another tax amnesty in the future. In other words, the proposal’s net effect on U.S. job creation could be negative.

After some high-quality investigative journalism from the Orlando Sentinel last year, prominent state lawmakers in Florida are setting their sights on sunsetting or redesigning a poorly tailored tax break for companies that locate in high-crime areas. The tax provision at issue — the Urban High-Crime Area Job Tax Credit Program — allows cities to draw expansive (and unalterable) borders around purported “high crime areas” that are anything but. Companies benefiting from the loophole include Universal Orlando, which has received over $8 million from the program since the provision’s adoption sixteen years ago. Universal is planning to cash in again this year with the opening of its second Harry Potter-themed amusement park (prompting one columnist to ask jokingly if being chased by an imaginary dragon constitutes attempted murder). Dubious corporate subsidies are nothing new in Florida, and the value of this credit is not about to break the bank ($500 to $1,500 per employee and capped statewide at $5 million each year). But by highlighting these abuses, the Sentinel has provided a healthy reminder that even well-meaning corporate tax breaks often create unintended, negative consequences and should be eliminated.

Despite failing to win over the legislature with his tax swap proposal last year, Nebraska’s Governor Heineman is back to hawking large reductions in the personal income tax. While it’s true that Nebraska is sitting on a budget surplus, the legislature’s Tax Modernization Committee held hearings last year and recently recommended only minor changes. Perhaps some middle ground comes in the form of two tax proposals introduced by legislators this month that target relief to low- and middle-income families (imagine that!). Senator Conrad (D-Lincoln) has called for an increase in the state Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). And Senator Bolz (D-Lincoln) is proposing an increase in the state’s child care tax credit for middle income families. Conrad’s legislation would increase the refundable state EITC from 10% of the federal credit to 13%, which would make a substantial difference in the lives of Nebraska’s working poor. For a family with three children earning the maximum EITC benefit in 2014, such a change would put more than $180 back in their pockets. Bolz’s bill would increase the child care credit for those making more than $29,000 from 25% of the federal credit to 28%. Unlike the federal government, Nebraska already makes its child care tax credit partially refundable (for those making less than $29,000 a year), an admirable feature of the state’s tax code. Bolz’s proposal wouldn’t change the refundability equation and could be better targeted at low-income families, but, like Conrad’s EITC bill, is a step in the right direction.

The Baltimore Sun has rightly poured cold water on an idea from some Maryland legislators to gut the state’s estate tax. House Speaker Michael Busch and Senate President Mike Miller have proposed increasing the value of an estate that can be passed on tax-free from $1 million to $5.25 million (more information on the mechanics of state estate and inheritance taxes can be found here).  The state comptroller has also signed onto the idea.  But the Sun editorial points out that supporters’ reasoning — that Maryland has become an inhospitable place for rich people to die — is faulty.  According to a recent study, 7.7 percent of Maryland households are millionaires — the highest percentage of any state — and only 2.8 percent of Maryland estates pay any state tax under the current regime.  Maryland policymakers — including Governor O’Malley, who has not yet committed either way hould resist this election-year giveaway to the rich.

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker learned last week that the state is expecting a $912 million surplus. The Governor is expected to propose both property and income tax cuts.  But the Wisconsin Budget Project (WBP) rightly cautions that tax cuts aren’t necessarily the best way to spend the surplus.  WBP argues that this revenue “gives lawmakers an excellent opportunity to invest in Wisconsin’s economic future and to put the state on a sounder fiscal footing by filling budget holes.”

The newly passed $1.1 trillion bipartisan budget appropriations bill includes myriad spending cuts, but the $526 million cut to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has to be the most foolish. Under the new budget, the IRS’s 2014 budget will be $11.3 billion, which is $1.7 billion less than the administration requested and about $2.5 billion higher than the radical 25 percent cut proposed by some House Republicans earlier this year.

As Nina Olsen, the non-partisan United States Taxpayer Advocate, notes in her recent annual report, cutting the IRS budget makes very little sense since every “dollar spent on the IRS generates more than one dollar in return – it reduces the budget deficit.” In fact, as we’ve noted before, every dollar invested in the IRS can generate as much as $200 in deficit reduction.

Unfortunately, lawmakers have not seen it this way in recent years. Since 2010, the IRS has been forced by an 8 percent cut in its budget (adjusting for inflation) to reduce its staff by 11,000 people and its spending on training its employees by 83 percent. These cuts have taken place even though there are now 11 percent more individual and 23 percent more business tax returns for the agency to handle.  As IRS Commissioner John Koskinen testified at his confirmation hearing in December, a recent report by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) found that at least $8 billion had been lost in compliance revenue due to budget cuts.

The impact on customer service has also been dramatic. In 2013, customer service representatives from the IRS were only able to answer 61 percent of the calls made from taxpayers seeking help, which is a substantial drop from the 87 percent that were answered ten years ago. In other words, some 20 million calls by taxpayers seeking help went unanswered last year, even before this new round of budget cuts.

Ironically, many lawmakers have used the IRS “scandal” (the agency’s targeted scrutiny of organizations seeking tax-exempt status by screening for political words in their names) to argue that it be punished with these and even larger budget cuts. The reality is that the lack of budgetary resources was a major driver of the short-cuts that created the “scandal.” Further budget cuts will only create more problems at the agency.

If Congress is really interested in making the IRS work more effectively and in reducing the deficit, it should substantially increase the IRS’s budget. When Congress cuts the IRS’s budget, the only people who are really punished are the honest American taxpayers. 

Note to Readers: This is the second of a five-part series on tax policy prospects in the states in 2014. Over the coming weeks, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) will highlight state tax proposals that are gaining momentum in states across the country. This post focuses on tax shift proposals.

The most radical and potentially devastating tax reform proposals under consideration in a number of states are those that would reduce or eliminate state income taxes and replace some or all of the lost revenue by expanding or increasing consumption taxes. These “tax swap” proposals appeared to gain momentum in a number of states last year, but ultimately proposals by the governors of Louisiana and Nebraska fell flat in 2013. Despite this, legislators in several states have reiterated their commitment to this flawed idea and may attempt to inflict it on taxpayers in 2014. Here’s a round-up of where we see tax shifts gaining momentum:

Arkansas – The Republican Party in Arkansas is so committed to a tax shift that they have included language in their platform vowing to “[r]eplace the state income tax with a more equitable method of taxation.” While the rules of Arkansas’ legislative process will prevent any movement on a tax shift this year, leading Republican gubernatorial candidate Asa Hutchinson has made income tax elimination a major theme of his campaign.  

Georgia – The threat of a radical tax shift proposal was so great in the Peach State that late last year the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute published this report (using ITEP data) showing that as many as four in five taxpayers would pay more in taxes if the state eliminated their income tax and replaced the revenue with sales taxes. This report seems to have slowed the momentum for the tax shift, but many lawmakers remain enthusiastic about this idea.

Kansas – In each of the last two years, Governor Sam Brownback has proposed and signed into law tax-cutting legislation designed to put the state on a “glide path” toward income tax elimination.  Whether or not the Governor will be able to continue to steer the state down this path in 2014 may largely depend on the state Supreme Court’s upcoming decision about increasing education funding.

New Mexico – During the 2013 legislative session a tax shift bill was introduced in Santa Fe that would have eliminated the state’s income tax, and reduced the state’s gross receipts tax rate to 2 percent (from 5.125 percent) while broadening the tax base to include salaries and wages. New Mexico Voices for Children released an analysis (PDF) of the legislation (citing ITEP figures on the already-regressive New Mexico tax structure) that rightly concludes, “[o]n the whole, HB-369/SB-368 would be a step in the direction of a more unfair tax system and should not be passed by the Legislature.” We expect the tax shift debate has only just started there.

North Carolina – North Carolina lawmakers spent a good part of their 2013 legislative session debating numerous tax “reform” packages including a tax shift that would have eliminated the state’s personal and corporate income taxes and replaced some of the revenue with a higher sales tax. Ultimately, they enacted a smaller-scale yet still disastrous package which cut taxes for the rich,hiked them for most everyone else, and drained state resources by more than $700 million a year. There is reason to believe that some North Carolina lawmakers will use any surplus revenue this year to push for more income tax cuts.  And, one of the chief architects of the income tax elimination plan from last year has made it known that he would like to use the 2015 session to continue pursuing this goal.

Ohio – Governor John Kasich has made no secret of his desire to eliminate the state’s income tax. When he ran for office in 2010 he promised to “[p]hase out the income tax. It’s punishing on individuals. It’s punishing on small business. To phase that out, it cannot be done in a day, but it’s absolutely essential that we improve the tax environment in this state so that we no longer are an obstacle for people to locate here and that we can create a reason for people to stay here.” He hasn’t changed his tune: during a recent talk to chamber of commerce groups he urged them “to always be for tax cuts.”  

Wisconsin – Governor Scott Walker says he wants 2014 to be a year of discussion about the pros and cons of eliminating Wisconsin’s most progressive revenue sources—the corporate and personal income taxes. But the discussion is likely to be a short one when the public learns (as an ITEP analysis found) that a 13.5 percent sales tax rate would be necessary for the state to make up for the revenue lost from income tax elimination.