Author: tarek

A new CTJ report explains why 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.

A previous CTJ report concluded that Senator Whitehouse’s bill would raise $171 billion from 2013 through 2022. The non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) has estimated that it would raise much less revenue, probably because JCT overestimates behavioral responses to changes in tax rates on investment income. But even if Senator Whitehouse’s bill would raise $171 billion over a decade, that’s only a fraction of the $533 billion that CTJ estimates could be raised by completely ending the tax preference for investment income.

Read the report.

Photo of Warren Buffett via The White House Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

We’ve written a lot about plans to eliminate Missouri’s income tax and boost the sales tax instead, spearheaded by anti-tax mastermind Rex Sinquefield.  He had hoped to put this radical plan before voters this November but the initiative’s advocates aren’t sure they can use the signatures they’ve gathered because of legal challenges.  The awful policy implications of the Sinquefield plan aside, this article explains how the ballot initiative process in Missouri has gone kablooey in recent years.   The 22 versions of the anti-income-tax initiative filed with the Secretary of State is in some ways an indictment of Missouri’s elected officials who have repeatedly refused to participate in serious tax reform debates.

With tax day just around the corner, Wisconsin Budget Project reminds us that working Wisconsinites who qualify for the Earned Income Tax Credit will actually see fewer benefits this year thanks to draconian cuts in the credit passed in the 2011-13 budget.

Maryland’s Senate President says that lawmakers “have an agreement” on a package of progressive personal income tax increases, but that they simply ran out of time to pass that package before last night’s midnight deadline.  Gov. O’Malley is expected to call a special session so that the increases can be enacted, but he has not done so yet.

Here’s a great read from The American Prospect that talks about the need to reform regressive state and local tax structures, citing ITEP research.

Two reports from CTJ demonstrate that the U.S. corporate tax is not the huge burden that corporate lobbyists say it is. The first report explains why claims that the U.S. has the highest corporate tax in the world are false. The second report follows up on the thirty Fortune 500 corporations that CTJ identified last year as paying no corporate income taxes and concludes that most of them have not changed their tax dodging ways since then.

The U.S. Has a Low Corporate Tax: Don’t Believe the Hype about Japan’s Corporate Tax Rate Reduction

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. This CTJ reports explains 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 where they do business.

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.

26 of the 30 companies continued to enjoy negative federal income tax rates. Of the remaining four companies, three paid four-year effective tax rates of less than 4 percent. Had these 30 companies paid the full 35 percent corporate tax rate over the 2008-11 period, they would have paid $78.3 billion more in federal income taxes.

Presidential candidate Mitt Romney took some heat this winter for delaying release of his tax returns and then, in January, released only one year’s worth (and an estimate for 2011). Now the calls for more disclosure are heating up again since the Washington Post reported that Romney is using an obscure ethics rule loophole to limit the disclosure of his Bain Capital holdings. An earlier Los Angeles Times article reported that Romney’s financial disclosure did not list many of the funds and partnerships that showed up in his 2010 tax returns, eleven of which are based in low-tax foreign countries such as Bermuda, the Cayman Islands and Luxembourg.

While it’s Romney’s offshore holdings that are making news, the fact is any government official using offshore tax havens right now is allowed to keep that a secret.

But that’s about to change. On March 29, Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Al Franken (D-MN) introduced a bill that would require members of Congress, candidates for federal office, and high-ranking federal government officials to identify which of their assets are located in tax havens when they file their required financial disclosures. The Financial Disclosure to Reduce Tax Haven Abuse Act of 2012 (S. 2253) would amend the Ethics in Government Act of 1978.

Although there’s nothing illegal about having an offshore account, estimates are that abuses facilitated by these accounts cost the U.S. Treasury over $100 Billion per year in lost tax revenue. And while the Durbin-Franken bill won’t make it illegal, it would have the effect of limiting that sort of tax dodging among public officials – or weed out candidates unwilling to tolerate a little sunshine.

In his floor statement introducing the bill, Sen. Durbin stated “it might seem ridiculous that we don’t already know whether candidates and Members of Congress are using offshore tax havens.” Sen. Franken, in the press release, said “Americans deserve transparency from public officials.” We could not agree more.

Photo of Mitt Romney via Gage Skidmore Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

This week, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel came together for a Chicago Tribune Forum, one in a series on the region’s future sponsored by the newspaper. Questions from readers and journalists focused on the state’s ailing pension system and other economic matters.

One thing Mayor Emanuel emphasized is that Chicagoans are paying more than their fair share into the state’s teacher pension funds. This is part of the problem that lawmakers have refused to face head on for years — balancing the state’s budget while meeting its pension obligations. 

The Director of the Illinois Retirement System recently revealed that the system could be insolvent by 2029. One reason the system is on shaky ground is that the state doesn’t have the right tools in place to adequately fund its obligations – like a progressive income tax or a broad income tax base.  

Illinois is unusual in two ways. It has a flat rate income tax so the state’s most affluent pay a relatively low tax rate, and it does not tax retirement income. Both of these are significant revenue sources for any state.  Lawmakers interested in solving the state’s pension problems and budget shortfall would have to start a real conversation about tax reform that includes taking a hard look at taxing retirement benefits, especially for well-off retirees.

Photo of Rahm Emanuel and Patt Quinn via  Afagen and Center for Neighborhood Technology Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

Pennsylvania lawmakers got one step closer this week to closing major corporate tax loopholes.  Or did they?  The House Finance Committee approved legislation that would, in theory, close the infamous Delaware loophole which allows Pennsylvania companies to shift profits earned in the state to holding companies in other states (most frequently Delaware), thus avoiding paying their fair share of corporate income taxes.  However, according to the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center (PBPC), the bill as written not only fails to meet its intended goal, but it would in fact create new loopholes and drain the state of much needed revenue.  In PBPC’s words, “the bill is a sign that concern is growing about Pennsylvania’s corporate tax avoidance problem. It is a positive start – but in its current form, it is not a solution.”

House Democrats, led by Representative Phyllis Mundy, attempted but failed to amend the bill.  She advocated mandatory combined reporting, which makes it harder for companies to move profits around among subsidiaries, as a more effective and comprehensive approach to loophole closing, a proposal Mundy has been championing for the past year.

Pennsylvania is in dire need of a corporate tax overhaul.  A recent study by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy and Citizens for Tax Justice, Corporate Tax Dodging in the Fifty States, looked at the state corporate income taxes paid (or not paid) by 265 major corporations between 2008 and 2010.  The 14 Pennsylvania based corporations in the study, including H.J. Heinz, Comcast and Hershey, paid very little or even negative state income taxes during the time period.  And, data from the state’s Department of Revenue shows that more than 70 percent of corporations operating in Pennsylvania paid no corporate income taxes in 2007, likely in large part to their ability to hide profits out of state. 

In an attempt to fill in data gaps and get a better picture of what corporations are and are not paying in state income taxes, the Keystone Research Center recently sent Pennsylvania’s 1,000 largest for-profit employers a corporate income tax disclosure survey.  The hope is that the companies will respond (it is voluntary) and lawmakers can use this information in their deliberations about the best means to prevent corporate tax avoidance.

A new CTJ fact sheet explains that 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.

Read the fact sheet.

Our nation’s gas tax policy is horribly designed, and the consequences have never been more obvious at either the federal or state levels.  Construction costs are growing while the gas tax is flat-lining, and the resulting tension has made even routine transportation funding debates too much for our elected officials to handle.  Just last week, President Obama signed into law the ninth temporary, stop-gap extension of our nation’s transportation policy since 2009, and numerous states are similarly opting to kick the proverbial can down the crumbling road.

Much of our collective transportation headache arises from our “fixed-rate” gas taxes that just don’t hold up in the face of rising construction costs.  The federal gas tax hasn’t been raised in over 18 years, and most states have gone a decade or more without raising their tax.  There’s no doubt that we’re long-overdue for a gas tax increase, but political concerns have kept that option largely off the table.  In addition to the embarrassing federal Band-Aid fix just signed into law by the President, here’s what we’re seeing in the states:

The Michigan Senate has voted to permanently take millions in sales tax revenue away from health care, public safety, and other services in order to complete basic road repairs.  But as the Michigan League for Human Services explains, the state would be much better off modernizing its stagnant gas tax.

Both the Oklahoma House and Senate have voted to raid the general fund as a result of lagging gas tax revenues.  These proposals are very similar to the one under consideration in Michigan, and when fully phased-in they would divert $115 million away from education and other services in order to improve some of the state’s wildly deficient bridges.

Luckily, Virginia lawmakers didn’t agree to Governor McDonnell’s proposal to raid the general fund in a manner similar to what’s being considered in Michigan and Oklahoma.  But they also failed to enact a much smarter proposal passed by the Senate that would have indexed the state’s gas tax to inflation.  It looks like rampant traffic congestion will remain the norm in Virginia for the foreseeable future.

Iowa and Maryland appear likely to follow Virginia’s lead and do nothing substantial on transportation finance this year.  Iowa House Speaker Kraig Paulsen says that after much talk, a gas tax increase is not happening.  And while Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley is trying hard to end almost two decades of gas tax procrastination in the Old Line State, it doesn’t look like the odds are on his side.

Connecticut lawmakers aren’t just continuing the status quo, they’re actually making it worse.  Connecticut is among the minority of states where the gas tax actually tends to grow over time, since it’s linked to gas prices.  But the Governor recently signed a hard “cap” on the gas tax that prevents it from rising whenever wholesale prices exceed $3.00 per gallon.  Lawmakers in North Carolina briefly considered a similar cap last year, but as the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) explains, blunt caps are very bad policy and there are much better options available.

For more on adequate and sustainable gas tax policy, read ITEP’s recent report, Building a Better Gas Tax.

Photo of Governor Martin O’Malley and Sunoco Gas Station via  Third Way and MV Jantzen Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

Tennessee lawmakers are seriously considering repealing their state estate tax, in part because of a comically flawed report from supply-side economist Arthur Laffer.  The report’s bottom-line conclusion is that Tennessee would have benefited from 220,000 more jobs in 2010 if lawmakers had simply repealed the Tennessee estate tax one decade earlier.  But as the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) explains in a new brief, while 220,000 jobs is certainly an impressive number, the reasoning Laffer used to arrive at that figure is far from convincing.

Laffer begins his argument by pointing to the “Laffer-ALEC State Competitiveness Index,” which is basically a wish list of fifteen conservative policies he would like to see states enact (low income taxes, low corporate taxes, low minimum wage, etc).  Tennessee ranks 8th overall on the Laffer-ALEC Index, and if the Index has any predictive power whatsoever, that means Tennessee’s economy should be doing pretty well.  But as Laffer admits, the reality is exactly the opposite.

Tennessee’s low economic and employment growth is particularly puzzling to Laffer because in a series of prior reports, he’s argued that states without income taxes (of which Tennessee is one) are outperforming the rest of the country.  So how then does Laffer explain Tennessee’s disappointing growth?  He decides to ignore a slew of factors that affect state economies in today’s complex world, and instead place all of the blame in one place: the state estate tax.

According to Laffer’s reasoning, if Tennessee had jettisoned its estate tax one decade ago, employment and economic growth more broadly would have sped up to a rate exactly equal to the average among all states not levying an income tax.  The natural result of this would be 220,000 more jobs in 2010, as well as $36 billion in additional yearly economic output.

Laffer says he can think of “no reason to believe” that things wouldn’t have played out this way.  But as ITEP explains in its brief, differences in economic growth rates are influenced by a range of factors that don’t appear to have even crossed Laffer’s mind, like differences in natural resource endowments, educational attainment, and infrastructure quality.  The unavoidable conclusion is that Laffer’s choice of scapegoat in Tennessee had a lot more to do with his ideology than with any sort of rigorous economic analysis.

For a closer look at Laffer’s deeply flawed argument in favor of repealing Tennessee’s estate tax, be sure to read ITEP’s full brief.

Photo of Art Laffer via  Republican Conference Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

Last week Florida Governor Rick Scott signed into law legislation implementing a state sales tax holiday from August 3rd to the 5th even though these sales tax holidays are a real boondoggle for consumers (mostly PR for policymakers) and cost state treasuries needed revenues.

Will Missouri give tax credits to Ford for rehiring previously laid off employees? Read more about it in the Missouri Journal, which promises to follow up the story.

We’ve been closely following developments in the Kansas tax reform debate and here’s the latest update.  Last week, the conference committee began meeting to try to reconcile the differences between the House and Senate bill.  But compromise will have to wait until after spring break. The legislature adjourned and lawmakers won’t be meeting again until April 25. Read ITEP’s analysis of the Governor, House, and Senate plans.

Read here about an effort to end the Missouri – Kansas tax credit border wars (a.k.a. race to the bottom).  Hoping to create jobs within their borders, both states have been “willing to pay for it with tax credits and other deal sweeteners” that businesses have exploited – without necessarily delivering on the jobs.

Photo of FL Governor Rick Scott via Gage Skidmore Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0