Author: tarek

Recent Congressional hearings on the international tax-avoidance strategies pursued by the Apple Corporation documented the company’s strategy of shifting U.S. profits to offshore tax havens. But a new report from Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ) documents seventeen other Fortune 500 corporations which disclose information, in their financial reports, that strongly suggests they, too, have paid little or no tax on their offshore holdings. It’s likely that hundreds of other Fortune 500 companies are doing the same, taking advantage of the rule allowing U.S. companies to “defer” paying U.S. taxes on their offshore income.

Read the report, Apple is Not Alone.

Apple is one of eighteen Fortune 500 companies that disclose that they would pay at least a 30 percent U.S. tax rate on their offshore income if repatriated. These 18 corporations have $283 billion in cash and cash equivalents parked offshore.
The report also identifies an additional 235 companies that choose not to disclose the U.S. tax rate they would pay on an almost $1.3 trillion in combined unrepatriated offshore profits.

Taken together, if all of these companies’ offshore holdings were repatriated, it could amount to $491 billion in added corporate tax revenue according to CTJ’s calculations.

CTJ concludes that the most sensible way to end offshore tax avoidance of the kind documented in this report would be to end “deferral,” the rule that indefinitely exempts offshore profits from U.S. income tax until these profits are repatriated. Ending deferral would mean that all profits of U.S. corporations, whether they are generated in the U.S. or abroad, would be taxed by the United States – with, of course, a “foreign tax credit” against any taxes they pay to foreign governments to ensure that these profits are not double-taxed.

The damage that austerity budgets have done to economies in Europe and elsewhere poses a problem for proponents of smaller government and lower taxes. How can they argue that cutting spending and shrinking government is such a good thing when it has it turned out so dismally for other countries? The arguments they employ to escape this problem show that they are far more committed to keeping taxes low than any other goal.

At a May 22 hearing of the Senate Budget Committee, Veronique de Rugy of the Mercatus Center argued that the composition of deficit-reduction programs is what matters. The problem with the recent deficit-reduction packages, she said, is that they relied too much on tax increases. If they had relied on spending cuts, their economies would be doing just fine and they would be more successful at getting their deficits under control.

At a June 4 hearing of the committee, Salim Furth of the Heritage Foundation made the same argument, and went further by claiming that most of the governments thought to have austerity budgets have actually increased their deficits because they increased spending by more than they raised taxes.

But this time at least one of the Senators had done his homework and had looked up the data. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island presented data from the OECD (which Furth said he was relying on) showing 15 countries in Europe did enact austerity plans (plans reducing their budget deficits) and the spending cuts outweigh the tax increases in 9 of these. In only two of these countries did tax increases make up 60 percent of more of the enacted deficit-reduction.

As Dylan Matthews of the Washington Post’s Wonkblog explains, Furth’s claim that most governments increased deficits is based on each country’s spending as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), or to put it differently, spending as a percentage of the overall economy. Some of the countries have seen their GDP shrink so dramatically in recent years that even after serious cutbacks of public services, their spending as a percentage of GDP is higher than before the recession. (At the same hearing, Larry Summers presented a more sensible way of measuring the deficit reduction governments have enacted.)

The bottom line is that governments in Europe and elsewhere are cutting the deficit mainly by cutting spending, and the economy has struggled as a result. Blaming sluggish economic growth on high taxes is simply wrong.

During the tax cut debate last year in Kansas, Governor Sam Brownback characterized his own radical tax cuts as a “real live experiment.” Now, following the actions of the legislature this past weekend, the experiment continues.

To fully understand the scope of the tax cuts that passed in a recent Sunday morning session, it’s necessary to review what was signed into law last year: Income tax rates were reduced (the top rate dropping from 6.45 to 4.9 percent and the bottom rate dropping from 3.5 to 3.0 percent). Kansas became the only state in the nation that levies an income tax to exempt all “pass-through” business income from the personal income tax base. A variety of targeted tax credits, including the Food Sales Tax Rebate, Child and Dependent Care Credit, and the Homestead Property Tax Refund for renters, were eliminated and the standard deduction for head of household filers and married couples was increased to $9000. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) estimated that the cost of the tax cuts would be $760 million.

Kansans hadn’t even had a chance to file income tax returns reflecting this slew of new provisions before Governor Brownback was advocating for yet another round of tax cuts. After several weeks of pretty cantankerous negotiations it became clear that the Kansas “experiment” would now have even higher stakes. As this ITEP analysis shows, it didn’t matter whether the House or the Senate plan was adopted because both of them pave the way for complete elimination of the state’s personal income tax.

Two groups that usually find themselves on opposite sides of tax debates, the Tax Foundation and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, agreed that the Kansas experiment part deux was “the worst in the nation.” But the Sunflower State’s elected leaders aren’t letting facts and policy experts get in their way.

Instead, Governor Brownback is expected to sign the new legislation that further reduces income tax rates (to 2.3 and 3.9 percent), reduces the standard deduction, increases the sales tax (from 5.7 to 6.15 percent), disallows 50 percent of all itemized deductions (except for charitable donations, which will be fully deductible) and allows for the potential elimination of the income tax entirely if revenues targets are reached. ITEP found that the bill would cost $186 million, raise taxes on the poorest 20 percent of Kansans but give every other income group a tax cut. The impact of these last two rounds of tax cuts in Kansas will be a whopping $1.1 billion, according to ITEP’s estimates (to be published soon).

Tax cuts don’t actually pay for themselves, and Kansans will likely face some serious fallout from their failed experiment. Lawmakers are on a path to complete elimination of the most progressive major revenue source the state levies (the income tax) and this will force the state to depend on regressive sales and property taxes to make ends meet. Phase one of this experiment made it a fiscal cautionary tale for other states, and its political leaders are making their state’s tax structure even more regressive.

In Arizona, The Republic explains the “mixed legacy” left by the temporary, 1 percent sales tax increase that expired last week.  Rather than using the revenue for education, as voters expected when they approved the increase, “the tax revenue also partially subsidized an ambitious $538 million business tax-cut package that lawmakers approved less than a year after passage of [the sales tax increase].”  

Pennsylvania lawmakers are likely to vote this week on a bipartisan bill that would uncap the state’s gas tax. Pennsylvania’s gas tax is supposed to rise alongside gas prices, but an outdated tax cap still on the books prevents that from happening when gas prices exceed $1.25 per gallon. The result has been hundreds of millions in lost revenue as the gas tax has failed to keep pace with the rising cost of construction. The change is supported by Governor Corbett, and is just one of many transportation revenue enhancements that have been debated or enacted this year.

In reaction to the complete failure of radical tax reform this year, Nebraska lawmakers unanimously passed legislation forming the Tax Modernization Committee to study the state’s tax structure. Fourteen senators are expected to sit on the Committee and issue recommendations in December.

Here’s an interesting piece on the donation “check offs” available on the Wisconsin income tax forms. Interested in knowing which nonprofits are most popular in terms of giving? Check out the article and then ponder whether state Department of Revenues should be burdened with the administration of collecting donations for these (albeit worthy) causes.

First it was the ill-advised TV campaign to lure new business to his state by bragging about tax cuts, and now New York  Governor Andrew Cuomo has launched his “Tax-Free NY” initiative which would turn many of the state’s public universities, private universities, and community colleges into tax-free havens. Providing a full complement of tax breaks, the Governor’s plan would exempt qualified businesses from paying any sales, property, and corporate taxes for a decade, and would exempt employees of those businesses from the personal income tax.

These no-tax zones include all state university campuses outside of New York City, some private colleges, up to 200,000 square feet in certain campus-adjacent zones, and 20 undisclosed “strategically located” state-owned properties. The Governor’s plan vaguely defines eligible businesses as companies with a relationship to the academic mission of the university and then includes: new businesses, out-of-state businesses that relocate to New York, and existing businesses that expand their New York operations.

Touting the plan as a way to revitalize the upstate economy, the Governor claims the free pass on taxes would “attract start-ups, venture capital, new business, and investments from across the world.” However, economists from across the political spectrum have their doubts (and so do we).

Professor John Yinger of Syracuse University said in response to Cuomo’s plan that: “In New York we have a dizzying array of tax breaks with no evidence they help, and now here’s a new version. You’d do much better improving our schools and infrastructure than giving tax breaks to businesses who would be in the state anyway.”

Others, such as Danny Donohue of the Civil Service Employees Association, argue the plan is another tax giveaway to businesses at the expense of local communities and the middle-class. Donohue says: “The governor doesn’t get the fact that more corporate welfare is no answer to New York’s economic challenges… it’s outrageous that the governor and legislative leaders think we can give away even more to businesses without any guarantee of benefit to taxpayers.”

In addition to creating little if any economic growth, the plan is likely to worsen the state’s already precarious fiscal situation. With the state budget office projecting (PDF) shortfalls ranging up to $3 billion per year in the coming years, removing entire companies from the tax rolls is hardly fiscally responsible.

To move the plan forward, the Governor will need legislative approval before the state’s legislative session ends on June 20th. Quick – someone get this policy brief (PDF) up to Albany!

Wednesday, June 5, 2013 Update: The Wisconsin legislature’s Joint Finance Committee approved a budget early this morning that included an income tax cut that reduced income tax rates from 4.6%, 6.15%, 6.5%, 6.75%, and 7.75% to 4.4%, 5.84%, 6.27%, and 7.65%. The legislation also reduced the number of tax brackets from five to four. This plan stops short of Rep. Kooyenga’s plan plan described below, but is more costly than Governor Walker’s $340 million initial proposal. According to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau (PDF) these permanent tax cuts cost $632.5 million over two years and the distribution is again skewed to benefit the wealthiest Wisconsinites. Current reporting suggests this plan will pass the full legislature.

This week Wisconsin Representative Dale Kooyenga, an accountant who’s taking a lead roleon tax policy, released his plan to reform the state’s tax code. In a proposal that would more than double the tax cuts proposed by Gov. Scott Walker, Kooyenga seeks to reduce personal income tax rates and cut the number of income tax brackets from five to three. The latter would, as one report put it, put middle income earners like a secretary at a law firm in the same tax bracket as the high-earning lawyers.  Kooyenga touts simplifying the forms taxpayers file and eliminating nearly 20 tax credits.

Earlier this year, Governor Scott Walker proposed his own income tax cut ,which was slammed for mostly benefiting the wealthy (in large part because an Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) analysis showed that it was tilted that way). The Governor’s proposed income tax rate cuts were expected to cost the state $343 million over two years; Representative Kooyenga’s would cost $760 million in the upcoming budget and $914 million in the 2015 budget.

And it’s not just costly, it’s regressive. As the lawmaker himself concedes, “[i]t is nearly impossible to create a tax reform or tax cut that is not going to disproportionately lower taxes for upper-middle-class and rich taxpayers,” and a new ITEP analysis of Kooyenga’s plan shows his is no different. ITEP ran the numbers for the Wisconsin Budget Project (WBP) the impact of the Kooyenga income tax plan was shown to be even more skewed to the wealthy that Governor Walker’s, as WBP writes:

Here is how the tax cut would be distributed among income groups:

– The top 5% of earners alone, a group with an average income of $392,000, would receive more than 1/3 of the benefit of the income tax cuts.

– The top 20% of earners, a group with an average income of $183,000, would receive more than 2/3 of the benefit.

– The bottom 60% of earners – those making $60,000 a year or less – would only receive 11% of the benefit of the income tax cuts.

– The 20% of the Wisconsinites with the lowest incomes would receive just two cents out of every $100 in individual income tax cuts under this proposal.

WBP says that the Kooyenga tax plan’s expansion of Governor Walker’s proposal is a “bad idea made worse,” and they are right.  
 

The Ohio Senate is considering a fiscal 2014-15 budget that includes a $1.4 billion business tax cut. The cut – which would exempt a full $375,000 in business income from the income tax – is similar to a widely-criticized plan enacted by Kansas last year. As Policy Matters Ohio explains, however, none of the tax cuts under consideration (including the Governor’s) will help Ohio’s economy: “They are bad for low- and moderate-income Ohioans, and slash revenue Ohio needs to support our economic success and improve our quality of life.”

On May 23, the Massachusetts Senate approved a fiscal 2014 budget that would generate $430 million in new tax revenues, in part by extending the sales and use tax to some computer-related services, raising the gas tax by 3 cents, and increasing tobacco excise taxes.  Differences between the Senate budget and a broadly similar plan passed by the State House will now be worked out by a six-member conference committee.

If he ever decides to leave Hollywood, Nicolas Cage might have a future ahead of him in lobbying. After Cage visited Nevada, the state Senate approved a $20 million tax break for filmmakers. Unfortunately for Nevadans, however, film tax credits have been shown time and time again to be ineffective at spurring economic growth.

The Virginia Commonwealth Institute discusses the problems with lawmakers’ recent decision to cut the state’s gas tax by roughly 6 cents per gallon.  As the Institute explains: “gas taxes are not to blame for high and volatile gas prices… [and] Virginia’s gas tax, which has been a steady 17.5 cents per gallon since 1987, was failing to produce enough resources to fuel adequate investment in our infrastructure.” The same is generally true nationwide.

At 2:00am on Monday morning, Minnesota House members passed groundbreaking tax legislation that raises $2.1 billion over two years. The Senate then approved the legislation and Governor Dayton, long a champion of progressive tax reform, signed it yesterday. The bill increases income taxes on the top two percent of earners, raises the cigarette tax to $1.60, closes some corporate tax loopholes, and extends the sales tax to a handful of services primarily used by businesses, including warehouse storage and telecommunications equipment. Wayne Cox, with Minnesota Citizens for Tax Justice expects much from the legislation: “Shifting taxes from the middle class to those with highest incomes will help the economy.”

A helpful summary of the compromise legislation is available here from the Minnesota Budget Project. Revenues from the cigarette tax will be used to help pay for a new Vikings stadium. This is round two for stadium funding because gaming revenues that were supposed to pay the state’s share of the stadium came in below revenue projections (not surprisingly, PDF). Of course, cigarette taxes (PDF) aren’t very stable revenue sources either, and are likely to decline overtime.

Nan Madden, Director of the Minnesota Budget Project, said of the legislature’s work, “In past years, the response to budget shortfalls has been deep cuts to services and use of timing shifts to kick the problem down the road. This year’s tax bill and budget take a better approach, raising the revenues needed to balance the budget and invest in the future; and reforming our tax system so that we share the responsibility for funding public services more equally.”

So, kudos to Minnesota’s elected leaders for making some difficult decisions and finding a way to balance the state’s books and still provide for quality services into the future. It’s a model other states can learn from.

Governor Terry Branstad has made “reforming” (cutting) the property taxes paid by Iowa businesses a top priority since taking office. We described the latest attempts to reduce commercial property taxes here. But Senator Joe Bolkcom (chair of the Ways and Means Committee) has repeatedly demanded that any change to corporate property taxes must be accompanied by an increase in the state’s Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC).

Now a compromise bill has passed the Iowa Senate and is on its way to Governor Branstad’s desk. And, as tends to happen with compromise, nobody is completely happy with the final product.

If signed into law by the Governor, here is what that legislation would do: assess commercial and Industrial property at 90 percent of its value (down from 100 percent); introduce a new assessment cap of 3 percent for residential and agricultural property; introduce a new nonrefundable income tax credit if the Taxpayers Trust Fund exceeds $30 million; and double the EITC from 7 to 14 percent.

The Governor would have prefered  that commercial and industrial property be assessed lower, at 80 percent of its value, but said this of the compromise: “I’m hopeful maybe we can do more in future years. But I think this is the art of what was possible with this General Assembly. I’m pleased with the compromise bill that we’ve got tentative agreement on.”

Peter Fisher of the Iowa Fiscal Partnership pointed out, however, “It’s Christmas for Walmart and McDonald’s, which will happily receive property-tax breaks that they don’t need, while their low-wage employees receive a better Earned Income Tax Credit. This Christmas tree will grow bigger with each passing year, leaving less room in local budgets to respond to needs.”

Of course we applaud any increase in the EITC, and doubling that credit is a meaningful tax cut for low and middle income workers. But as the Iowa Fiscal Partnership reminds us, “If there is any question as to who benefits, Iowans should note that the EITC boost will be $35 million when fully phased in, compared to about 10 times that for property owners.”  The pricetag for these property tax changes is likely to increase in future years, and will become a constant strain on local government budgets.

Kentucky’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Tax Reform released its very useful findings in December, but regrettably little action has resulted from the comprehensive document. Many of the Commission’s recommendations were bold and forward-looking, like the proposal to expand the sales tax base to services  (PDF) and simultaneously institute an earned income tax credit (PDF). But Commissioners themselves aren’t confident that anything will come from their hard work developing those recommendations. Commissioner Sheila Schuster recently said, “I haven’t heard anything since the end of the (legislative) session that would suggest that it’s got legs… So it’s pretty discouraging.”

Legislators in many states are putting the cart before the horse when it comes to budgeting for the next fiscal year. This article (subscription required) from the Wall Street Journal tells of states like Maryland and Virginia who have already passed spending bills that assume new revenues from online Internet sales tax collections when Congress passes the Main Street Fairness Act. Of course, the Act has actually only passed the Senate, and by all accounts the bill faces an unclear future in the House.

This November, Colorado voters will vote on raising their state’s income tax to better fund education. The details of that increase have yet to be worked out, but former state representative Don Marostica has taken to the pages of the Denver Post to argue in favor of his preferred alternative: ditching the state’s flat income tax in favor of a more progressive, graduated income tax used by most states. Marostica explains that “businesses and middle-class Coloradans alike would be better off with a two-step income tax to provide the resources for top teachers and great facilities. The No. 1 priority for businesses seeking a new location is a well-educated, fully prepared workforce. … Yet we’re under-investing in education, in part because we’ve prioritized low taxes ahead of everything else.”

Bad tax ideas are in the news in the District of Columbia.  Mayor Vincent Gray recently reiterated that he wants to cut taxes for DC investors who do their investing outside of the District.  But it’s Councilwoman Anita Bonds’ idea that recently made headlines. Bonds wants to give a super-sized tax break to most people over 80 years old: a full exemption from property taxes, provided their income is below $150,000 per year and they’ve lived in the District for 25 years or more.  But property tax relief should be distributed based on income, not age. Rather than cutting taxes for the well-off elderly, DC lawmakers would be wise to follow the advice of the DC Fiscal Policy Institute and expand the city’s low-income property tax credit for DC residents of all ages.

Earlier this spring, Alabama lawmakers approved a bill establishing a state income tax credit (up to $3,500) to reimburse parents for the cost of sending children to private school or transferring them to a better performing public school.  The legislation also created a tax credit for corporations and individuals who contribute to scholarship funds. These kinds of credits are often referred to as back-door or neo-vouchers as they divert taxpayer money away from public schools, indirectly via the tax code.  Due in part to concern over the unknown cost of the credits and seemingly in part due to public displeasure with the new program, Alabama Governor Robert Bentley (who had been a supporter of the bill) attempted to delay the implementation of the school tax credits last week.  He told lawmakers they “had better be listening to the people” who he says are not supportive of using public tax dollars to fund private school education.  However, the House decided this week to ignore the Governor’s request; they rejected his suggested amendment and took a vote to show they could override any veto attempts.