December 22, 2015 12:56 PM By Carl Davis, Research Director at ITEP | Permalink | As is often the case, 2015 was a year in which states enacted a mix of tax policy changes—some good and some bad. Regressive income tax cuts in Ohio and North Carolina, and an irresponsible tax “trigger” in Michigan, were […]
December 22, 2015 12:52 PM By Sebastian Johnson, State Policy Fellow at ITEP | Permalink | As the year comes to a close, several tax bills are already being debated in states across the country. ITEP is closely following those proposals because they will likely dominate state headlines in 2016. In the new year we […]
December 22, 2015 11:32 AM By Kelly Davis, Assistant Director of Communications | Permalink | Happy Holidays from all of us at CTJ and ITEP! As the weather gets colder, our thoughts turn to warm chili and cuddling up with a good book. Our staff enjoyed these books this year and we hope you will too! […]
December 21, 2015 12:19 PM By Matt Gardner, Senior Fellow at ITEP | Permalink | Anyone watching Apple CEO Tim Cook on CBS’s “60 Minutes” last night would be forgiven for wondering why Congress and the IRS won’t just leave this nice man and his poor company alone. Cook fielded questions on a wide variety […]
December 17, 2015 06:54 PM By Richard Phillips, Senior Policy Analyst at ITEP | Permalink | Even in the universe of Jedi, Death Stars and Ewoks, tax policy plays a surprisingly important role in driving the events of the day. In anticipation of the release of the newest Star Wars movie, we just wanted to […]
December 15, 2015 04:51 PM By Matt Gardner, Senior Fellow at ITEP | Permalink | Over the course of the year, CTJ has published a series of analyses estimating the revenue impact of tax plans proposed by half a dozen Republican presidential candidates. It published a summary of the findings earlier today in a blog […]
December 15, 2015 12:41 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | As the Republican presidential candidates meet once again to debate, now is a good time to take stock of their various plans for tax reform. Using the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy’s microsimulation model, we have calculated the revenue impact […]
December 11, 2015 04:01 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Earlier this week, Hillary Clinton outlined a new plan to combat the growth of inversions, a loophole through which U.S. companies pretend to be foreign in order to avoid taxes. Taken together, her plan to enact an exit tax, limit earnings […]
December 11, 2015 12:38 PM By Kelly Davis, Assistant Director of Communications | Permalink | Read the Tax Justice Digest for recent reports, posts, and analyses from Citizens for Tax Justice and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Recommended Weekend ReadingLast week, we told you about the congressional debate over the tax extenders. This week the […]
December 11, 2015 12:16 PM By Matt Gardner, Senior Fellow at ITEP | Permalink | Earlier this week, the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) released its annual Tax Expenditure Report, a compendium of the many tax giveaways that drain federal revenues. In theory, this report is an essential cheat sheet for policymakers seeking to identify […]
December 11, 2015 10:38 AM By Meg Wiehe, Deputy Director at ITEP | Permalink | Connecticut lawmakers earlier this year passed a budget with more than $1 billion in new revenue, including increased corporate taxes, to plug a budget gap and ensure the state has resources to make needed investments in education, transportation and health care. […]
December 11, 2015 10:26 AM By Meg Wiehe, Deputy Director at ITEP | Permalink | Louisiana Governor-elect John Bel Edwards may be a breath of fresh air for tax justice advocatesin Louisiana this upcoming legislative session. Gov. Bobby Jindal prioritized policies aligned with his no new taxes pledge rather than meeting the needs of Louisianans. The […]
December 10, 2015 04:23 PM By Carl Davis, Research Director at ITEP | Permalink | For years, lawmakers interested in cutting or eliminating personal income taxes have held up Alaska as a model for what they would like to achieve. Alaska is the only state to ever repeal a personal income tax and has been without […]
December 10, 2015 11:18 AM By Richard Phillips, Senior Policy Analyst at ITEP | Permalink | When you think of a tax haven, you probably imagine the far off tropical islands of Bermuda or Grand Cayman, but the reality is that there is a major tax haven even closer to home in the state of […]
December 9, 2015 01:50 PM By Matt Gardner, Senior Fellow at ITEP | Permalink | Earlier this week Donald Trump criticized Amazon chief Jeff Bezos for allegedly using his purchase of the Washington Post as a tax dodge. Trump’s claim that Bezos is using the Post’s losses to reduce Amazon’s profit is clearly wrong since […]
December 7, 2015 10:26 AM By Kelly Davis, Assistant Director of Communications | Permalink | Read the Tax Justice Digest for recent reports, posts, and analyses from Citizens for Tax Justice and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Call to Action: The Time is NowWe feel like a broken record, but the tax news on […]
December 4, 2015 09:40 AM By Matt Gardner, Senior Fellow at ITEP | Permalink | Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg made waves this week with his announcement that he will eventually giveaway virtually all of his wealth for charitable purposes. As Bloomberg’s Jesse Drucker noted, Zuckerberg appears poised to implement his plan through a new entity that, unlike […]
December 3, 2015 04:52 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Click Here to sign up to receive the State Rundown in your inbox. Pennsylvania leaders have again pledged that a budget deal is in reach, despite the collapse of a recent compromise (and, of course, the compromises before that). The state is also […]
December 3, 2015 04:43 PM By Sebastian Johnson, State Policy Fellow at ITEP | Permalink | Leaders in Illinois, which has not had a budget for six months, have thrown up their hands when it comes to making a deal. Despite the resumption of talks between the governor and legislative leaders, a compromise is nowhere […]
December 3, 2015 02:53 PM By Carl Davis, Research Director at ITEP | Permalink | Congress is on the verge of passing a five year transportation funding package built around a strange mix of revenue sources. As many observers have pointed out, a more coherent and long-term solution would have been to increase and reform […]
December 3, 2015 10:50 AM By Richard Phillips, Senior Policy Analyst at ITEP | Permalink | Critical expansions to the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and Child Tax Credit (CTC) will expire without action from Congress, making life harder for working families already struggling to make ends meet. More than 13 million families (nearly 25 […]
December 1, 2015 06:19 PM By Richard Phillips, Senior Policy Analyst at ITEP | Permalink | Some U.S. lawmakers on Tuesday used a pair of hearings in the Senate Finance Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee to showboat for corporate special interests and oppose a growing worldwide movement to crack down on international […]
November 23, 2015 05:16 PM By Richard Phillips, Senior Policy Analyst at ITEP | Permalink | On Monday, Pfizer and Allergan announced that they have reached an agreement to pursue the largest corporate inversion in history, a move which may allow Pfizer to avoid paying billions in taxes by pretending to be a foreign corporation. […]
November 23, 2015 09:33 AM By Carl Davis, Research Director at ITEP | Permalink | If recent history is any guide, U.S. consumers will do more online shopping during next week’s “Cyber Monday” sales event than on any other day in history. E-commerce is now a $300 billion business that has been growing by roughly […]
November 20, 2015 02:56 PM By Sebastian Johnson, State Policy Fellow at ITEP | Permalink | Click Here to sign up to receive the State Rundown in your inbox. Oklahoma officials want an independent review of business incentives that cost the state more than $355 million each year. A new law that took effect at the beginning […]