April 7, 2015 11:39 AM By Sebastian Johnson, State Policy Fellow at ITEP | Permalink | Click Here to sign up to receive the State Rundown in your inbox. Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback doubled down on defending his disastrous tax cuts, insisting that the state would benefit from a shift away from income taxes to consumption taxes. […]
April 2, 2015 03:35 PM By Richard Phillips, Senior Policy Analyst at ITEP | Permalink | The $962 billion (over 10 years) in low- and middle-income tax subsidies provided by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) have now taken center stage in public discourse as the Supreme Court considers King v. Burwell, a case that could […]
April 1, 2015 05:46 PM By Meg Wiehe, Deputy Director at ITEP | Permalink | It’s not hard to sell tax cuts. Who among us would turn down extra money in our pockets by way of fewer taxes? But state lawmakers do us all a gross disservice when they tout tax cuts to serve their […]
April 1, 2015 04:33 PM By Carl Davis, Research Director at ITEP | Permalink | As we’ve noted previously, eight states enacted gas tax increases or reforms in 2013 and 2014 to better fund their transportation infrastructure. So far this year, six more states have joined this list, meaning that a total of 14 states […]
March 31, 2015 11:12 AM By Sebastian Johnson, State Policy Fellow at ITEP | Permalink | Click Here to sign up to receive the State Rundown in your inbox. North Carolina lawmakers proposed another round of personal income tax cuts last week that cost more than $1 billion when fully enacted and would slash millions of dollars […]
March 26, 2015 04:55 PM By Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy Staff | Permalink | Whether you indentified with Dorothy, Blanche, Rose or Sophia, The Golden Girls was a shining moment in television history. The show was groundbreaking in its portrayal of senior citizens as fully complex individuals, and has inspired a devoted following […]
March 26, 2015 04:35 PM By Richard Phillips, Senior Policy Analyst at ITEP | Permalink | At a time of growing wealth and income inequality, House Republicans seem to be on a warpath to use tax policy to accelerate this trend. The House Ways and Means Committee passed a bill on Wednesday that would repeal […]
March 23, 2015 03:10 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Texas Senator, and now presidential candidate, Ted Cruz is a supporter of radical tax plans that would dramatically increase taxes on poor and middle class Americans in order to pay for huge tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. While he has […]
March 19, 2015 02:31 PM By Richard Phillips, Senior Policy Analyst at ITEP | Permalink | While the problems with our international tax system are complex, the solution is relatively simple: U.S. corporations should pay the same tax rate, at the same time, on their domestic and foreign profits. The ranking member of the Senate […]
March 19, 2015 02:00 PM By Matt Gardner, Senior Fellow at ITEP | Permalink | The GOP House budget proposal released Tuesday implies that lawmakers intend to allow the controversial package of business tax cuts known as tax extenders to expire for good. If true, this would be an important step toward a fairer tax […]
March 19, 2015 01:58 PM By Sebastian Johnson, State Policy Fellow at ITEP | Permalink | Art Laffer, an economist renowned for the childlike simplicity of his theories, has decided to enter the children’s book market. His new book Let’s Chat About Economics! was coauthored by writer Michelle Balconi, who heard Laffer speak at on […]
March 17, 2015 05:43 PM By Matt Gardner, Senior Fellow at ITEP | Permalink | Once again, U.S. House leadership has released a budget blueprint that promises a “stronger America,” but is, at best, vague about the hard choices lawmakers really must make to ensure the nation has enough resources to meet its basic priorities. […]
March 16, 2015 02:51 PM By Sebastian Johnson, State Policy Fellow at ITEP | Permalink | Click Here to sign up to receive the State Rundown in your inbox. Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval will make his case for expanding the state’s business license fee before a joint legislative committee on Wednesday. The governor wants to change the […]
March 13, 2015 11:01 AM By Matt Gardner, Senior Fellow at ITEP | Permalink | Having roundly ignored President Barack Obama’s budget proposal for fiscal year 2016 when it was introduced in February, Republican leaders in the House of Representatives are poised to introduce their own budget blueprint next week. The big question is whether […]
March 11, 2015 01:16 PM By Carl Davis, Research Director at ITEP | Permalink | This is the third post in our series outlining state tax trends being debated during 2015 legislative sessions. Our previous two posts focused on tax shifts and tax cuts. MARCH 19 UPDATE: The list of states has grown to ten […]
March 10, 2015 12:08 PM By Matt Gardner, Senior Fellow at ITEP | Permalink | The head of a consortium of businesses that includes multiple profitable companies that consistently pay no or abysmally low federal taxes has been tapped to testify Wednesday at a Senate Budget Committee hearing on the “Benefits of a Balanced Budget.” […]
March 9, 2015 05:53 PM By Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy Staff | Permalink | The theory that tax cuts for the affluent will eventually trickle down to everyone else is shopworn, yet supply-side adherents keep promising the public that the rich can have their tax cuts and the rest of us will eat […]
March 9, 2015 04:28 PM By Sebastian Johnson, State Policy Fellow at ITEP | Permalink | Click Here to sign up to receive the State Rundown in your inbox. Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker unveiled his budget last Wednesday, and while it calls for some distressing cuts to state services it also includes a worthy tax policy shift […]
March 4, 2015 01:29 PM By Sebastian Johnson, State Policy Fellow at ITEP | Permalink | Click Here to sign up to receive the State Rundown in your inbox. Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf unveiled his budget proposal this week, delivering his state of the state address before a joint session of the state legislature. Wolf’s proposal would […]
March 3, 2015 04:07 PM By Sebastian Johnson, State Policy Fellow at ITEP | Permalink | Mississippi lawmakers are playing a game of one-upmanship when it comes to tax proposals, but the biggest losers could be taxpayers if lawmakers enact one of the more ill-advised plans. Last week, after just two hours of debate, the […]
March 3, 2015 01:15 PM By Matt Gardner, Senior Fellow at ITEP | Permalink | Notorious tax dodger GE recently released its annual financial report and the only thing eye-raising about the company’s paltry 0.9 percent federal income tax rate is that it’s marginally higher than the 0.4 percent average rate it paid over the […]
March 3, 2015 12:48 PM By Bob McIntyre, Director of Citizens for Tax Justice | Permalink | A decade and a half ago, the federal government was running a surplus, the economy was humming along, poverty had continually declined for the previous seven years, and the Republican candidate for president essentially told the nation we […]
March 3, 2015 10:26 AM By Richard Phillips, Senior Policy Analyst at ITEP | Permalink | In preparation for a Senate Finance Committee hearing on “Fairness in Taxation” on Tuesday morning, the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) issued a report diving into the distributional impact of the federal tax system. Unfortunately, this report leaves out […]
February 27, 2015 02:51 PM By Sebastian Johnson, State Policy Fellow at ITEP | Permalink | Click Here to sign up to receive the State Rundown in your inbox. Iowa lawmakers passed, and Gov. Terry Branstad signed, a measure increasing the state’s gas and diesel taxes by 10 cents this week. The increase will generate about $200 […]
February 27, 2015 01:38 PM By Richard Phillips, Senior Policy Analyst at ITEP | Permalink | Political nerds and TV binge watchers of all stripes will gather around the TV (or laptop) this weekend to watch the much anticipated release of Season 3 of the Netflix original series House of Cards. While the show follows […]