July 17, 2014 04:52 PM By Matt Gardner, Senior Fellow at ITEP | Permalink | Does the 113th Congress live for an adrenaline rush? The current debate over the nation’s highway trust fund might lead one to think so. As has been widely reported, the federal Highway Trust Fund, which is supposed to provide a […]
July 15, 2014 03:16 PM By Sebastian Johnson, State Policy Fellow at ITEP | Permalink | Governor Nikki Haley of South Carolina has a fix for the state’s sorry highway finances, but she can’t let us in on the secret until after Election Day. Haley’s state has more than 66,000 miles of public roads, “one […]
July 15, 2014 12:48 PM By Kelly Davis, Assistant Director of Communications | Permalink | In an astonishing shift, Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback has moved beyond calling his tax cuts a great “real live experiment” and is instead likening the state to a medical patient, saying, “It’s like going through surgery. It takes a while […]
July 15, 2014 11:52 AM By Steve Wamhoff, Legislative Director at CTJ | Permalink | Somehow, arguments that conservative lawmakers usually make about not interfering with the economy and respecting states’ rights have fallen silent as Congress rushes to pass a bill that provides special treatment for an industry that has grown very profitable and […]
July 14, 2014 02:26 PM By Kelly Davis, Assistant Director of Communications | Permalink | Voters in 36 states will be choosing governors this November. Over the next several months, the Tax Justice Digest will be highlighting 2014 gubernatorial races where taxes are proving to be a key issue. Today’s post is about the Wisconsin […]
July 10, 2014 03:12 PM By Steve Wamhoff, Legislative Director at CTJ | Permalink | On Friday, the House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on a $276 billion bill that would make permanent “bonus depreciation.” This huge tax break for business investment was first enacted to try to address the recession early in the […]
July 9, 2014 03:02 PM By Sebastian Johnson, State Policy Fellow at ITEP | Permalink | He’s like the monorail man, except, he’s totally opposed topublic infrastructure spending It is a truism in Washington that being wrong does not preclude one from wielding influence. There are, however, some pundits who are so egregiously wrong that it boggles the mind to […]
July 9, 2014 08:01 AM By Kelly Davis, Assistant Director of Communications | Permalink | Less than a month after Ohio Governor John Kasich signed his most recent round of tax cuts into law the reviews are less than glowing. This week Zach Schiller with Policy Matters Ohio wrote a piece very much worth reading […]
July 8, 2014 04:03 PM By Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy Staff | Permalink | This shouldn’t be news to anyone, but undocumented immigrants do pay taxes. This week the Iowa Policy Project (IPP) released a report detailing their contributions to Iowa revenues using ITEP data. IPP found that undocumented immigrants pay an estimated […]
July 8, 2014 03:29 PM By Kelly Davis, Assistant Director of Communications | Permalink | Voters in 36 states will be choosing governors this November. Over the next several months, the Tax Justice Digest will be highlighting 2014 gubernatorial races where taxes are proving to be a key issue. Today’s post is about the race […]
July 8, 2014 01:40 PM By Steve Wamhoff, Legislative Director at CTJ | Permalink | A new report from Citizens for Tax Justice explains why Congress should raise revenue and describes several options to do so. Read the report. Part I of the report explains why Congress needs to raise the overall amount of federal […]
July 8, 2014 01:17 PM By Rebecca Wilkins, Senior Counsel, Federal Tax Policy at CTJ | Permalink | FATCA, the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, finally became effective last week. The Treasury Department had repeatedly delayed implementation of the legislation which was enacted in 2010. Beginning July 1, payments made to foreign banks who don’t […]
July 2, 2014 05:28 PM By Steve Wamhoff, Legislative Director at CTJ | Permalink | AAA estimates that 41 million Americans will travel for the July 4 holiday, including 34.8 million who will travel by car — the highest numbers since before the recession put a damper on holiday travel. Those travelers stuck in traffic […]
July 2, 2014 02:56 PM By Sydni Pierce, Intern at ITEP | Permalink | Voters in 36 states will be choosing governors this November. Over the next several months, the Tax Justice Digest will be highlighting 2014 gubernatorial races where taxes are proving to be a key issue. Today’s post is about the race for […]
July 2, 2014 01:28 PM By Sebastian Johnson, State Policy Fellow at ITEP | Permalink | By now, the familiar media narrative about the nation’s capitol is one of glittering condos, staggering inequality, and the fraught race relations between newcomers and older residents. The trope shapes the coverage of everything from sports to politics, education […]
July 2, 2014 01:13 PM By Richard Phillips, Senior Policy Analyst at ITEP | Permalink | Following up on their efforts to enact dramatic cuts to the IRS’s funding last year, Republican members of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services voted to slash IRS funding by $341 million, pushing the agency’s budget to its […]
July 2, 2014 11:42 AM By Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy Staff | Permalink | New Jersey Governor Chris Christie signed a FY15 budget on Monday after nixing Democratic bills which would have fully funded the state’s promised pension payments through a new “millionaire’s tax.” The effects of the governor’s decision to forgo making […]
July 1, 2014 02:18 PM By Kelly Davis, Assistant Director of Communications | Permalink | Two years ago, Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback declared that his plan to gradually repeal the state’s income tax would be “a real live experiment” in supply-side economics. He pushed through two consecutive income tax cuts that disproportionately benefited the richest Kansans […]
June 26, 2014 03:45 PM By Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy Staff | Permalink | Already facing criticism for its plans to become an Irish company to avoid U.S. taxes, Medtronic, the Minnesota-based medical device maker, disclosed this week that it pays very little in taxes in the foreign countries where it claims to […]
June 26, 2014 03:22 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | With the release of her new book and the 2016 election just around the corner, Hillary Clinton’s wealth and tax rate have been fodder for talking heads the past couple weeks. Both the report on the Clintons estate tax planning and […]
June 26, 2014 02:29 PM By Olivia MacDonald | Permalink | All eyes are on Brazil and the World Cup, but Gov. Tarso Genro of Rio Grande do Sul believes the country’s decision to host the World Cup has been “a huge mistake”. And many of the country’s residents as well as a host of […]
June 24, 2014 04:35 PM By Sydni Pierce, Intern at ITEP | Permalink | Transportation funding in the United States is in trouble. With the Highway Trust Fund set to go broke by late August, Congress has forgone any increase in the grossly inadequate federal gas tax (unchanged at 18.4 cents per gallon since 1993) […]
June 23, 2014 05:22 PM By Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy Staff | Permalink | In an astonishing shift, Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback has moved beyond calling his tax cuts a great “real live experiment” and is instead likening the state to a medical patient, saying, “It’s like going through surgery. It takes a […]
June 23, 2014 03:13 PM By Steve Wamhoff, Legislative Director at CTJ | Permalink | On Tuesday, when the Senate Finance Committee contemplates the patchwork of tax breaks that are supposed to subsidize postsecondary education, they will likely consider ways to streamline these breaks and make them less confusing. That’s a good idea, but it’s […]
June 19, 2014 04:21 PM By Steve Wamhoff, Legislative Director at CTJ | Permalink | As a result of Congress’s reluctance to raise the gas tax for the past 20 years, the Highway Trust Fund will run out of money in August. That could bring transportation construction and repairs all across the country to a […]