May 12, 2014 02:26 PM By Matt Gardner, Senior Fellow at ITEP | Permalink | Two years ago as part of the fiscal cliff deal, members of Congress sensibly allowed a subset of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy to expire, including an increase in taxes on capital gains. Many wealthy investors, who have […]
May 8, 2014 03:40 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Oklahoma voters have had a rough year. In the span of less than twelve months, their elected officials passed an income tax rate cut that a majority of Oklahomans opposed, saw that cut thrown out by the state’s supreme court for […]
May 8, 2014 02:56 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | The lack of adequate funding for roads, bridges, and transit has been a major topic of debate in the United States for years. Anti-tax groups often claim that the problem could be fixed by redirecting education funds toward roads, or by […]
May 7, 2014 02:23 PM By Kelly Davis, Assistant Director of Communications | Permalink | An anti-tax, Republican super majority in the Missouri Legislature claimed victory yesterday in a year-long battle with Gov. Jay Nixon over taxes by voting to override Nixon’s veto of a $620 million income tax cut. This comes one year after […]
May 7, 2014 12:43 PM By Rebecca Wilkins, Senior Counsel, Federal Tax Policy at CTJ | Permalink | Many companies claim they are forced by shareholders to dodge taxes in order to maximize profits, but what would a company do if its shareholders insist that it actually pay its fair share in taxes? A group […]
May 7, 2014 10:54 AM By Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy Staff | Permalink | Results from Governor Brownback’s “real live experiment” (the passage of two rounds of extreme tax cuts under the guise of stimulating the economy) are trickling in and they aren’t good. The Kansas City Star is reporting that the state’s […]
April 30, 2014 02:52 PM By Richard Phillips, Senior Policy Analyst at ITEP | Permalink | After years of being a bad corporate citizen, Pfizer is now seeking to renounce its U.S. citizenship entirely by reincorporating in Britain as part of its hoped-for purchase of British pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca. While the deal would allow Pfizer to […]
April 30, 2014 12:37 PM By Kelly Davis, Assistant Director of Communications | Permalink | At a time when many states have toyed with the idea of paring back their progressive income taxes, Illinois policymakers this year showed real interest in a progressive change. The state currently has one of the nation’s most regressive tax […]
April 29, 2014 02:05 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Fresh off a two-week spring recess, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp today shepherded through six bills that would provide corporate tax breaks at a whopping cost of more than $300 billion over the next decade. The tax breaks […]
April 28, 2014 04:26 PM By Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy Staff | Permalink | The natural gas extraction industry’s free ride in Pennsylvania may finally be coming to an end. Five years after natural gas companies entered the state to take advantage of the Marcellus Shale, legislators are considering an extraction tax (aka, […]
April 25, 2014 04:19 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Rep. Dave Camp, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, will take the first step to make permanent certain business tax breaks on Tuesday, when his committee marks up legislation that would increase the deficit by $300 billion over […]
April 24, 2014 02:50 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | If a group of Walgreens shareholders get their way, the drug retailer will restructure itself to become — on paper — a foreign company for tax purposes. It’s likely that nothing would actually change in terms of Walgreen’s business or management. […]
April 24, 2014 10:03 AM By Carl Davis, Research Director at ITEP | Permalink | New Hampshire’s gas tax will be increasing for the first time in nearly 23 years under a bill that will soon be signed into law by Gov. Maggie Hassan. This increase comes on the heels of gas tax increases or […]
April 23, 2014 04:39 PM By Kelly Davis, Assistant Director of Communications | Permalink | The anti-taxers are at it again in Missouri. The House and Senate for the second time in as many years passed a bill that would lower taxes on the wealthiest Missourians and reduce taxes on business income. Fully aware Missouri […]
April 21, 2014 05:44 PM By Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy Staff | Permalink | Have you recently purchased a multimillion dollar piece of artwork (say, a $142 million Francis Bacon)? If the answer is yes, we have a great tax loophole for you. Rather than immediately bringing the piece of art home with […]
April 21, 2014 03:17 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Unscrupulous lenders in Texas are takingadvantage of homeowners struggling to pay their property taxes–a practice Texas lawmakers could halt by providing relief to homeowners once property taxes reach a certain percentage of income. This form of predatory lending has nothing to do with […]
April 18, 2014 11:33 AM By Matt Gardner, Senior Fellow at ITEP | Permalink | More than a decade ago, a Republican-led Congress held a series of “show trials” designed to paint a picture of the Internal Revenue Service as intrusive, jackbooted thugs. It worked — at least well enough to convince Congress, which has […]
April 17, 2014 01:31 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform, along with the Tax Foundation and Koch brothers-backed Americans for Prosperity all tried to convince Tennessee lawmakers that the state’s wealthiest investors need a tax cut. Fortunately for Tennesseans, their elected officials rejected that idea […]
April 17, 2014 12:33 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Back in 2004, as the presidential contest between George W. Bush and John Kerry heated up, so-called NASCAR dads were identified as a potential key constituency in swinging the election results—and the NASCAR dad vote was courted accordingly by both sides. […]
April 16, 2014 12:20 PM By Matt Gardner, Senior Fellow at ITEP | Permalink | In spite of mounting evidence that greenhouse gas emissions will continue to increase the earth’s temperatures, political polarization in Washington is standing in the way of the United States doing its part to address this global crisis. A new report […]
April 11, 2014 01:06 PM By Matt Gardner, Senior Fellow at ITEP | Permalink | Kansas lawmakers just passed legislation to comply with the recent state Supreme Court ruling mandating increased K-12 funding to poor school districts, but it didn’t come easy. The Kansas City Star notes that “[l]awmakers discussed taking the money out of […]
April 11, 2014 11:54 AM By Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy Staff | Permalink | Maine legislators are poised to crack down on corporations that use foreign tax havens to hide income from state tax authorities. The legislation, which has now been passed by both the House and Senate but still faces further votes, […]
April 10, 2014 10:20 AM By David Mitchell | Permalink | New York Governor Andrew Cuomo got his election-year wish: a $2 billion tax cut package that doles out goodies to Wall Street banks and rich homeowners. Cuomo, a Democrat who likely has presidential ambitions, sold the tax cuts under the false promise that they […]
April 9, 2014 04:47 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | According to the Daily Tax Report (subscription only) a Treasury Department official said publicly on April 8 that the government’s goal in international negotiations over corporate tax dodging is to prevent dramatic change and preserve the “arm’s length” standard that has […]
April 9, 2014 11:30 AM By Carl Davis, Research Director at ITEP | Permalink | The estate tax, Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), and film tax credits were all major topics of debate in Maryland this year. Now that the state’s legislative session has ended, here’s a quick look at what happened on each of […]