February 24, 2014 11:43 AM By Carl Davis, Research Director at ITEP | Permalink | Denver and Baton Rouge are 1,200 miles apart (not to mention some steep elevation change), but state lawmakers in these distinct capitals are grappling with a similar challenge: a tax code increasingly clogged with special interest tax breaks. In Colorado, […]
February 20, 2014 04:42 PM By Richard Phillips, Senior Policy Analyst at ITEP | Permalink | A lot of gimmicky bills are proposed each Congressional session, but few are quite as ridiculous as the proposal by a bipartisan group of lawmakers in the House and Senate to create a new federal income tax break for […]
February 19, 2014 01:06 PM By Kelly Davis, Assistant Director of Communications | Permalink | Ohio Governor John Kasich is expected to unveil his latest tax cut proposal soon and it doesn’t take a deep understanding of Ohio politics to know that the Governor’s plan will likely include large across the board income tax rate […]
February 19, 2014 12:48 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Whenever it’s trying to justify cutting taxes (or not raising them), the Tax Foundation likes to direct readers toward one of its reports from 2012, in which it concluded that “nearly every empirical study of taxes and economic growth published in […]
February 19, 2014 12:38 PM By Kelly Davis, Assistant Director of Communications | Permalink | Last year, Missouri Governor Jay Nixon, a Democrat, vetoed a regressive tax cut package passed by Republican lawmakers that would have cost the state $700 million annually. In his veto message the Governor called the legislation an “ill-conceived, fiscally irresponsible […]
February 18, 2014 04:56 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | When individuals fill out their tax returns, billions of dollars — both for individual taxpayers and for the federal government — are at stake. This is one reason why more than half of U.S. taxpayers rely on paid tax preparers to […]
February 18, 2014 03:06 PM By Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy Staff | Permalink | It’s an age-old question: How do you thank legislators who give your profitable company an $8.7 billion tax subsidy? Most etiquette experts agree that a handwritten note just won’t do. But a lavish party thrown in your benefactors’ honor — […]
February 18, 2014 10:47 AM By Kelly Davis, Assistant Director of Communications | Permalink | Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear has unveiled a 22-point tax reform plan that includes a new refundable state earned income tax credit (EITC), limits on the generous $41,110 pension exclusion and expanding the sales tax base to include a wider range […]
February 14, 2014 04:13 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | If Congress decides it cannot spend money to help working families and the unemployed without offsetting the costs by cutting spending, then lawmakers should also refuse to enact tax cuts for businesses unless they can offset the costs by closing business […]
February 12, 2014 03:32 PM By Matt Gardner, Senior Fellow at ITEP | Permalink | Hidden in the footnotes of the financial report released last week by Netflix is an admission that the company reduced its taxes by $80 million in 2013 by deducting the “cost” of executive stock options. This means that as a […]
February 11, 2014 02:14 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Last week, CTJ published its finding that International Business Machines (IBM) has paid U.S. federal corporate income taxes equal to just 5.8 percent of its $45.3 billion in pretax U.S. profits over the five year period from 2008 through 2012. Today […]
February 11, 2014 09:46 AM By Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy Staff | Permalink | Note to Readers: This is the fifth post of a five-part series on tax policy prospects in the states in 2014. Over the course of several weeks, The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) highlighted tax proposals that […]
February 10, 2014 02:13 PM By Carl Davis, Research Director at ITEP | Permalink | This week the DC Council will be hearing tax reform recommendations from the experts they appointed to study the District’s tax system. While far from perfect, the DC Tax Revision Commission’s suggested changes include many sensible reforms. Here’s a quick […]
February 6, 2014 05:34 PM By Richard Phillips, Senior Policy Analyst at ITEP | Permalink | Over the weeks leading up to the Super Bowl, the National Football League (NFL) has found itself increasingly under scrutiny for its extraordinary extraction of lavish tax breaks and subsidies from state and local governments throughout the country. In […]
February 5, 2014 01:47 PM By Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy Staff | Permalink | Community organizations, state tax departments, and editorial pages across the country celebrated National EITC Awareness Day last Friday. Roughly 80% of those eligible for the federal Earned Income Tax Credit take advantage of it each year, a higher participation […]
February 4, 2014 04:15 PM By Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy Staff | Permalink | Note to Readers: This is the fourth installment of a five-part series on tax policy prospects in the states in 2014. This series, written by the staff of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), highlights state proposals […]
January 30, 2014 04:13 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Citizens for Tax Justice has long argued that offshore tax avoidance by corporations will never be fully addressed until Congress reforms our laws to tax the domestic profits and the offshore profits of our corporations at the same time and at […]
January 29, 2014 12:36 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | In his State of the Union address, President Obama touched on tax issues a few times, most prominently in connection to business tax reform. “Both Democrats and Republicans have argued that our tax code is riddled with wasteful, complicated loopholes that […]
January 28, 2014 05:30 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Many expect that during his State of the Union address tonight, President Obama will speak of income inequality, which he has previously called the “defining issue of our time.” As our nation hopefully begins this much-needed debate, everyone should be clear […]
January 28, 2014 04:27 PM By Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy Staff | Permalink | Note to Readers: This is the third of a five-part series on tax policy prospects in the states in 2014. Over the coming weeks, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) will highlight state tax proposals that are […]
January 28, 2014 04:20 PM By Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy Staff | Permalink | Editorial boards at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and the Wisconsin State Journal have both (rightly) responded to Governor Walker’s property and income tax cut proposals by encouraging lawmakers to instead curb the state’s growing structural deficit, or put any […]
January 23, 2014 01:00 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | (Updated 1/24/2014 to reflect the fact the resolution passed.) At its yearly winter meeting, the Republican National Committee approved a resolution calling for the repeal of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), a major law enacted in 2010 (as part of […]
January 23, 2014 11:13 AM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | On January 17, Senators Michael Bennet (D-CO) and Roy Blunt (R-MO) and nine of their colleagues introduced the Senate version of Congressman John Delaney’s proposal providing a tax amnesty for profits that corporations officially hold offshore on the condition that they […]
January 22, 2014 01:14 PM By Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy Staff | Permalink | After some high-quality investigative journalism from the Orlando Sentinel last year, prominent state lawmakers in Florida are setting their sights on sunsetting or redesigning a poorly tailored tax break for companies that locate in high-crime areas. The tax provision […]
January 22, 2014 12:47 PM By Richard Phillips, Senior Policy Analyst at ITEP | Permalink | The newly passed $1.1 trillion bipartisan budget appropriations bill includes myriad spending cuts, but the $526 million cut to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has to be the most foolish. Under the new budget, the IRS’s 2014 budget will […]