May 9, 2013 03:47 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | The Brewers Association, a lobbying group for craft beer brewers, has been trying to make a case for a reduction in the federal excise tax on small U.S. craft brewers. The group supports legislation – the Small BREW Act – introduced […]
May 9, 2013 01:34 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | While major tax swap proposals have collapsed this year in Louisiana, Nebraska and Ohio, plans to pay for personal and corporate income tax cuts with a greater reliance on a regressive sales tax are still very much alive in North Carolina. […]
May 8, 2013 05:30 PM By Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy Staff | Permalink | In an excellent op-ed, Jason Bailey of the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy makes the case for real tax reform in Kentucky, and that means a tax code that can raise revenues to keep Kentucky thriving. He explains that […]
May 8, 2013 11:28 AM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Some members of Congress are pushing ahead (or at least creating the appearance that they are pushing ahead) with tax reform without addressing the most important issue of the debate: revenue. As we have pointed out before, the $975 billion in […]
May 7, 2013 02:06 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | The Oklahoma legislature recently approved a cut to the state’s top personal income tax rate, at the urging of Governor Mary Fallin. When the plan is fully implemented in 2016, the state’s top tax rate will fall from 5.25 to 4.85 […]
May 6, 2013 12:28 PM By Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy Staff | Permalink | Washington, DC – Today, the U.S. Senate is expected to pass the Marketplace Fairness Act, a bipartisan bill that would finally let state governments enforce their sales tax laws on purchases made over the Internet. Currently, retailers are only […]
May 3, 2013 11:46 AM By Kelly Davis, Assistant Director of Communications | Permalink | The debate over how to effectively tax property in Iowa has raged for years. A new report from the Iowa Fiscal Project (IFP) compares and contrasts the property tax reform proposals put forward by the Iowa House and Senate. The […]
May 2, 2013 02:33 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Good Jobs First (GJF) has a new in-depth report revealing how the most aggressively promoted and publicized measures of states’ “business climates” are nothing more than messaging tools “designed to promote a particular political agenda.” According to the study’s co-author, PhD […]
May 2, 2013 11:54 AM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | President Obama has proposed to limit the tax savings for high-income taxpayers from itemized deductions and certain other deductions and exclusions to 28 cents for each dollar deducted or excluded. This proposal would raise more than half a trillion dollars in […]
May 2, 2013 10:48 AM By Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy Staff | Permalink | Michigan’s former Treasurer, Robert Kleine, explains in a Detroit Free Press op-ed that “there is no evidence that … [a 2011 tax change] reducing business taxes by $1.7 billion has created new jobs in Michigan.” Among other things, Kleine […]
May 1, 2013 12:55 PM By Kelly Davis, Assistant Director of Communications | Permalink | The Missouri House and Senate have each passed their own versions of a “race to the bottom” tax plan in a misguided effort to keep up with neighboring Kansas, where a radical tax plan that is eviscerating the state’s budget […]
April 30, 2013 02:50 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | There’s been some confusion in recent days about whether the 258 members of Congress who have signed Grover Norquist’s “Taxpayer Protection Pledge” are allowed to vote in favor a bill that lets states collect sales taxes owed on purchases made over […]
April 26, 2013 01:04 PM By Carl Davis, Research Director at ITEP | Permalink | When Indiana Governor Mike Pence was campaigning last year, a centerpiece of his campaign was a regressive 10 percent cut in the state’s already low personal income tax rate It now appears that the Governor has convinced legislative leaders to […]
April 26, 2013 12:31 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | When Congressional tax writers signaled their intention to enact a new tax break for domestic manufacturing income in 2004, lobbyists began a feeding frenzy to define both “domestic” and “manufacturing” as expansively as possible. As a result, current beneficiaries of the […]
April 25, 2013 03:39 PM By Richard Phillips, Senior Policy Analyst at ITEP | Permalink | Let’s start with the facts. Every dollar invested in the IRS’s enforcement, modernization and management system reduces the federal budget deficit by $200. Here’s another metric. Every dollar the IRS “spends for audits, liens and seizing property from tax […]
April 25, 2013 03:33 PM By Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy Staff | Permalink | Tuesday, the Ohio House of Representatives approved their budget bill which included an across the board 7 percent reduction in income tax rates. Though the House tax plan is less costly than the Governor’s original proposal, Policy Matters Ohio, […]
April 24, 2013 12:42 PM By Carl Davis, Research Director at ITEP | Permalink | Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin and legislative leaders recently announced their intention to repeal the state’s top personal income tax bracket, bringing the top rate down from 5.25 to 5.0 percent in 2015. The rate could be dropped even more by […]
April 24, 2013 11:45 AM By Carl Davis, Research Director at ITEP | Permalink | By now you’ve probably heard that the U.S. Senate is close to approving a bill that would allow the states to collect the sales taxes already owed by shoppers who make purchases over the Internet. Currently, sales tax enforcement as […]
April 23, 2013 05:41 PM By Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy Staff | Permalink | This week Missouri is offering a sales tax holiday on energy efficient appliances. Not only are these holidays costly for state budgets, they are poorly targeted. That is, it’s generally wealthier folks who have the cash flow flexibility to […]
April 23, 2013 04:29 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Democratic Senator Max Baucus of Montana, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee which oversees tax legislation, announced today that he is retiring when his term closes at the end of 2014. Many people are asking how this will affect the tax […]
April 23, 2013 02:59 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Read CTJ’s response to the Tax Foundation’s claim that the U.S. has a high corporate tax rate. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont recently appeared on Real Time with Bill Maher and disputed the claim by the Tax Foundation that the U.S. […]
April 18, 2013 02:42 PM By Richard Phillips, Senior Policy Analyst at ITEP | Permalink | A revealing new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that in 2011, the US government spent as much on corporate tax expenditures as it collected in corporate taxes. According to the report, 80 tax expenditures (exceptions, deductions, […]
April 17, 2013 04:42 PM By Carl Davis, Research Director at ITEP | Permalink | In a stark departure from the last few years, one of the most debated state tax policy issues in 2013 has been the gasoline tax (PDF). Until this February, it had been almost three years since any state’s lawmakers approved […]
April 17, 2013 03:46 PM By Kelly Davis, Assistant Director of Communications | Permalink | Last week we brought you news that Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal was abandoning his plan to eliminate the state personal and corporate income taxes and replace the revenue with an expanded sales tax. Instead, the Governor asked the legislature to […]
April 16, 2013 03:09 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | The Indiana Senate recently passed a budget that speeds up the phase-out of the state’s inheritance tax (PDF), cuts taxes for the politically well-connected financial industry, and reduces the state’s flat personal income tax rate from 3.4 to 3.3 percent. […]