October 1, 2012 10:20 AM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, an organization “committed to educating the public about issues that have significant fiscal policy impact” and running several programs to address the budget deficit, issued a working paper last week calling for corporate tax […]
September 28, 2012 02:11 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Former Virginia Governor and current Senate candidate Tim Kaine found himself in hot water after a Senatorial debate last week in which he expressed a willingness to consider “a proposal that would have some minimum tax level for everyone.” Perhaps even […]
September 27, 2012 05:08 PM By Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy Staff | Permalink | Looks like the “spin room” in Topeka has been busy lately. Read how Kansas Governor Brownback and his staff “fashion[ed] a new budget narrative” in reaction to criticism over massive budget cuts he signed (PDF) earlier this year and […]
September 27, 2012 03:51 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Kentucky’s tax structure is broken – so broken that policymakers have convened 12 commissions since 1982 to study the state’s revenue stream. And yet the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) found that still the state continues to tax low […]
September 27, 2012 03:25 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | A hearing on offshore profit shifting last week exposed aggressive tax planning strategies employed by Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard (HP) and illustrated the critical need for more disclosure. On September 20, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations held a hearing on “Offshore […]
September 27, 2012 02:56 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Last year, when billionaire investor Warren Buffett created a storm by arguing that Congress should reform the tax system that allows him to pay a lower effective rate than his secretary, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell quipped, “if he’s feeling guilty […]
September 26, 2012 03:06 PM By Richard Phillips, Senior Policy Analyst at ITEP | Permalink | A new survey of 250 economists in the business community by the National Association for Business Economics released on Monday revealed their strong support for increasing fiscal stimulus in the short term and taking a balanced approach to deficit […]
September 24, 2012 01:15 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | First there was the Congressional hearing last Thursday, then the release of Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s 2011 tax return on Friday. While one of them was big news and the other not so much, both events highlight the biggest subsidy […]
September 21, 2012 06:20 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Mitt Romney’s 2011 Returns Reveal a Tax Code Stacked in Favor of the Very Rich Because of Loopholes and Special Rates Not Available to Ordinary Taxpayers Washington, DC – Since Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ) first calculated that GOP Presidential candidate […]
September 21, 2012 02:13 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | When the Supreme Court ruled in June that the new penalty for not obtaining health care was actually a tax (and therefore permissible under Congress’s taxing power) we pointed out that hardly anyone would pay it because low-income families would be […]
September 20, 2012 06:01 PM By Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy Staff | Permalink | The Washington Post explains why so-called “budget surpluses” in Maryland and Virginia are nothing to get excited about: “In both cases, the surpluses are modest, amounting to no more than a percentage point or two of state spending. And […]
September 20, 2012 12:36 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Today the Census Bureau released new data showing that in 17 states, the number of Americans living in poverty increased in 2011. Lawmakers and advocates interested in helping to lift families out of poverty can and should look to their states’ […]
September 20, 2012 11:35 AM By Richard Phillips, Senior Policy Analyst at ITEP | Permalink | A new study by the non-partisan Congressional Research Service (CRS) using data from the past 65 years found that there is no correlation (PDF) between top tax rates and economic growth. But it doesn’t stop there. The study also […]
September 20, 2012 09:29 AM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | For Immediate Release: September 20, 2012 Rare Joint House-Senate Hearing on Tax Reform Will Fail without Commitment to Repeal Capital Gains Tax Break New Report Shows All Current Proposals Give Richest Taxpayers a Break More than a Thousand Times Larger Than […]
September 18, 2012 03:03 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney was caught on tape explaining to a group of prospective donors that 47 percent of Americans “pay no income tax” and generally fail to contribute their fair share. In identifying these presumed slackers who would never […]
September 13, 2012 02:53 PM By Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy Staff | Permalink | Slow but steady progress toward enforcing state sales taxes on online purchases continues. Amazon.com has agreed to begin collecting sales taxes in Pennsylvania, and the state’s Revenue Department plans to start auditing and penalizing other online retailers with a […]
September 13, 2012 12:58 PM By Richard Phillips, Senior Policy Analyst at ITEP | Permalink | Bradley Birkenfeld, a former banker at the Swiss banking giant UBS, received a record-setting reward of $104 million from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for blowing the whistle on the bank’s systematic efforts to woo wealthy Americans investors and […]
September 13, 2012 11:32 AM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | It turns out that Mitt Romney’s energy policy adviser, Harold Hamm, is the CEO of an oil company called Continental Resources, and we all know that energy companies get some of the most generous breaks in the U.S. corporate income tax […]
September 12, 2012 05:21 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | CTJ’s legislative director testified before the Congressional Progressive Caucus on the role of revenue in addressing America’s economic and fiscal problems. Read the written version of the testimony, which explains in detail each point that he made today: – Tax cuts […]
September 12, 2012 12:16 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | With just eight weeks to go until Election Day, Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney continues to channel former First Lady Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” campaign. Romney first said “no” to releasing more of his federal income tax returns and now […]
September 12, 2012 11:39 AM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Census data released today shows that while the national poverty rate remained unchanged in 2011, record numbers of Americans are still living in poverty and median income dropped by 1.5 percent, making income supports for the working poor even more important. […]
September 10, 2012 11:31 AM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | For Immediate Release: September 10, 2012 Contact: Anne Singer, 202-299-1066, ext. 27 Romney’s Bad Arithmetic: CTJ Report Disproves Claim that Romney Won’t Lower Taxes for the Rich Washington, DC – On Sunday, September 9, presidential candidate Mitt Romney appeared with David […]
September 7, 2012 03:17 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | We were not very hopeful that the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Charlotte would be any more enlightening about tax policy than its Republican counterpart in Tampa. In a previous post we criticized the drafters of the Democratic platform for tripping […]
September 7, 2012 01:24 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | As part of the governor’s campaign to redistribute wealth to corporations and the state’s wealthiest citizens, Wisconsin lawmakers last year reduced the state’s Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) for low income, working families. Now, leading Republican legislators have signaled their intention […]
September 6, 2012 12:03 PM By Richard Phillips, Senior Policy Analyst at ITEP | Permalink | In its 2012 Platform, the Democratic Party broadly calls for a tax system that asks “the wealthiest and corporations to pay their fair share,” while also taking “decisive steps to restore fiscal responsibility.” The actual policy proposals called for […]