June 14, 2012 03:01 PM By Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy Staff | Permalink | Last night’s Washington Gubernatorial debate did not answer the call to shift their focus to the state’s broken revenue system. Instead, the Republican candidate, Attorney General Rob McKenna said that the Democrats “just keep insisting we need higher taxes.” […]
June 14, 2012 10:33 AM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | School vouchers are always controversial, but a front-page story in the New York Times describes how at least eight states have embarked on a quiet strategy of back-door vouchers which divert taxpayer money through tax rebates to private donors. While two […]
June 13, 2012 04:54 PM By Meg Wiehe, Deputy Director at ITEP | Permalink | North Dakota voters hit the polls yesterday and overwhelmingly (76 percent) said No to Measure 2, a proposal to eliminate — and constitutionally ban into perpetuity — their property taxes. Among those against the measure, the state’s tax commissioner opposed […]
June 12, 2012 09:00 AM By Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy Staff | Permalink | North Dakotans go to the ballot box today to decide the fate of their state’s property tax. If it passes, it won’t be good news. Stay tuned. It looks like New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has agreed to abandon […]
June 11, 2012 10:31 AM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Political gamesmanship is on full display in the tax policy debates happening in Michigan. Last Wednesday, the state House passed a tiny, temporary income tax cut that would kick in a month before voters head to the polls in November. This […]
June 7, 2012 06:22 PM By Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy Staff | Permalink | Massachusetts taxpayers now have a better idea of where $171 million of their tax dollars are going. Thanks to legislation enacted in 2010, the state’s Department of Revenue just issued its first-ever report identifying recipients of so-called economic development […]
June 7, 2012 02:42 PM By Meg Wiehe, Deputy Director at ITEP | Permalink | Late in North Carolina’s legislative session last summer, lawmakers quietly passed a $336 million tax cut – one of the largest tax cuts the state has seen in the past decade. Originally intended to target “small businesses” – defined as […]
June 7, 2012 02:35 PM By Richard Phillips, Senior Policy Analyst at ITEP | Permalink | If it wanted to, the United States Congress could easily solve the government’s long term fiscal gap by doing what it does best: nothing. According to a new report from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the United States […]
June 6, 2012 05:01 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker survived yesterday’s recall attempt. Walker has often been described as courageous by his supporters, like New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley and Senator Ron Johnson and by ideological allies like David Denholm and […]
June 6, 2012 12:12 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | In November 2010, Washington State voters reached an unfortunate verdict and passed Initiative 1053, a law which mandates that the legislature assemble a two-thirds “supermajority” for any legislation deemed to raise taxes. These supermajority requirements are not only anti-democratic but make […]
June 5, 2012 07:03 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Former President Bill Clinton told CNBC that extending all the Bush tax cuts past their scheduled expiration at the end of the year “is probably the best thing to do right now” to help Congress and the country “avoid the fiscal […]
June 5, 2012 10:47 AM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Americans are living in communities with fewer teachers, firefighters and police officers. They are facing larger class sizes, reduced trash pickup and less access to parks and libraries. That’s the gloomy conclusion of a new report from the Pew Charitable Trusts’ […]
June 4, 2012 02:41 PM By Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy Staff | Permalink | The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy talks back to the Wall Street Journal about its failure to cover the consequences of the new Kansas tax bill for the state’s working poor. Tomorrow Wisconsin Governor Walker will face a […]
June 4, 2012 01:49 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | In another example of Representation Without Taxation, on Thursday the House Ways and Means Committee reported out a bill that would repeal the medical device excise tax that was enacted as part of the Affordable Care Act and scheduled to go […]
June 1, 2012 10:54 AM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin admitted last week that she and her allies had failed in their efforts to roll back the state’s income tax this legislative session, despite high hopes among supply siders that the tax would be not only cut […]
May 31, 2012 06:53 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | The non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT), which estimates the revenue impact of tax proposals before Congress, has confirmed CTJ’s calculations of the dire consequences of House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi’s tax proposal. Last week CTJ concluded that Pelosi’s plan to […]
May 31, 2012 06:25 PM By Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy Staff | Permalink | There’s a trend this year of Republican governors striking deals with Amazon.com to begin collecting sales taxes on purchases made by their states’ residents. New Jersey’s Chris Christie penned a new agreement with the company that can be added […]
May 31, 2012 02:23 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | A new study from the Internal Revenue Service confirms your worst fears about the tax code: it’s riddled with loopholes and Congress isn’t doing anything about it. Year after year since 1977, the IRS has dutifully issued its “data on individual […]
May 30, 2012 12:19 PM By Kelly Davis, Assistant Director of Communications | Permalink | Last week Kansas Governor Sam Brownback signed into law Senate Substitute for House Bill 2117, a tax bill that dramatically changes the Kansas income tax structure and makes Kansas a real outlier when it comes to tax fairness. ITEP released […]
May 29, 2012 07:32 PM By Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy Staff | Permalink | Michigan lawmakers recently slashed income taxes for businesses by about $1.6 billion, and paid for it mostly with income tax hikes on the elderly and poor. Now lawmakers are debating a gimmicky income tax cut that would take effect […]
May 25, 2012 07:55 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | On Wednesday, CTJ heard that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi had sent a letter to Speaker John Boehner asking for an immediate vote on extending the Bush tax cuts for incomes up to $1 million. We crunched a few numbers and […]
May 25, 2012 07:01 PM By Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy Staff | Permalink | Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley signed a progressive income tax increase into law this week and successfully avoided large spending cuts. An analysis of the tax package by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) showed that while 87 […]
May 24, 2012 07:27 PM By Meg Wiehe, Deputy Director at ITEP | Permalink | The nonpartisan New Jersey Office of Legislative Services (OLS) released estimates on Wednesday predicting that New Jersey revenues will fall a staggering $1.3 billion short of Governor Chris Christie’s previous estimate through fiscal year 2013. The estimated revenue shortfall is […]
May 24, 2012 02:20 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Over 30 million Americans will take to the roads this Memorial Day weekend, and it’s all but guaranteed that many of them will be unhappy about the price of gas. But while it’s easy to get frustrated by high prices at […]
May 23, 2012 05:47 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | For Immediate Release: May 23, 2012 Minority Leader Pelosi’s “Middle Class” Tax Plan Benefits Millionaires, According to New Citizens for Tax Justice Estimate Washington, DC – In seeking an immediate vote in the House of Representatives to extend tax cuts on […]