February 21, 2012 10:33 AM By Carl Davis, Research Director at ITEP | Permalink | Published in the Sacramento Bee, February 17, 2012 With jobs front and center in most voters’ minds, politicians seeking to cut or repeal personal income taxes are marketing their proposals as tools for boosting the economy. Recently, some have sought […]
February 17, 2012 01:13 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Here’s a huge tax fairness victory in Iowa. The state Senate voted unanimously to increase the Earned Income Tax Credit from 7 to 13 percent of the federal credit to help working families make ends meet. Matt Gardner, Executive Director of […]
February 16, 2012 04:06 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | On February 17, the President plans to visit a Boeing plant in Washington state to tout his proposed new tax breaks for American manufacturers. This is an odd setting to discuss new tax cuts, because over the past 10 years (2002-11), […]
February 16, 2012 01:28 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | In an attempt to bolster income tax repeal efforts in states like Oklahoma, Kansas, and Missouri, supply-side economist Arthur Laffer recently teamed up with an Oklahoma-based group to perform an analysis that predicts huge economic gains as a result of cutting […]
February 16, 2012 12:16 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | President Obama’s fiscal year 2013 budget plan would cut taxes by $4.1 trillion over ten years. A brief report from CTJ explains that most of this cost results from his proposal to make permanent 78 percent of the Bush tax cuts, […]
February 14, 2012 12:58 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | In this upside down world where closing a corrupt tax loophole is called a tax hike (like that’s a bad thing), some states are moving towards amending their constitutions to require a two thirds supermajority to raise taxes or borrow money. […]
February 13, 2012 06:46 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | We are still analyzing the President’s latest budget plan, which was released today, but there are a few things we can say right now.Unfortunately, President Obama has once again proposed to make permanent the vast majority of the Bush tax cuts. […]
February 13, 2012 05:08 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | One of the most frequently repeated talking points used by lawmakers seeking to reduce or eliminate state personal income taxes is that doing so will usher in an economic boom. Recently a number of observers, led by supply-side economist Arthur Laffer, […]
February 13, 2012 11:22 AM By Richard Phillips, Senior Policy Analyst at ITEP | Permalink | House Republicans passed a bill earlier this month to force Congress’s non-partisan tax analysts to assume that tax cuts cause less revenue loss (or even increase revenue) because they improve the economy so much. The Pro-Growth Budgeting Act of […]
February 10, 2012 02:02 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | In his State of the State speech, Ohio Governor John Kasichboasted, “in six months we eliminated an eight billion dollar budget shortfall without a tax increase—eliminated it. We are now balanced. In fact, we cut taxes by $300 million.” What the […]
February 10, 2012 01:24 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | It’s a basic matter of fairness that state sales taxes should be applied to things we buy, regardless of whether a purchase is made online or in a brick-and-mortar store. Back in 1992, however, before online shopping even existed, the Supreme […]
February 9, 2012 12:36 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Oklahoma’s Governor Mary Fallin finally unveiled her plan for eliminating the state income tax. Full elimination would take a number of years, but low-income families are likely to be hit hard right away when various refundable credits are repealed. The Institute […]
February 8, 2012 04:37 PM By Richard Phillips, Senior Policy Analyst at ITEP | Permalink | A new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows that only nine percent of Americans believe the tax system works for the middle class, with 68 percent saying it actually favors the wealthy. The survey shows a public overwhelmingly convinced that […]
February 8, 2012 11:01 AM By Meg Wiehe, Deputy Director at ITEP | Permalink | New Jersey Governor Chris Christie made a bold and reckless promise in his January State of the State address: a personal income tax cut for all. His plan is to gradually reduce income tax rates by 10 percent across the […]
February 7, 2012 05:13 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Citizens for Tax Justice Director, Bob McIntyre, writes in The the Hill’s Congress Blog today: ….Just as Ronald Reagan and a bipartisan Congress did in the Tax Reform Act of 1986, we should crack down on wasteful, often harmful corporate tax […]
February 7, 2012 11:47 AM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Kudos first to Washington State Representative Marko Liias who introduced a bill that requires the wealthiest Washingtonians to pay a two percent income tax to help fund education. This is big news because Washington doesn’t currently levy ANY income tax. Washington […]
February 6, 2012 04:31 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | (See CTJ director’s full explanation of Facebook’s use of the stock option deduction here.) Facebook, Inc.’s upcoming initial public stock offering (IPO) paperwork reveals that it plans to wipe out all of the company’s federal and state income tax obligations for […]
February 6, 2012 10:17 AM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Note to Readers: Over the coming weeks, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy will highlight tax policy proposals that are gaining momentum in states across the country. This week, we’re taking a closer look at proposals which would increase state […]
February 2, 2012 02:34 PM By Richard Phillips, Senior Policy Analyst at ITEP | Permalink | Grassroots groups throughout the country have used Citizens for Tax Justice’s report “Corporate Taxpayers & Tax Dodgers,” to pressure lawmakers to clean up the tax code. Here’s a sample of what some groups have done in California, Massachusetts, Minnesota, […]
February 2, 2012 01:01 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy’s (ITEP) Executive Director, Matthew Gardner, carried the torch for progressive corporate income tax reform in New York during his visit to Albany this week. He briefed legislative staff and the press on ITEP’s recent report, […]
February 2, 2012 12:47 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | On Tuesday, the Congressional Budget Office reported that the federal budget deficit will fall from $1 trillion this year to less than $300 billion over the next several years — but only if Congress can resist enacting budget-busting laws like another […]
February 1, 2012 03:32 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | We can’t be the only ones left scratching our heads after reading a recent New York Times story headlined Second Year In, Republican Governors Moderate Tone. After all, on the very same day an Associated Press story ran with the headline […]
January 31, 2012 02:35 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | CTJ’s Steve Wamhoff contributes a bit of persuasive writing to US News & World Report‘s Debate Club feature this week. The question before the debaters: Should Mitt Romney Pay More Taxes? Wamhoff writes, “The revelation that Mitt Romney received an income […]
January 31, 2012 01:55 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | A column in the Tulsa World questions the notion touted by conservative lawmakers that Oklahoma’s personal income tax is holding back the state’s economy and therefore should be eliminated. An ITEP analysis published earlier this month raises other concerns with plans […]
January 30, 2012 05:42 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | There are few areas of policy where lawmakers’ shortsightedness is on display as fully as it is with the gasoline tax. Now, with a series of twenty six new charts from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), you can […]