October 27, 2011 07:40 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | The St. Louis Post Dispatch calls Missouri’s special legislative session that just wrapped up a fiasco. We’ve written about this saga of a special session that started September 6 and was convened with the promise of helping spur the Show Me […]
October 27, 2011 07:10 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | On Tuesday, the Blue Ribbon Commission on Maryland Transportation Funding voted to recommend a set of tax and fee increases that would boost funding for the state’s roads and transit systems by some $870 million annually. The largest component of those […]
October 27, 2011 06:52 PM By Meg Wiehe, Deputy Director at ITEP | Permalink | In June of 2012, North Dakota voters will have the opportunity to vote on a proposed Constitutional Amendment that would eliminate all property taxes. If passed, the initiative would make North Dakota the only state in the nation to completely […]
October 27, 2011 06:24 PM By Kelly Davis, Assistant Director of Communications | Permalink | Reforming a state’s tax structure and the planning, meetings, and discussions that go into such a monumental and consequential project shouldn’t happen behind closed doors. After all, taxes are fundamental to government and its activities and they impact everyone. But […]
October 27, 2011 05:55 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | For much of the last century, estate and inheritance taxes have played an important role in helping states to adequately fund public services in a way that exempts middle- and low-income taxpayers. This is an especially vital role at the state […]
October 26, 2011 04:38 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Labor unions, small business associations and good government groups have lined up to oppose proposals to exempt corporations’ offshore profits from U.S. taxes on a permanent basis (by enacting a “territorial” tax system) or temporary basis (by enacting a “repatriation” amnesty). […]
October 25, 2011 01:01 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Like many other presidential candidates, Texas Governor Rick Perry proposes massive tax cuts for the richest Americans, but he proposes to do so in the most complicated way possible. His plan would have taxpayers calculate their taxes twice — once under […]
October 21, 2011 02:29 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | New CTJ Fact Sheet Explains Why Congress Should Reject “Territorial” System House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp is planning to release a “working draft” of a plan to adopt a “territorial” tax system, which is another way of saying a […]
October 21, 2011 02:25 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | A “study” claiming Congress can raise revenue by repealing the estate tax, which was criticized at length by Citizens for Tax Justice in 2009, has been updated to provide a “solution” for the budget deficit. Anyone who is not familiar with […]
October 21, 2011 02:10 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Writing for Tax Notes, CTJ director Bob McIntyre recalls “my story of CTJ’s role in the process that led to the monumental Tax Reform Act of 1986. It’s a lightly edited version of notes I took in the fall of 1986, […]
October 21, 2011 02:00 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Some commentators have suggested that, because people with incomes exceeding $1 million, on average, pay higher effective tax rates than middle-income people, the problem targeted by President Obama’s “Buffett Rule” does not exist. As demonstrated in a new report from CTJ, […]
October 21, 2011 01:38 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) made a lot of noise (and news, news, news) about sales tax holidays during the recent back to school season. Seventeen states offer sales tax holidays. The rules vary widely, but in most cases […]
October 21, 2011 12:50 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | With his recent dramatic rise to second place in the polls, Former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza Herman Cain and his infamous 9-9-9 plan were the belles of the ball at the last two Republican debates. According to a full analysis by […]
October 21, 2011 11:45 AM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | This week Kansas Revenue Secretary, Nick Jordan, said that by the end of the year Governor Sam Brownback will have recommendations for how to reform the state’s tax structure. He said, “We’re looking at tax policy in a very comprehensive way. […]
October 14, 2011 04:22 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | If the following actions were taken, some of the inequity that is driving the Occupy Wall Street and other affiliated protests would be eliminated. Suggestions include making corporations pay their fair share in taxes, ending the tax break for corporations that […]
October 14, 2011 03:11 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Today ITEP released three new updates of important Policy Briefs that explain timely tax topics in just two pages each. These are part of a series of Policy Briefs designed to provide a quick introduction to all the basic tax ideas […]
October 14, 2011 12:40 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | The National Priorities Project, working in partnership with Citizens for Tax Justice, has unveiled a new website that presents a running tally of the cost of the Bush tax cuts for the richest five percent, who now receive almost half of […]
October 14, 2011 12:24 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Opposition to broad-based tax increases has caused state lawmakers to look, with increasing urgency, for additional revenue-raising opportunities outside of the income, sales and property taxes that form the backbone of most state tax systems. One of the most popular alternatives […]
Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam recently announced that Amazon has agreed to begin collecting sales taxes in Tennessee starting in 2014. The former Governor had told Amazon during backroom negotiations that it would not have to collect sales tax at all, despite the company’s plans to establish a “physical presence” in the state through the opening […]
October 7, 2011 11:22 AM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | On September 26, the Office of the Inspector General for the City of Chicago released its annual budget options report to guide city officials as they debate how to close the city’s $1.2 billion budget deficit. The recommendations are extensive (this […]
October 5, 2011 06:03 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Senator Chuck Schumer of New York today said he is hesitant to support President Obama’s tax proposals because, “There are people making 250, 300 [thousand dollars] in many of our states who are not rich.” Actually, Citizens for Tax Justice calculated […]
October 5, 2011 01:10 PM By Richard Phillips, Senior Policy Analyst at ITEP | Permalink | Unlikely as it seems, reality show star Snooki of “Jersey Shore” has found herself at the center of two important tax policy debates. The first was last year when Snooki criticized President Barack Obama for the 10% tanning tax […]
October 3, 2011 03:44 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Governors and legislatures love giving their citizens “property tax relief,” and mayors and county councils struggle to balance their budgets when it happens. All tax credits and tax breaks cost governments revenues, so the goal is to tailor programs and target […]
September 30, 2011 05:05 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | CTJ, Heritage Foundation, Tax Foundation and Others AGREE that the 60 Former Hill Staffers Lobbying for Repatriation Amnesty Are Wrong Bloomberg reports that the corporate coalition promoting a tax amnesty for offshore profits that U.S. corporations repatriate to the U.S. has […]
September 30, 2011 11:19 AM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | In 2000, when the economy was strong and the state appeared to be flush with funding, Massachusetts taxpayers voted to incrementally roll back the personal income tax rate from 5.75 to five percent. In 2002, the state legislature halted the rollback […]