July 14, 2011 04:06 PM By Rebecca Wilkins, Senior Counsel, Federal Tax Policy at CTJ | Permalink | On Tuesday, Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) introduced the Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act (S. 1346) to help stem the tide of the estimated $100 billion annual tax revenue loss connected to the use of offshore tax havens. […]
July 14, 2011 03:48 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | President’s and GOP’s Positions Both Include Greater Tax Cuts than Spending Cuts It’s hard to say what will happen with the necessary increase in the federal debt ceiling. But one thing is clear: Almost anything that the President and the Congress […]
July 14, 2011 03:15 PM By Meg Wiehe, Deputy Director at ITEP | Permalink | New Jersey Governor Chris Christie used his line-item veto power to rip the legislature-approved budget to shreds earlier this month. New Jersey Policy Perspective put it best when stating that Christie’s numerous vetoes “did serious damage to virtually every constituency […]
July 14, 2011 11:44 AM By Richard Phillips, Senior Policy Analyst at ITEP | Permalink | Company Accused of Dodging $2 Billion in US Taxes After Calling for Exemption for Tax Haven Profits and Attacking Illinois Tax Hike A former global tax strategy manager of Caterpillar is suing the company for demoting him after he […]
July 14, 2011 11:39 AM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | A group of Iowa business leaders recently voiced their support for an increase in the state fuel tax to pay for much needed road repairs. Speaking in front of Governor Terry Branstad’s Transportation 2020 Citizen Advisory Commission, a wide array of […]
July 13, 2011 03:55 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Republican Senate Leader McConnell’s Plan Would Avoid Forcing the Spending Cuts that He Knows Are Highly Unpopular On Tuesday, Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) offered a convoluted proposal in which a bill to raise the debt ceiling would be passed by Congress […]
July 13, 2011 03:38 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Government functions in Minnesota shut down July 1 and that shutdown continues, nearly two weeks later, as a result of a stand off between Governor Mark Dayton and conservatives in the state’s legislature. The Governor is using this week to talk […]
July 13, 2011 03:15 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Senator McConnell’s convoluted proposal for lawmakers to raise the debt ceiling while avoiding the blame (see related article) shows that GOP leaders are trying desperately to escape a trap. On one side are anti-tax ideologues like Grover Norquist and his group, […]
July 13, 2011 10:45 AM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of the company famous for making profits of $26 billion from 2006 through 2010 and receiving tax benefits from the IRS of $4.1 billion over that period, has endorsed the recently proposed amnesty for corporate tax dodgers, called […]
July 7, 2011 02:56 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | After months of negotiations, California Governor Jerry Brown was ultimately unsuccessful in his attempt to balance the state’s massive budget using new tax dollars, specifically, $11 billion in revenues from an extension of temporary increased personal income and sales taxes and […]
July 7, 2011 02:43 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Republican leaders in the House and Senate have threatened to allow the U.S. to default on its debt obligations unless the President agrees to cut trillions from public services to reduce the budget deficit. The federal budget deficit is a problem, […]
July 7, 2011 02:40 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | As Republican leaders met President Obama today to attempt to come to some agreement on raising the debt ceiling and reducing the deficit, the media has reported that Republicans are open to increasing revenue — but the details consistently seem to […]
July 7, 2011 12:58 PM By Richard Phillips, Senior Policy Analyst at ITEP | Permalink | Despite the fact that the move would actually increase the deficit by an estimated $3.4 billion, House Republicans voted to slash the IRS’s budget by $600 million. Unlike most types of public spending, increased funding of the IRS actually […]
July 6, 2011 06:59 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | The House Judiciary Committee approved the so-called “Business Activity Tax Simplification Act” (BATSA), H.R. 1439 today. Corporate lobbyist pushing this bill make the deceptive argument that simplification will result from limiting state and local governments to taxing only those businesses that […]
July 6, 2011 02:38 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Call both your Senators and your member of the House of Representatives at the toll-free number below and tell them: “Oppose the amnesty for corporate tax dodgers, which corporate leaders call a ‘repatriation holiday.’ This giveaway to corporations should not be […]
July 6, 2011 02:05 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | In the final hours before the state’s new fiscal year was to begin, Iowa lawmakers agreed on a two year, nearly $6 billion, budget plan. The new budget was heavily debated during the state’s third longest legislative session. The state’s budget […]
July 6, 2011 01:38 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), working with Arthur Laffer and Stephen Moore, has updated its “state economic competitiveness index.” The authors claim that the index analyzes how well state lawmakers are using fifteen “policy levers … that can make their […]
July 5, 2011 06:04 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Lower the tax rate…or else. Continued threats from Illinois business lobbyists warning that businesses will leave the state have forced the Illinois state legislature to order a joint House-Senate Revenue Committee to review Illinois’s corporate tax structure. Companies like Caterpillar and […]
July 1, 2011 03:29 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | On June 30, Ohio Governor John Kaisch signed into law a $56 billion, two-year budget that includes painful cuts to many public services including education. That didn’t stop the governor and legislators from finding room to give tax breaks to the […]
June 30, 2011 03:18 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | With the state’s gas tax pegged to the price of gasoline, North Carolina is scheduled to raise its gas tax rate tomorrow (July 1). This increase was entirely predictable, but is understandably controversial. Unfortunately, the debate surrounding what to do in […]
June 30, 2011 03:05 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Unfortunately, Rhode Island lawmakers rejected Governor Lincoln Chafee’s balanced and reform-minded approach to closing the state’s budget shortfall for next fiscal year. Senate members gave final approval to the House’s revised spending plan this week, both chambers choosing significant spending cuts […]
June 30, 2011 03:02 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Revenue Increase the Obvious Answer to Budget Deficits Some members of Congress are threatening to allow the U.S. to default on its debt obligations — and send financial markets into a tailspin — unless the President agrees to large, sudden cuts […]
June 30, 2011 02:59 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Minnesota state government is on the brink of shutting down. Despite months of intense negotiations between the state’s Democratic governor, Mark Dayton, and the Republican controlled legislature, neither party seems prepared to budge from their preferred positions on balancing the budget. […]
June 30, 2011 02:43 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | New Hampshire joins the majority of states that have patched next fiscal year’s budget gaps with a cuts-only approach. Democratic Governor John Lynch will allow the budget to go into effect Friday, July 1 without his signature, fearing a veto would […]
June 30, 2011 12:05 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | It’s no secret that once enacted, tax breaks receive far too little scrutiny from state lawmakers. Consider the debacle in Missouri, for example, where the state accidentally spent $1 billion more on tax credits beyond what lawmakers originally intended, in large […]