April 22, 2011 01:37 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Expedia, Orbitz, and Priceline are exploiting a major sales tax loophole, and in some states are possibly breaking the law in doing so. Last week, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) released a report explaining how this loophole works, […]
April 22, 2011 01:35 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Weeks after the New York Times broke the story of General Electric’s tax avoidance, it’s still hard for many Americans to believe how successfully GE has managed to avoid owing any tax on its profits. Yet some anti-immigrant groups find it […]
April 15, 2011 11:27 AM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Conservative lawmakers and pundits often claim that the richest Americans are paying a disproportionate share of taxes while a huge number of lower-income Americans pay nothing at all. CTJ has updated its report on federal, state and local taxes that explains […]
April 15, 2011 11:26 AM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Honeywell International has responded to a press release that CTJ posted Tuesday and which explained that the company has paid an effective U.S. income tax rate of just 4.1 percent averaged over the past five years. The company’s CEO, Dave Cote, […]
April 15, 2011 11:25 AM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Yesterday, the Business Roundtable, a politically conservative group of corporate CEOs, released a report claiming to show that U.S. corporations pay higher effective tax rates than corporations of other countries. CTJ’s director Bob McIntyre was quoted in several news articles explaining […]
April 15, 2011 11:24 AM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Hundreds of events from coast to coast are being organized to target corporations that fail to pay their fair share in taxes while lawmakers consider slashing public services that working Americans depend on. MoveOn MoveOn invites “frustrated taxpayers, underwater homeowners, vilified […]
April 15, 2011 11:22 AM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | In his speech on Wednesday addressing the budget deficit, President Obama skewered the House Republicans’ budget plan as painting “a vision of our future that’s deeply pessimistic.” He pointed out that if enacted, the budget proposed by House Budget Committee Chairman […]
April 15, 2011 11:21 AM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Recently, DC mayor Vince Gray released his proposal to balance the District’s budget. In sharp contrast to the cut-heavy budgets being debated in most places around the country, Gray’s budget would use increased revenues, including taxes, to close over 40 percent […]
April 15, 2011 11:19 AM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Will Rhode Island be the next state to allow special interests to prevent it from bringing its sales tax into the 21st century? Despite near-universal agreement among economists on the wisdom of broadening sales tax bases and dozens of state tax […]
April 15, 2011 11:18 AM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | North Carolina advocates seeking to protect the state’s Earned Income Tax Credit and supporting a balanced approach to the state’s budget crisis have stepped up their efforts to build public support with new multimedia campaigns. The SaveEITC.org website, launched last […]
April 12, 2011 04:21 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | In the days leading up through Tax Day (which is on Monday, April 18 this year) there are several things you can do to promote tax fairness. US Uncut plans direct actions targeting particular corporations that have dodged their taxes. U.S. […]
April 12, 2011 02:59 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | The Open Society Foundation is hosting a briefing on tax havens Thursday morning, which will be followed by a Hill briefing that afternoon. The details are below. April 14, 2011 10:00 a.m. Event: Civil Society Organization Briefing/Panel. Location: Open Society Foundation, […]
April 8, 2011 05:03 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Any rational proposal to balance the federal budget would rely on a mix of spending reductions and revenue increases. But, as explained in a new CTJ report, the House Republican budget plan relies on draconian spending cuts and actually reduces revenue. […]
April 8, 2011 05:02 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | In just the last few weeks, Arkansas and Illinois joined New York, North Carolina, and Rhode Island in enacting legislation requiring some online retailers, like Amazon.com, to collect sales taxes on purchases made by their state’s residents. At least a dozen […]
April 8, 2011 05:01 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Earlier this week, ITEP released a new report, Don’t Give Up on Pease: States Can Decouple from Recent Federal Tax Cuts for Wealthy Itemizers. The report is a companion piece to ITEP’s July 2010 report on the impact of itemized deductions […]
April 8, 2011 04:59 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | In news that will warm the hearts of tax justice advocates across the country, Missouri voters in Kansas City and St. Louis overwhelmingly approved ballot initiatives to keep their 1 percent local earnings taxes. This is a huge blow to wealthy […]
April 8, 2011 04:58 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Georgia’s Special Council on Tax Reform recently released recommendations to overhaul Georgia’s tax structure in a way that would improve the state’s finances but also shift taxes to Georgians who are less able to pay. As anticipated, the recommendations were quite […]
April 8, 2011 04:57 PM By Meg Wiehe, Deputy Director at ITEP | Permalink | The Boss a Local Hero with Anti-Poverty and Children’s Advocates With a short letter to the editor of his hometown paper, the Asbury Park Press, Bruce Springsteen sided with anti-poverty and children’s advocates, teachers, and other New Jersey residents who […]
April 8, 2011 04:55 PM By Richard Phillips, Senior Policy Analyst at ITEP | Permalink | Elected officials in California and Florida face unprecedented fiscal challenges at both the state and local levels. Yet rather than working to reduce their budget shortfalls, policymakers in each state are doing their best to dig their budget holes […]
April 1, 2011 02:34 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | A USA Today op-ed written by CTJ’s Steve Wamhoff argues that we should approach corporate tax reform the way President Reagan did in 1986. He closed enough tax loopholes to raise new revenue from corporations, even while lowering the corporate tax […]
April 1, 2011 02:15 PM By Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy Staff | Permalink | Earlier this week, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy released a new report, Topsy-Turvy: State Income Tax Deductions for Federal Income Taxes Turn Tax Fairness on its Head. The report highlights an unusual tax break that currently exists in only […]
April 1, 2011 02:12 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | State lawmakers across the country have heard again and again that wealthy taxpayers will pull up stakes and move in response to just about any progressive state tax increase. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Read the full ITEP article […]
April 1, 2011 02:11 PM By Matt Gardner, Senior Fellow at ITEP | Permalink | Anti-tax policymakers seeking an excuse to eviscerate the progressive personal income tax sometimes assert that its alleged volatility makes budgeting harder for state lawmakers, and that this volatility leads directly to the sort of difficult spending and tax decisions lawmakers […]
April 1, 2011 02:00 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Earlier this year, Illinois took a major step toward balancing its budget for the upcoming fiscal year by increasing its flat-rate income tax from 3 percent to 5 percent. Even at that time, however, lawmakers were under no illusion that this […]
April 1, 2011 01:54 PM By Richard Phillips, Senior Policy Analyst at ITEP | Permalink | A slew of conservative commentators took aim this week at Sarah Palin for her acceptance of a $1.2 million film tax credit that she herself signed into law in Alaska for the production of the TLC reality show “Sarah […]