Tax Justice Blog Archives

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Michigan Governor Wants the Elderly and Poor to Pay Much More, so that Businesses Can Pay Much Less

March 4, 2011 01:48 PM By Richard Phillips, Senior Policy Analyst at ITEP | Permalink | Michigan Governor Rick Snyder has taken a lot of heat for his budget plan over the last week or so, and for very good reason.  Snyder is currently seeking to raise individual income taxes — primarily on elderly and […]

South Carolina Considers Turning its Property Tax into Something Else Entirely

March 4, 2011 01:46 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Under any reasonable property tax system, a property’s tax bill should be tied fairly closely to the actual value of that property.  Sure, some modest exemptions and credits can (and should) be used to reduce the property tax’s regressivity, but the […]

New York Governor Cuomo Near to Killing Millionaires Tax

March 4, 2011 01:42 PM By Richard Phillips, Senior Policy Analyst at ITEP | Permalink | New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is at odds with his fellow Democrats, who control the state’s Assembly, over tax policy. The focal point of this conflict is a proposed extension of the temporary income tax surcharge on individuals with […]

Wisconsin's Historic Budget Debate Is About More than Collective Bargaining

March 3, 2011 12:02 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Last month, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker introduced his budget plan to help balance Wisconsin’s books for the remainder of the current fiscal year. The most controversial piece of the budget repair bill calls for a reduction in benefits for public employees […]

Think Progress: You Have More Money In Your Wallet Than Bank Of America Pays In Federal Taxes

February 26, 2011 3:42 PM | Permalink | (Original Post) By Zaid Jilani on Feb 26th, 2011 at 11:00 am Today, hundreds of thousands of people comprising a Main Street Movement — a coalition of students, the retired, union workers, public employees, and other middle class Americans — are in the streets, demonstrating against brutal […]

Patently Bad Idea: Tax Strategy Patents

February 25, 2011 03:49 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Next week the Senate is expected to take up the patent reform bill which, as of today, includes a provision to prohibit patents on tax strategies. Opponents are expected to offer amendments to weaken the language or completely strip this provision […]

New from CTJ: Boeing's Reward for Paying No Federal Taxes Over Last Three Years? A $35 Billion Federal Contract

February 25, 2011 03:21 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Despite reporting nearly $10 billion in domestic pre-tax profits between 2008 and 2010, the Boeing Corporation, which was granted a contract worth as much as $35 billion to build airplanes for the federal government earlier this week, did not pay a […]

Millionaire Migration Claims Fall Flat in the Media

February 25, 2011 03:19 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | CTJ’s critique of claims that wealthy New Yorkers are fleeing the state’s so-called “millionaires’ tax” was publicized by two media outlets this week.  Similar claims being made in Connecticut and Rhode Island were also shot down in the media. In last […]

Riding a Tax Justice Roller Coaster in Missouri

February 25, 2011 03:16 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Huge changes to Missouri’s tax system are being debated, ranging from terrible ideas (repeal of the main business tax and replacing the income tax with an enormous sales tax) to excellent (making the state’s tax structure more progressive than it is […]

Iowa: Facts Ignored By State House

February 25, 2011 03:14 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | The Iowa House of Representatives has approved a bill to cut income taxes by 20 percent, despite an analysis from ITEP showing that the richest 1 percent of Iowans would receive an average of $6,822 while those in the bottom quintile […]

The Debate Isn't Over: Georgia Brief on Alternatives to Council's Recommendations

February 25, 2011 03:12 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Debate over the recommendations from Georgia’s Special Council on Tax Reform continues. Should the state flatten its income tax rates? Should the state broaden the income tax base? Folks are likely still making up their minds about how they feel about […]

Preliminary Analysis of President Obama's Fiscal Year 2012 Budget: Plan Would Make Permanent 81 Percent of the Bush Tax Cuts

February 18, 2011 12:40 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | The budget outline released by President Obama this week, just like last year’s proposal, includes about $3.5 trillion in tax cuts over ten years. Most of that cost comes from his $3.1 trillion proposal to make permanent most of the Bush […]

Glimmers of Hope on Taxes in the States

February 18, 2011 12:38 PM By Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy Staff | Permalink | It seems that each week brings another round of regressive tax proposals from the states, but there are a few bright spots. As previously reported, the governors in Connecticut, Hawaii and Minnesota have been strong proponents for taking a […]

Virginia Governor Says No to EITC Expansion, Yes to Corporate Tax Breaks to Pull Kids Out of Public Schools

February 18, 2011 12:36 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | The Virginia Senate voted down a bill this week which would have provided tax credits to corporations that give scholarships to low-income children in order to attend private schools.  The proposal was backed by Governor McDonnell as part of his “Opportunity […]

If the State Auditor Can't Estimate It, Then It's Very Likely Too Radical a Shift

February 18, 2011 12:35 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | In what is surely a blow to anti-taxers and so-called “fair tax” advocates, Missouri State Auditor Tom Schweich recently said that the impact of ballot initiatives to eliminate the state’s income tax and replace the revenue with an expanded sales tax […]

States Take a Knife to One of Their Major Arteries: Corporate Income Taxes

February 18, 2011 12:32 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | It’s pretty evident that state corporate income taxes are especially flawed and riddled with loopholes. But, of course, that doesn’t have to be the case. In fact, there are lots of things that legislators can do (given the political will) to […]

Tax Avoider Amazon.com Messes with Texas

February 18, 2011 12:31 PM By Richard Phillips, Senior Policy Analyst at ITEP | Permalink | Online retailers benefit from a tax loophole which allows for internet sellers to avoid collecting sales taxes from customers unless the company has a physical presence in their state. This has given companies like Amazon.com an unfair advantage over […]

Authors of New York Study Claiming Millionaires Fleeing Reach New Low and Just Make Up Numbers

February 16, 2011 02:17 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | In the past year, we’ve documented ad nauseum the lengths that anti-tax advocates will go to in order to convince lawmakers that the so-called “millionaire’s tax” is prompting wealthy taxpayers to move to other states. In Maryland, New Jersey and Oregon, […]

Geithner Rejects Sen. Barbara Boxer's Proposal for Tax Holiday for Corporations' Offshore Profits

February 11, 2011 03:00 PM By Rebecca Wilkins, Senior Counsel, Federal Tax Policy at CTJ | Permalink | Lawmakers in Congress have been discussing a second tax holiday for U.S. corporations’ offshore tax profits, after having sworn that the first such holiday, enacted in 2004, would be a one-time event. Typically, when multinational U.S. corporations […]

Obama Proposes Fixes to Unemployment Insurance Financing

February 11, 2011 02:33 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | The Obama administration has proposed to change the way unemployment insurance is financed to avoid tax increases on businesses that will otherwise occur automatically — but Republicans in Congress are resisting the plan because it allows for the possibility that states […]

Super Bowl Ad about Taxes from Corporate Astroturf Group

February 11, 2011 02:29 PM By Richard Phillips, Senior Policy Analyst at ITEP | Permalink | The last place you would ever expect a discussion of tax policy is in the sea of Super Bowl commercials about beer, cars, and Doritos, yet the organization Americans Against Food Taxes spent over $3 million to change that […]

Tax Giveaways for Big Business Continue to be Sold as Economic Panacea

February 11, 2011 02:27 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Lawmakers in a handful of states are pushing tax cuts for corporations and other businesses under the guise of spurring economic growth.  Florida, Kansas, Iowa, Missouri, and Arizona all made headlines this week for proposed tax cuts of this sort. In […]

Tax Reform: Good Ideas in Colorado and Kentucky, Bad Ideas in Iowa

February 11, 2011 02:25 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Progressive tax reform ideas are getting attention in Colorado, where voters may get the opportunity to enact it by ballot, and Kentucky, where lawmakers have the opportunity to support a far-reaching reform bill. Meanwhile, Iowa may move in the opposite direction […]

Ohio Governor: Get Mojo Back by Slashing Taxes for Wealthy Investors

February 11, 2011 02:22 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | Ohio Governor Kasich, an advocate of repealing the state’s personal income tax, now apparently thinks that if the full income tax can’t be repealed, then he should make the tax as generous as possible to wealthy Ohioans. There are reports that […]

Will Michigan Cut Its EITC to Help Pay for Tax Cuts for Businesses?

February 11, 2011 02:20 PM By Citizens for Tax Justice Staff | Permalink | The battle pitting Michigan’s low-income families against big business is heating up.  Governor Rick Snyder is unabashedly supporting an elimination of the state’s Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) to help pay for his $1.5 billion annual cut in state business taxes.  […]