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This week in state tax news saw major changes debated in Hawaii and West Virginia and proposed in North Carolina, a harmful flat tax proposal in Georgia, new ideas for ignoring revenue shortfalls in Mississippi and Nebraska, an unexpected corporate tax proposal from the governor of Louisiana, gas tax bills advance in South Carolina and […]
For decades, Amazon.com helped its customers dodge the sales taxes they owed to gain an advantage over its competitors. But as the company’s business strategy has changed, so has its tax collection. As recently as 2011, the nation’s largest e-retailer was collecting sales tax in just 5 states, home to 11 percent of the country’s […]
Affordable Care Act Repeal Includes a $31 Billion Tax Cut for a Handful of the Wealthiest Taxpayers: 50-State Breakdown
March 17, 2017 • By Matthew Gardner
Congressional Republicans have proposed legislation that would repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA), including rolling back a number of tax changes that were enacted to pay for the ACA's health care expansions. Among these tax changes are two targeted income tax increases that took effect in 2013, each of which apply only to a small number of the wealthiest Americans: the net investment tax and additional Medicare tax. Repealing these two taxes would cost over $31 billion a year if implemented in tax year 2016, and 85 percent of the benefit from repealing these taxes would go to the best…
State tax debates have been very active this week. Efforts to eliminate the income tax continue in West Virginia. Policymakers in many states are responding to revenue shortfalls in very different ways: some in Iowa, Mississippi, and Nebraska seek to dig the hole even deeper with tax cuts, while the Missouri House’s response has been […]
A growing number of Americans are getting rides or booking short-term accommodations through online platforms such as Uber and Airbnb. This is nothing new in concept; brokers have operated for hundreds of years as go-betweens for producers and consumers. The ease with which this can be done through the Internet, however, has led to millions of people using these services, and to some of the nation's fastest-growing, high-profile businesses. The rise of this on-demand sector, sometimes referred to as the "gig economy" or, by its promoters, the "sharing economy," has raised a host of questions. For state and local governments,…
For years, the number one tax policy talking point from corporate lobbyists has been the claim that the United States has the highest corporate tax rate in the world. The story then goes that this high tax rate is driving away business and Congress should move to dramatically lower it. A new study by the […]
Tax Justice Digest: New Eight-Year Data Reveals Corporations Aren’t Paying Their Fair Share
March 9, 2017 • By ITEP Staff
In the Tax Justice Digest we recap the latest reports, blog posts, and analyses from Citizens for Tax Justice and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Here’s a rundown of what we’ve been working on lately. New Study Explores the 35 Percent Corporate Tax Myth A comprehensive, eight-year study of profitable Fortune 500 corporations […]
Profitable corporations are subject to a 35 percent federal income tax rate on their U.S. profits. But many corporations pay far less, or nothing at all, because of the many tax loopholes and special breaks they enjoy. This report documents just how successful many Fortune 500 corporations have been at using loopholes and special breaks over the past eight years. As lawmakers look to reform the corporate tax code, this report shows that the focus of any overhaul should be on closing loopholes rather than on cutting tax rates.
This week brings more news of states considering reforms to their consumption taxes, on everything from gasoline in South Carolina and Tennessee, to marijuana in Pennsylvania, to groceries in Idaho and Utah, and to practically everything in West Virginia. Meanwhile, the fiscal fallout of Kansas’s failed ‘tax experiment’ has new consequences as the state’s Supreme […]
Thursday, March 8 is International Women’s Day. The day draws attention to the progress that has been made and the work that still needs to be done in advancing gender equality. Many campaigns on issues like equal pay or paid family leave acknowledge that economic policies impact women and men differently. But we often overlook […]
GOP Obamacare Repeal Would Slash Taxes on the Wealthy At the Expense of Middle- and Low-Income Families
March 7, 2017 • By Richard Phillips
On Monday, House Republicans released legislation that would repeal or modify many of the most significant portions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). A central theme of the GOP plan is that it would significantly cut funding for low- and middle-income families’ health care, while eliminating the ACA’s expansion of Medicare taxes on the wealthiest […]
American Prospect: How States Turn K-12 Scholarships Into Money-Laundering Schemes
March 3, 2017 • By Carl Davis
This article was originally published in The American Prospect. By Carl Davis Politicians have long had a knack for framing policy proposals, however controversial, in terms that make them more palatable to voters. This is why unpopular tax cuts for the wealthy are often sold as plans to “invest” in America or to stimulate “growth.” […]
A newly updated ITEP report released today provides data that helps dispute the erroneous idea espoused during President Trump’s address to Congress that undocumented immigrants aren’t paying their fair share. In fact, like all others living and working in the United States, undocumented immigrants are taxpayers. They collectively contribute an estimated $11.74 billion to state […]
Tax Justice Digest: Undocumented Immigrants Pay Taxes and Fact-Checking President Trump
March 2, 2017 • By ITEP Staff
In the Tax Justice Digest we recap the latest reports, blog posts, and analyses from Citizens for Tax Justice and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Here’s a rundown of what we’ve been working on lately. Undocumented Immigrants’ Tax Contributions ITEP today released updated numbers on undocumented immigrants’ tax contributions. Collectively, they contribute $11.74 […]
Fact-Checking Tax Policy Points in President Trump’s Address to Congress
March 1, 2017 • By Richard Phillips
Despite some expectations that President Donald Trump would use his address to a joint session of Congress to lay out more details of his plan for tax legislation, the speech was extremely light on details. The few details mentioned were largely misleading or outright erroneous. Below we break down four tax-related statements from President Trump’s […]
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