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CTJ's Online Tax Calculator

Calculate the Income Tax Cut You Would Receive Under Different Tax Proposals

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House GOP Tax Cut Plan Would Add $7 Trillion to National Debt

Richest One Percent of Taxpayers would Get Almost 62% of the Tax Cuts

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How Much of Bush's Tax Cuts Should We Keep?

State-by-State Figures on Congressional Republicans' Approach vs. Obama's Approach

Recent Reports

  • CTJ's Online Tax Calculator

    Use CTJ's online tax calculator to find out what tax cut you would receive under different tax proposals. Unless you are among the richest 2 percent of taxpayers, you will find that President Obama's tax proposal would benefit you as much as, or more than, an extension of all the Bush tax cuts.

    09/01/2010

  • GOP Tax Cut Bill Would Add Almost $7 Trillion to America's National Debt To Further Enrich the Wealthiest

    On April 15, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) introduced (H.R. 5029) "The Economic Freedom Act," with the blessing of the House Republican Study Committee. This report finds that H.R. 5029 would add almost $7 trillion to the national debt over the next ten years, not counting other legislation to make all of the Bush tax cuts permanent (which the sponsors also support). By the second year it's in effect, about 62 percent of the benefits would go to the richest 1 percent of taxpayers, and about three fourths would go to the richest 5 percent.

    08/03/2010

  • Allowing the Bush Dividends Tax Cut to Expire for the Richest 2% Will Not Harm Seniors

    Only seniors who are among the richest two percent of taxpayers would lose any of their dividend tax cuts under proposals being discussed. Arguments that corporations would reduce dividend payments in response are not credible because two-thirds of dividends are paid to tax-exempt entities.

    07/22/2010

  • Offshore Drilling and Taxes: Gulf Oil Spill Highlights Problems with the U.S. International Tax System

    The explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig has focused the world's attention on the environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. It also reminds us of another disaster -- the U.S. international tax system.

    07/19/2010

  • Holtz-Eakin Peddles Myths about the Bush Tax Cuts

    On July 14, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, chief economic adviser for John McCain's presidential campaign and former director of the Congressional Budget Office, gave written and oral testimony to the Senate Finance Committee concerning the Bush tax cuts. To make his case, Holtz-Eakin endorsed several myths about the Bush tax cuts.

    07/16/2010

  • What Oil and Gas Companies Extract -- from the American Public

    In the wake of the disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the public and the media have turned their attention to some of the subsidies provided through the tax code to BP, the corporation that leased the ill-fated Deepwater Horizon drilling platform. This report describes the biggest tax subsidies enjoyed by oil and gas companies and explains that these subsidies do nothing to encourage energy independence or cleaner energy.

    07/09/2010

  • Watch CTJ Director Bob McIntyre Testify Before the Fiscal Commission

    CTJ Director Bob McIntyre recently testified before the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. The testimony discusses income tax reform as a means of raising revenue.

    07/02/2010

  • Peter G. Peterson Institute's Misguided Defense of Offshore Tax Loopholes

    The Peter G. Peterson Institute has come out against provisions in H.R. 4213 that would prevent multinational corporations from abusing foreign tax credits. The two-page complaint written by Peterson's Gary Hufbauer and Theodore Moran attempts to defend practices by corporations that are indefensible.

    06/17/2010

  • Closing the "John Edwards" Loophole Helps, Not Hurts, Small Business

    The tax extenders bill (H.R. 4213) currently pending in Congress contains a provision to close what is commonly known as the "John Edwards" loophole, which allows some shareholder-employees of "S corporations" to avoid paying the Medicare payroll tax on their earnings.

    06/15/2010

  • Senators Defend "Carried Interest" Loophole for Investment Fund Managers in the Name of the Poor, Minorities, Small Businesses and Cancer Patients!

    Investment fund managers have put forth outlandish arguments in defense of the "carried interest" loophole that allows them to pay taxes at lower rates than their secretaries. These arguments, which are gaining traction among some Senators, should be dismissed.

    06/03/2010

  • Key Provisions in H.R. 4213 Would Prevent Abuse of Foreign Tax Credits

    A recent paper from the National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC), a lobby for multinational U.S. corporations, unfairly criticizes provisions to end abuses of the foreign tax credit. These provisions, which are included in H.R. 4213, the jobs and "extenders" bill, would make our corporate tax system fairer and more rational.

    05/27/2010

  • The American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act of 2010 (a.k.a. the "Extenders" Bill) Would Boost the Economy and Improve Tax Fairness

    While we have never supported the "tax extenders," we believe that this is a more responsible approach than Congress used in the past, when the tax extenders were deficit-financed. We also believe that the loophole-closing provisions used to pay for them will enhance tax fairness. For these reasons, we believe passage of this bill would be a major victory in that it shows Congress is finally putting the economic needs of ordinary Americans ahead of tax cuts for the wealthy and powerful.

    05/20/2010

  • Extending Bush Tax Cuts for High-Income "Small Business" Owners Would Further Enrich the Wealthiest Taxpayers While Doing Nothing to Create Jobs

    As Congress prepares to take up legislation to boost small business job creation in the following weeks, some lawmakers argue that the legislation must extend parts of the Bush tax cuts that benefit the very rich. Two ideas along these lines are being discussed. One is to extend income tax reductions for the very rich, at least for taxpayers who can be somehow classified as "small business" taxpayers. The second is to eliminate most of the federal tax on the estates of millionaires. As this report explains, these proposals would allow the rich to continue to enjoy most of the tax cuts they received under President Bush while doing nothing to create or protect jobs.

    05/13/2010

  • Will the "Carried Interest" Loophole Finally Be Closed?

    Congress may be ready to close the "carried interest" loophole, which allows wealthy investment fund managers to pay taxes at lower rates than middle-income people. Carried interest is the share of profits that investors pay to compensate certain people for managing their money. The investment managers who receive carried interest have been allowed to pretend that this compensation represents profits on money they have invested themselves, thus entitling them to pay taxes at a lower rate.

    05/13/2010

  • Republican Approach to Extending the Bush Tax Cuts Would Result in Huge Break for Richest 1% and Higher Taxes for Middle Class, Compared to Obama's Approach

    With both the Bush tax cuts and President Obama's expansions of certain parts of those cuts set to expire at the end of 2010, the decisions Congress makes in the coming months will have very different effects on taxpayers at different income levels, according to a new report from Citizens for Tax Justice. The report shows that low- and middle-income taxpayers will pay higher taxes under the Republican approach than under President Obama's approach. It also shows that the richest taxpayers will pay far less under the Republican approach than under President Obama's approach.

    04/22/2010

  • Limiting Tax Expenditures Must Be a Part of Congress's Efforts to Balance the Budget

    A great deal of government "spending" is done through the tax code in the form of special breaks and loopholes known as tax expenditures. The figures in the report illustrate that tax expenditures are a significant portion of federal spending and cannot be ignored as Congress addresses the budget deficit.

    04/22/2010

  • Loopholes for Wealthy Owners of "Subchapter S Corporations" Will Not Help "Small Businesses"

    The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) has recently argued that President Obama's proposal to allow the Bush income tax cuts to expire for the richest two percent will hurt small business employment because many small businesses are organized as "subchapter S corporations." The reality is that only 2.1 percent of small business taxpayers both (a) are rich enough to lose their Bush tax cuts under President Obama's proposals, and (b) receive most of their income from an S corporation that they own. Further, S corporations are not necessarily as "small" as many people assume.

    04/22/2010

  • All Americans Pay Taxes

    Conservative pundits and media outlets have seized upon an estimate that 47 percent of taxpayers owe no federal income tax for 2009. This statistic has morphed into the claim by conservatives that "47 percent of all Americans don't pay any taxes." The conservative pundits are wrong. It's true that many taxpayers don't pay federal income taxes, but they still pay federal payroll taxes (and some federal excise taxes) and also pay state and local taxes. Most of these other taxes are regressive, meaning they take a larger share of a poor or middle-class family's income than they take from a rich family.

    04/15/2010

  • President Obama Cut Taxes for 98 Percent of Working Americans in 2009

    CTJ has new state-specific reports that aim to clear up this widespread misunderstanding over President Obama's tax policies. They show that the President cut taxes for working people at all income levels for 2009 and they show who was helped by each individual tax break.

    04/13/2010

  • Who's Complaining about Health Care Reform? (And What Do They Pay in Taxes?)

    A new analysis from CTJ shows that many of the companies protesting a tax-loophole-closing reform enacted in the new health care reform law are paying corporate taxes at less than a third of the 35 percent statutory corporate tax rate, and in some cases are actually getting tax rebates back from the federal government.

    04/09/2010

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