Lawmakers have made one important decision this week as the debt ceiling negotiations come down to the wire: the wealthy should not have to sacrifice even a dime of their tax cuts or loopholes to reduce the deficit.

Both Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid and Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner have proposed plans to cut hundreds of billions in spending on government programs (from food safety to college tuition assistance) in order to raise the debt ceiling, without requiring any revenue be generated through ending tax loopholes or tax cuts for the rich.

Boehner’s plan requires an immediate $1.1 trillion dollars in spending cuts over the next 10 years in order to raise the debt ceiling this year, and would also require that we find another $1.8 trillion in cuts in order to raise the debt ceiling again in 2012.

The proposed spending cuts would place a such a harsh additional burden on lower income families that the usually mild mannered Bob Greenstein, Director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, pointed out that Boehner’s plan was “tantamount to a form of ‘class warfare’” and that “it could well produce the greatest increase in poverty and hardship produced by any law in modern US history.”

The new push by both parties for a spending-cuts-only approach stands in great contrast to President Obama’s Monday night address to the nation, which called for a more ‘balanced approach.’

What makes this change in approach even more self defeating is the fact that the anti-tax ideologues have long since lost the public. In fact, well over 19 polls in just the last few months show that the public overwhelmingly favors increasing taxes generally, with larger percentages supporting raising taxes on just the wealthier individuals.

Even after extracting a pound of flesh from Democratic lawmakers, anti-tax forces may still not be satisfied. These groups are pushing for nothing short of passage of the ‘Cut, Cap, and Balance Act,’ hoping to hold the US economy hostage to force through their radical and economically disastrous plan.

The ridiculousness of the absolute anti-tax forces has become especially clear in light of their unwillingness to repeal egregious tax loopholes, such those given to oil and gas companies, hedge fund managers, and many others.

Ironically, the purpose of these extreme cuts is to reduce the ongoing budget deficits, but in fact all of the plans under serious consideration by Democratic and Republican leaders would actually INCREASE the deficit. The problem is that lawmakers simply cannot make up for the outrageous $5.4 trillion cost of extending all of the Bush tax cuts.

Though things are not looking good, hopefully Democratic lawmakers will stand up and not let themselves be blackmailed into accepting ludicrous cuts to spending while large loopholes and tax cuts for the rich remain in place.

Photo via The White House Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

On July 27, Congressman Lloyd Doggett (D-TX) introduced the Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act (H.R. 2669) in the House of Representatives with 53 cosponsors. The Senate version was introduced July 12 by Sen. Carl Levin.

The U.S. Treasury loses an estimated $100 Billion in tax revenues annually due to tax havens. Many believe the actual revenue loss could be much higher.

A key provision would tax corporations where they are located and do business instead of where they are incorporated, say, a post office box in the Cayman Islands. Another important provision would require companies that file with the SEC to report certain financial information on a country-by-country basis so that investors and tax authorities could see where operations are located and where profits are ending up.

Most of the Stop Act provisions are aimed at the foreign financial institutions and foreign jurisdictions that facilitate offshore tax evasion and avoidance. The bill also targets some other types of tax dodging, as well as the bankers, lawyers, and accountants who facilitate these abuses by their clients.

A new report by CTJ explains the bill's provisions.

In September, Missouri lawmakers are expected to reconvene for a special session aimed at passing a jobs creation package to promote economic development. Legislation that increases corporate tax exemptions and general business incentives, though deeply flawed as policy, isn’t a novel concept.  Yet, leaders in Jefferson City are expected to do more than simply give money to corporations: lawmakers are actually planning to pay for these giveaways by revoking property tax credits for elderly and disabled renters.

The Associated Press reports that the legislation “would authorize tax breaks to attract international shippers to Lambert-St. Louis International Airport.... It also would create incentives for science and technology companies, computer-based data storage centers and big-time amateur sporting events. And it would revamp existing programs so Missouri could offer incentives to retain companies being enticed by other states – a provision particularly intended counteract Kansas' efforts to lure companies from Kansas City, Mo.”

Of course, there is little evidence that these giveaways will actually produce jobs for Missourians, or expedite business decisions to expand in the Show Me State.

But, it’s been demonstrated repeatedly that programs like low income property tax circuit breakers, which mitigate the cost of property taxes, do produce results – and make an enormous difference in the budgets of low income folks.

Missouri lawmakers should take a serious step back and reexamine their intentions.  Taking property tax credits away from elderly renters to pay for dubious breaks for corporations isn’t a legacy lawmakers can feel proud of.

Photo via Tim 7423 Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) offers a series of Policy Briefs designed to provide a quick introduction to basic tax policy ideas that are important to understanding current debates at the state and federal level.  Over the coming months, ITEP will be releasing updated and new Briefs weekly to help inform taxpayers, lawmakers and the media.

This week, be sure to check out the following updated briefs:

• Sales Tax Holidays: Boon or Boondoggle?
• Options for Progressive Sales Tax Relief
• How Can States Collect Taxes Owed on Internet Sales?
• Should Sales Taxes Apply to Services?
• Rewarding Work Through the Earned Income Tax Credit

On Tuesday, the House Ways and Means Committee held a hearing to consider a national sales tax (often misleadingly called a “Fair Tax” by its proponents) and a value-added tax (VAT).

A national sales tax and a VAT are both consumption taxes and therefore both have the same regressive effect. Poor families have little choice but to spend all of their income on consumption while rich families tend to save most of their income. So a tax on consumption will naturally take a much larger share of income from poor and middle-income families than from rich families.

Proposals to implement a VAT take many forms and are usually discussed as a supplement to existing revenue sources. Proponents of a national sales tax, however, are usually describing a very specific proposal (and a specific bill that is reintroduced each year) misleadingly called a “Fair Tax.”

The so-called “Fair Tax” would replace the federal personal income tax, corporate income tax and estate and gift taxes with a 30 percent sales tax. (Proponents use a convoluted calculation to claim that it’s actually a 23 percent rate.) The tax would apply to all types of consumption, including those that would be difficult or impossible to tax in the real world (like rent, health care services, and, oddly, government spending.)

The proposal includes a rebate to all families that proponents claim mitigates the gross unfairness of the sales tax. The rebate would basically be a cash grant that would vary only by family size.

But as Citizens for Tax Justice and its research wing, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), have long explained, the national sales tax would be extremely regressive. ITEP’s classic report from 2004 illustrates that the poor and middle class would pay much more under a national sales tax (the so-called “Fair Tax”) in every state. (State-by-state figures are included in the report.)

Unfairness is not the only problem. Proponents of a national sales tax vastly understate what the sales tax rate would have to be in order to replace the revenue collected under the current federal tax system. As the ITEP report explains, sales-tax proponents’ convoluted claim that the national sales tax rate would be 23 percent instead of 30 percent is only the beginning of the distortions. To truly raise as much revenue as the current federal tax system, the theoretical rate would have to be between 45 and 53 percent. And because such a high rate would encourage cheating, the real rate would have to be higher still.

Sales-tax advocates sometimes try to make their plan look less regressive by focusing on the taxes people pay over their entire lifetimes. Professor Laurence Kotlikoff of Boston University used this technique during his testimony before the Ways and Means Committee to argue that the “Fair Tax” can be progressive! The non-partisan Congressional Research Service notes however that the use these sorts of “highly stylized life cycle models” is actually rather controversial.

Kotlikoff seems to be arguing that because everyone is going to use their income for consumption sooner or later, then a tax on consumption is not inherently any more regressive than a tax on income. A flat 30 percent tax applied to spending, he asserts, would have the same effect as a flat 23 percent tax applied to income over the course of someone’s life. Adding the rebate included in the Fair Tax proposal, Kotlikoff and other proponents claim, makes it progressive.

Here’s why this argument is all wrong. First, rich people don’t eventually use all of their income for consumption but leave a great deal of it to others after they die.

Second, a flat 23 percent tax on income would, of course, be more regressive than our current system, which taxes poor and middle-income people at rates below that and rich people at rates above that.

Third, the rebates included in the Fair Tax would not be enough to offset this regressive impact since the current income tax provides negative taxes for many low-income families.

Other advocates of a national sales tax have made even wilder arguments, like the claim that retail prices will somehow not rise even when the new national sales tax is included in the price, or the claim that the IRS would become unnecessary because states would voluntary collect the tax and remit it to the federal government. (This sounds a lot like the failed Articles of Confederacy, which were replaced by the U.S. Constitution in order to give the federal government the power to raise revenues on its own, rather than relying on voluntary contributions by the states.)

Many of the pro-sales-tax arguments were cogently refuted in testimony given by Bruce Bartlett, a former Reagan administration official. Bartlett has written a great deal about the Fair Tax and its history, starting with the original sales-tax proposal by the Church of Scientology.

Photo via John Beagle & Chasing Fun Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

UPDATE: The Boston Globe is reporting that Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick will sign a controversial 2011 sales tax holiday bill for the Bay State, conceding, "We do it frankly, not because it’s particularly fiscally prudent but because it’s popular.... It costs the state about $20 or $25 million. But as revenues come back, people want it. We think we can swing it.’’

For Release: July 26, 2011

Washington, DC -- While politicians in seventeen states prepare to reap the public relations benefits of sales tax holidays, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) is asking if these events actually achieve the benefits for working families and retailers their proponents claim. 

“We just don’t know if anyone really benefits from sales tax holidays,” says Matthew Gardner, ITEP’s Executive Director, “largely because there is no transparency or accountability.  Of course politicians love the great PR, but with all the time they spend planning, promoting and implementing these events, they’d do better to focus on long term solutions with real benefits for more taxpayers.”

Sales tax holidays are implemented with the goal of giving working families a break on spending, typically during the back to school season.  Many have observed, however that other kinds of consumers benefit as much – if not more – from these holidays, including out-of-state shoppers and more affluent consumers with flexibility to spend whenever they like.  And obviously, the more a consumer spends, the greater their tax savings, so sales tax holidays tend to reward those with the most money to burn. 

To truly help so-called working families to make ends meet, ITEP endorses permanent reforms, including targeted tax credits which are more cost-effective because they ensure the benefit goes specifically to taxpayers the provision targets.

Targeted sales tax credits help compensate for the relatively high cost of basic necessities for lower income households. Using Bureau of Labor Statistics data, ITEP estimates that while the wealthiest families spend only one-sixth of their income on items that are subject to sales taxes, low-income families spend three-quarters of their income on taxable purchases. For households in the middle, about half of their income is spent on taxable items.  Put differently, a six percent sales tax amounts to roughly a one percent income tax rate for families in the highest income brackets, a three percent tax on middle-income families and a 4.5 percent tax on the poorest families.

“This is what makes the flat sales tax a textbook case of a regressive tax,” said Gardner.  “A dollar costs a poor person more than it costs a rich person.”  Targeted sales tax credits generally give a flat dollar amount for each family member and are available only to taxpayers with income below a certain threshold. Eight states currently provide sales tax relief in this form.

Sales tax holiday are also promoted as a boon for a state’s retailers because they are said to boost sales.  Evidence supporting this claim is weak, and common sense suggests it may not be true.  Incentive programs are more likely to merely shift the timing of purchases made than to motivate an unplanned purchase. “Cash for Clunkers,” for example, was used to purchase about 690,000 new cars, but only 125,000 of those would not have otherwise been purchased during that six months period, according to Edmunds.com.

To level the playing field for retailers within their jurisdictions, lawmakers in seven states have begun requiring Internet-based retailers to collect state sales taxes for online purchases (if they partner with business based in those states to solicit sales).  Growing numbers of consumers are migrating to the Internet and away from brick and mortar stores. This back to school season, nearly one third of families report they will shop online, according to the National Retail Federation.

“It also doesn’t hurt,” adds Gardner, “that state and local governments stand to gain billions in lost revenues if they start requiring online outlets to collect sales taxes from consumers.”

If retailers and hard pressed consumers do benefit in any significant way from sales tax holidays, the burden is on lawmakers who implement them to demonstrate those benefits – and the costs.  The recession has seen several states cancel or fail to renew their annual sales tax holidays because they couldn’t afford the revenue loss.  “There is sexy tax policy and popular tax policy, and then there is good tax policy,” said Gardner. “Sales tax holidays are popular. Targeted tax credits and Internet transaction taxes are decidedly unsexy but they are great policy.”

In anticipation of the sales tax holiday season, ITEP is releasing updated versions of its policy briefs on the relevant issues below at http://www.itepnet.org/policy_briefs/policy_briefs.php.

- Sales Tax Holidays

- How Can States Collect Taxes Owed on Internet Sales

- Progressive Options for Sales Tax Relief

- Applying Sales Taxes to Services

- Earned Income Tax Credit

Founded in 1980, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) is a non-profit, non-partisan research organization, based in Washington, DC, that focuses on federal and state tax policy. ITEP's mission is to inform policymakers and the public of the effects of current and proposed tax policies on tax fairness, government budgets, and sound economic policy. ITEP’s full body of research is available at www.itepnet.org.

Blue Dog Research Forum asked CTJ for 500 words on whether the U.S. corporate tax code encourages companies to offshore jobs. Our legislative director leapt at the chance to engage with these thoughtful political centrists. His essay, “U.S. Jobs Hurt by Our International Tax Rules, Not Tax Rates” is here, and says, in part:

“Because the U.S. does not tax profits generated offshore (unless the profits are repatriated), corporations can pay less in taxes by moving production to a country with lower corporate income taxes [and] disguise their U.S. profits as “foreign” profits.”

CTJ’s essay appears alongside competing arguments from Senator Mike Enzi, Rep. Loretta Sanchez and conservative think tanker Alan Viard, and is the only one of the four proposing tax reform that’s revenue-positive.

Recent polling makes clear that most Americans do not agree with the Tea Party-backed members of Congress who believe the only “concession” they should make in deficit negotiations is to prevent a calamitous default on U.S. debt obligations. The question is, will the White House use this advantage and demand a balanced approach, or will it back down again to anti-tax, anti-government lawmakers who are outside the mainstream of public opinion?

More polling has been released indicating that a large majority of Americans want Congress to address the federal budget deficit with a combination of tax increases and spending cuts. The latest polling also shows that 82 percent of respondents understand that failure to raise the debt ceiling will do serious harm to our economy and far more respondents blame Republican leaders than Obama for being unwilling to compromise.

Last week, the Republican leadership in the Senate began pushing a proposal that would allow the President to raise the debt ceiling after symbolic but meaningless votes, with no guarantee of spending cuts. There has been talk of adding some amount of spending cuts to that plan to make it more palatable to Tea Party-backed lawmakers, but it’s unclear whether they can be satisfied with any compromise.

Republicans in the House have taken a particularly extreme stance. On Tuesday they passed the “Cut, Cap, and Balance” Act that would allow the U.S. to default on its debt obligations unless the U.S. amends the constitution to bar budget deficits, require a two-thirds supermajority of both chambers of Congress to approve any tax increase, and shrink the government to a level not seen in most of our lifetimes.

Meanwhile, the “Gang of Six” U.S. Senators who have been negotiating for months behind closed doors on deficit reduction finally released the outlines of a plan this week, although it’s not clear how or whether it could affect the negotiations over the debt ceiling.

Citizens for Tax Justice released a statement blasting the “Gang of Six” plan because it would reduce revenue by $1.5 trillion compared to current law, and because it includes a “territorial” tax system that would exempt corporate profits that are earned offshore, or simply shifted offshore into tax havens.

Unfortunately, the deal President Obama has been negotiating is even worse in the sense that he has proposed to extend $4.7 trillion worth of tax cuts and only raise $0.7 trillion in new revenue through tax increases, compared to current law. Republican leaders, who want to extend all the Bush tax cuts, would reduce revenue even more, as explained in a statement released by CTJ last week.

As of this writing, several media outlets are reporting that the White House is negotiating a deal with Speaker Boehner, possibly one with massive cuts in public services but no guarantee of any revenue increases.

We hope the reports are wrong, and we hope that we won’t see a repeat of the last major “compromise” that marked a capitulation to anti-tax lawmakers whose views were out of sync with the American people.

Congress, the Internal Revenue Service, and the Department of Justice continue the attack against tax dodging, including schemes using offshore tax havens.

Congress

In Congress, Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) has introduced the Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act, which would strengthen the disclosure rules for foreign accounts and impose harsh penalties on taxpayers and tax shelter promoters who facilitate tax evasion.

Also in Congress, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) has offered an amendment that would crack down on the use of offshore tax havens by charities. In a hearing last year, Senators learned that the Boys and Girls Club of America was holding more than $50 million in offshore investments in order to avoid paying the tax that is usually imposed when charities engage in business activities that are not related to their mission.

Justice Department and IRS

Meanwhile, Zurich-based Credit Suise confirmed that the U.S. Department of Justice was investigating its role in helping U.S. clients evade their tax obligation. The bank is the target of a criminal investigation prompted in part by information supplied to the Internal Revenue Service in its offshore account voluntary disclosure program.

Today, a Manhattan federal court unsealed an indictment charging a Swiss financial adviser with helping U.S. customers hide $184 million in assets from the IRS. The Swiss banking giant UBS is one of the banks where the adviser helped his clients hide their accounts.

In Virginia, a federal judge permanently barred HedgeLender LLC from promoting a tax shelter scheme called the HedgeLoan transaction. The Justice Department's Tax Division challenged the deals where clients purportedly pledged their appreciated stock for a "loan" to realize the cash without paying capital gains taxes.

In other tax dodging news, a U.S. Magistrate handed down a 28-month sentence to Rapper Ja Rule for failing to pay $1.1 million in taxes on the more than $3 million he earned in 2004-2006.

Small Business Owners

Some small business owners are also taking aim at tax dodging and tax havens. A recent op-ed from Business for Shared Prosperity argues that the opportunities that large corporations have for tax avoidance puts small businesses at an unfair disadvantage. It also points out that some of the most egregious corporate tax dodgers are those benefiting the most from public services and public investments that the rest of us pay for.

Photo via Mzrr1970 Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

On Tuesday night, the House of Representatives passed the Cut, Cap, and Balance Act (CCBA), which would cap spending at levels set forth in the Ryan budget and allow an increase in the debt ceiling only after the adoption of a constitutional amendment severely restricting future budget and tax measures.

The balanced budget amendment required as a precondition to the debt ceiling increase would be even more extreme than previous incarnations. It would limit spending to about 16.7 percent of gross domestic product and require a two-thirds majority for any increase in revenue, in addition of course to requiring that government spending equal government revenue.

Although the CCBA passed with 234 votes, the tally signaled that the ultimate adoption of a balanced budget amendment in the House is unlikely. A constitutional amendment would require a two-thirds vote to be adopted, and that’s 56 more votes than CCBA received.

A less extreme amendment received 300 votes in 1995.

Fortunately, the CCBA faces “stiff opposition” in the Senate, where it is unlikely to pass at all. (Update: The CCBA was defeated in the Senate a 51-46 vote.)

President Obama has threatened to veto the CCBA if it passes the Senate and labeled the measure an attempt to “duck, dodge, and dismantle.” Nine of the Republican presidential candidates, including current frontrunner Mitt Romney, support the CCBA.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has blasted the balanced budget amendment called for by the CCBA, noting how it would tie the hands of lawmakers to react to changing economic conditions. Five Nobel Laureate economists voiced their opposition to the amendment in a letter to the President and Congress.

The radical spending cap provision would force draconian cuts to essential government programs like Medicare and Social Security, which main stream economists believe would reduce consumer demand and make it far more difficult to create jobs. The amendment would require nearly $9 trillion in cuts over 10 years, which goes well beyond the extreme measures of the infamous Ryan budget.

The proposed amendment would be so damaging that over 240 national organizations have come together to oppose it.

Even the Wall Street Journal editorial page, well known for its extremism and willingness to disregard the facts to support spending and tax cuts, opposes the BBA. The paper notes that not even Ronald Reagan’s policies would have passed muster under the radically stringent amendment.

Former Republican Senator Judd Gregg summed up the debate over the CCBA perfectly, writing, “Lord save us from the well intentioned and those who are trying to score political points or raise money” by pursing this form of “conservative misdirection.”

Photo via Speaker Boehner Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

Here’s a headline that shouldn’t surprise anyone: “Business groups complain about Illinois taxes.”  That’s the headline that ran in Tuesday’s State Journal-Register after a hearing in Chicago on Illinois corporate income taxes adjourned. Three more hearings on this same issue will be held across the state through the summer. The hearings are a direct result of companies threatening to leave Illinois because of legislation this year that temporarily increased the state’s corporate income tax rate.

Senate President John Cullerton asked that businesses testify at the hearings. He also said he was hoping, through the hearings, “to take a holistic approach to business taxes as opposed to the continued piecemeal policies that often pit one business against another.” This is a laudable goal, but it doesn’t take a crystal ball to predict that the some in the business community will keep making the same basic demands.

Some corporations want to reduce the corporate income tax rate, while others say that tax credits or special incentive programs should be expanded. Of course, these are costly propositions that will make it even harder for Illinois to balance its budget.

We applaud Illinois lawmakers for delving more deeply into corporate tax reform and specifically tax expenditure reform. But it’s important that the committee hear from a range of voices rather than just the same old group saying the same old thing – that their taxes are too high.

Photos via Jimmy Wayne Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

From Duluth to Edgerton the wheels of Minnesota government will start turning soon.  Wednesday morning Governor Mark Dayton signed into law legislation that will end the nation’s longest state shutdown in a decade. The compromise legislation was passed during a marathon legislative session that started Tuesday and ended early Wednesday morning. 

Governor Dayton and the legislature finally came together in a compromise that balances the budget by delaying payments to schools and issuing bonds against future tobacco settlement monies. Despite wide voter approval, the progressive tax policy proposals that the Governor pushed during his campaign and during the budget fight never came to fruition.

The Minnesota Budget Project (MBP) reminds us that the compromise reached comes at a huge cost. For example, in the budget agreement higher education was cut by $351 million.  The compromise budget also includes a $54 million cut to transportation. Obviously, it’s a good thing that Minnesota will be up and functioning shortly, but in terms of spending and taxes, the budget is a real disappointment after Governor Dayton’s promising start.  MBP puts it best, “the compromise agreement means Minnesota will fail to maintain the investments we need to create the workforce of the future.”

Photo via Governor Dayton Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

Twice in a span of just three days, the Wall Street Journal has run articles suggesting that anti-tax Minnesota lawmakers got their way because the voters were on their side.  This couldn’t be further from the truth.

Last week, in an effort to end an increasingly costly shutdown of the Minnesota government, Governor Dayton ended his push for a much needed tax increase on the state’s wealthiest residents.  As the Governor explained, “continuing the state government shutdown would be … destructive for too many Minnesotans.”  A budget, without the tax increase, will likely be enacted some time this week.

While it’s disappointing that the Governor was unable to secure the enactment of one his most significant campaign promises, this may have been the best outcome possible given the level of stubbornness exhibited by anti-tax Republicans.  It was not, however, the outcome that Minnesota voters wanted.

Polling from just before the shutdown made clear that a full 63% of Minnesotans wanted their elected officials to enact a tax increase on the richest 2% of taxpayers.  The same poll also showed that voters viewed Gov. Dayton much more favorably than the state legislature’s Republican majority.

With this in mind, the level of spin contained in a pair of recent Wall Street Journal opinion pieces is nothing short of astounding.

In a bizarre July 16 article that railed against “socialist holdouts,” “the welfare state,” and “perhaps the most liberal governor in the country,” one op-ed writer claimed that Republicans succeeded because they “reflected more accurately the electorate’s mood.”

Just two days later, Stephen Moore wrote in the Journal that Gov. Dayton “blinked” because “Minnesota voters seemed to understand that the state would only make its economic troubles worse” by raising taxes.

It’s true that Minnesota’s forthcoming “compromise” budget will be heavily tilted in favor of Republican legislators’ priorities, even though most Minnesotans do not share those same priorities. 

The Wall Street Journal’s opinion pages are famous for this kind of journalistic fiction.  A more interesting question is whether other news outlets will do any better in representing the opinions of ordinary Minnesotans.  The fact is, raising taxes on the richest of the rich is widely popular across the country yet strangely invisible from most media coverage of budgets and taxes.

Amazon.com announced this week that it plans to bankroll a California ballot initiative that would make it easier for online shoppers to commit sales tax evasion.

At issue is a new California law expanding the group of retailers required to collect and remit sales taxes.  Virtually every traditional “brick and mortar” retailer, as well as a number of online retailers, is already required to collect sales taxes on every sale they make.  Absent this requirement, California’s sales tax law would be basically unenforceable.

But many online retailers are able to skirt this collection requirement because they lack a so-called “physical presence” in the state, like a warehouse or a store. (By contrast, Amazon.com does have a physical presence in the state even though they claim otherwise.)  This unfortunate reality came about because of a misguided US Supreme Court ruling from nearly two decades ago, and the result of this arrangement has been completely predictable.

While Californians who shop at Amazon.com are required to pay sales taxes directly to the state, only a small number actually do so.  But rather than attempt to track down these tax scofflaws one by one, California recently enacted a law that increases the number of retailers required to help the state enforce its existing sales tax laws.  Specifically, online retailers that partner with California businesses to generate sales are now required to help collect sales taxes, just like most other retailers operating in the state.

Evidently, Amazon views its ability to offer an open highway for sales tax evasion as a huge advantage over its competitors.  To protect that advantage, the company plans to spearhead an effort to collect half a million signatures in order to get a measure repealing the new law onto the ballot in either February or June of 2012.  Presumably, the company is also planning to spend the big money needed to combat what the California Retailers Association has already promised will be a major opposition campaign.  The fact that Amazon views sales tax evasion as so central to its business strategy that it’s willing to take these radical (and costly) steps is an enormous revelation.

Of course, as we’ve pointed out before, this is hardly the first time that Amazon has resorted to aggressive tactics to combat tax policy it dislikes.  And California is learning the online giant will go to great lengths to avoid doing what most every retailer has to do every day – collect sales taxes.

Photo via Markuz Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

“Relieved, but not celebrating” is one of the headlines in Friday’s StarTribune. Governor Dayton and the state legislature finally reached a compromise that would balance the budget and reopen the state by delaying payments to schools and issuing bonds against future tobacco settlement monies.

In his statement to lawmakers Governor Dayton said, “despite my serious reservations about your plan, I have concluded that continuing the state government shutdown would be even more destructive for too many Minnesotans. Therefore, I am willing to agree to something I do not agree with -- your proposal -- in order to spare our citizens and our state from further damage.”  In his statement the Governor listed three conditions:

1) The removal of social policy issues from further consideration this year (like requiring voters to bring identification to the polls or ending taxpayer funding for abortions).

2) Dropping a provision which would have required a 15 percent across the board reduction in the number of state employees.

3) Support for a $500 million bonding bill to “put people back to work throughout Minnesota.”

The details of the budget are still being worked out, but the state will likely be up and running in just a few days.

Obviously this compromise is a huge blow to tax fairness advocates. Dayton had previously campaigned on and proposed raising taxes in a progressive way to avoid making radical cuts. Delaying payments and issuing bonds is not a fiscally responsible way to solve Minnesota’s budget problems over the long term.

Dayton closed his statement this way: “I urge the members of both of your caucuses to consider carefully the advisability of supporting alternative sources of revenue, which would provide better, long-term financial stability for Minnesota than the two sources in your offer.” It’s a real shame that his words are falling on deaf ears; by all accounts, substantial, beneficial tax reform is going to be shelved for the time being.

Photo via Governor Dayton Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

On Wednesday, the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) unveiled “ALEC Exposed,” a new website showing how corporations and right-wing politicians have partnered through ALEC to spread anti-tax legislation and other damaging bills.  The website includes over 800 model bills released for the first time by CMD.  

As CMD points out in their press release:

“ALEC has become the premier institution for crafting and promoting model legislation and resolutions that largely benefit its corporate members. Until today, it has been difficult to trace the controversial and oddly uniform bills popping up in legislatures across the country directly to ALEC.  The public can now examine the array of ALEC model bills for the first time and link them to bills being introduced in their own state house.”

Notably, this new tool comes exactly one week after we tore apart one ALEC report purporting to measure states’ economic competitiveness.

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. In his press conference and floor statement Sen. Levin stated that offshore tax abuses undermine public confidence in the tax system, increase the tax burden on middle America, create and unfair disadvantage for small business, and encourage the movement of jobs offshore.

The bill would give the IRS new enforcement tools to detect and prosecute these abuses. The bill is being championed by a wide spectrum of supporters including small business and the Financial Accountabiltiy and Corporate Transparency (FACT) Coalition.

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 can possibly agree upon will not reduce projected budget deficits. Instead, it will increase them.

A new fact sheet from Citizens for Tax Justice explains the problem that both sides want to extend all or most of the expiring Bush tax cuts. And neither side has proposed spending cuts or tax increases large enough to offset the tremendous cost of such an extension.

Read the fact sheet.

Photos via Rusty Darbonne and Talk Radio News Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

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 imaginable in this state – except for corporations and the super-rich.”

As expected, he shot down a proposed tax on New Jersey millionaires who make up only .2 percent of all taxpayers in the state.  At the same time, he refused to restore the state’s Earned Income Tax Credit to previous levels, which, at a cost of only $50 million, was no-brainer strategy to provide much needed assistance to struggling low-income working families.

He also stripped away hundreds of millions of dollars for schools, aid to local governments, health care for working families, legal assistance for low-income individuals, and other critical programs. 

New Jersey Senate Democrats are meeting this week to attempt to override Christie’s spending cuts, however, they have been unsuccessful in gaining enough Republicans to join them and so far the vetoes stand.  They have yet to tackle the millionaires’ tax and Earned Income Tax Credit, but given that members are sticking to party lines, there is no realistic chance of restoring either of them.

The New Jersey Assembly Democrats are taking a different approach.  They first announced a plan to hold a series of hearings over the summer on Christie’s vetoes and wait to schedule override votes until the fall, hoping to gain some Republican support along the way.  But, by law, if an override vote fails in the Senate, the Assembly cannot take up a vote on that same issue.   

Despite the fact they are essentially powerless now in overturning Christie’s vetoes, Assembly Democrats are still planning to hold hearings starting next week on the impact of the cuts on children’s programs.  In a statement announcing the hearings, Assembly Budget Chair Lou Greenwald said, “The impact of these cuts demand immediate attention, and we’re committed to trying to find a way to make sure these programs continue to serve children suffering through horrific cases of abuse, illness and poverty.”

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 complained that it was using “tax and financial statement fraud” to avoid $2 billion in U.S. taxes.

Daniel J. Schlicksup’s specific claim is that the company improperly attributed at least $5.6 billion of profits from the sale of spare parts from a plant in Illinois to another unit in Geneva. He alleges that after telling his superiors that he believed the tax avoidance was illegal, they retaliated by transferring him to the company’s information technology division, which is entirely out of his area of expertise.

For their part, Caterpillar representatives have said that the company complies with all laws and regulations, but have not as of yet addressed the specific charges in the lawsuit.

Based on the details released so far, it is unclear how this case against Caterpillar will ultimately pan out. The problem, according to Harvard Professor Stephen Shay, is that a company does not need “much substance” to be considered legal in these circumstances under U.S. law. In other words, even if Caterpillar is using a Swiss subsidiary primarily to avoid billions in taxes, it’s possible that the maneuver could actually be legal depending on the specific details of the subsidiary’s operation.

Caterpillar has long been an especially outspoken critic of corporate income taxes. In May, the company’s CEO called for the US to adopt a territorial tax system, which would be a boon to multinational corporations and a disaster for everyone else.

On the state level, Caterpillar was the first company to protest the recent corporate tax increases in Illinois, where the company is headquartered. They led the opposition to the state increase, despite the fact that their total (all states including Illinois) state and local tax liability represented only a tiny fraction of their costs; a mere 0.7 percent of their global earnings in 2010. In addition, if the accusations prove to have any truth, Caterpillar may have been fraudulently avoiding Illinois taxes as well.

Photo via Cyrillicus Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

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 business (subscription required to view link) interest groups called for the fuel tax hike, including the Associated General Contractors of Iowa, Iowa Farm Bureau, Iowa Bankers Association, Iowa Motor Truck Association, and the Iowa Good Roads Association.

The Commission is tasked with assessing the condition of Iowa’s roads and the revenue sources used to pay for those roads.  More specifically, the Commission is seeking to address what the state’s Department of Transportation estimates is a $215 million shortfall in transportation spending, relative to the amount of money needed to complete certain high-priority projects. 

Most of those who spoke at the July 7th hearing agreed that the best way to address this shortfall would be through an increase in the fuel tax.  One virtue of the tax is that it functions like a “user fee” in that those who drive more (and wear down state roads more) pay more to have them maintained and repaired.  Advocates for progressive taxes, on the other hand, point out that the gas tax impacts low-income taxpayers most heavily.  If the regressivity of the gas tax is mitigated through an expansion of the state’s EITC, however, an increased gas tax could be a very responsible and equitable way of fixing Iowa’s – or any state’s – deteriorating roadways.

Ultimately, it’s refreshing to see these business leaders – a group that too often exhibits a knee-jerk opposition to all tax increases – recognize that new tax revenues will be absolutely essential in bettering the state of Iowa and its roadways.  Iowa business leaders are well aware that working roads are the kind of infrastructure that allows them to succeed economically and transport their goods and services around the state. It’s also worth noting that the path being urged by Iowa business leaders is preferable to the one taken just next door in Nebraska, where chronic transportation funding shortfalls have been “addressed” by simply taking money away from education and other public services.

Photo via Will Merydith Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

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 — requiring Republican and Democratic votes — followed by subsequent meaningless votes that would allow many lawmakers, even a majority of lawmakers, to pretend that they disapprove of the increase in the debt ceiling and lay the blame on President Obama.

McConnell's proposal is for the Congress to enact a bill allowing the President to increase the debt ceiling in incremental steps and giving Congress a chance to pass subsequent bills blocking each of those incremental increases. Of course, the President would veto any of these subsequent bills preventing an increase in the debt ceiling.

In fact, subsequent bills to prevent the President from raising the debt ceiling may not even pass the Senate, which is controlled by Democrats. Of course, Senators of either party could hypocritically shift from approving the first bill to give the President this power to supporting a subsequent bill to take this power away from the President. Such shiftiness is to be expected in Congress today.

After the initial bill is passed to give the President the power to increase the debt limit, it's possible that no one will pay any attention to subsequent votes on bills related to the debt ceiling. Votes on bills that don't pass usually do not generate much of a buzz. For example, it's not obvious that the public remembers when Senate Republicans and a few Democrats filibustered a full extension of the Bush tax cuts for 98 percent of taxpayers last year. 

The Retreat

Earlier this year GOP leaders threatened to block any increase in the debt ceiling unless it came with spending cuts equal at least to the amount by which the debt ceiling would be increased, $2.4 trillion. Of course, failure to raise the debt ceiling would cause an unprecedented default by the U.S. on its debt obligations and send the financial markets into a tailspin.

Last week, the President proclaimed his desire to agree on a larger decrease in the deficit, of $4 trillion over ten years, including savings from Social Security and Medicare.

As talks proceeded the White House pushed for an agreement that would achieve just one fourth of the $4 trillion in deficit reduction from revenue increases and the other three fourths from spending cuts. This offer seemed wildly tilted to the anti-tax lawmakers, especially given that the U.S. is one of the least taxed countries in the industrialized world.

Over the weekend, Republican House Speaker John Boehner gave up on such an ambitious deal even though it would have been so skewed towards his priorities. Boehner said he wanted to find agreement on a smaller deficit reduction deal and a short-term increase in the debt ceiling, which the President opposes. That prompted Senator McConnell to make his offer, which essentially gives up any attempt to force cuts in spending in return for an increase in the debt ceiling. 

See related article: The Real Reason GOP Leaders Want to Give Up the Debt Ceiling Fight: The Public Opposes Deficit-Reduction by Cutting Spending Alone

Photo via Gage Skidmore Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

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 directly with Minnesotans and share his message of taking a balanced approach to the crisis. He says, “I'm asking the wealthiest Minnesotans to pay a little more in taxes so that children with special needs don't have to be denied services ... and that's a Minnesota value.”

The Governor has recently offered an olive branch to conservative lawmakers saying he’d be willing to compromise. He’s even offered  to make his proposed tax on millionaires temporary, increase cigarette taxes, increase surcharges on hospitals and health plans and even delay payments to schools.  Yet legislators rejected these ideas and have yet to offer any alternative budget proposal of their own.

Dayton is clearly willing to negotiate (though we question the wisdom of a cigarette tax), but the uncompromising negotiation technique of the legislature leaves Minnesotans to deal with the consequences of this avoidable standoff.

Make no mistake, each day that the shutdown is allowed to continue Minnesotans and their state’s economy are harmed. Paul Anton in a recent MinnPost piece notes that “Layoffs of state workers drain about $23 million a week in purchasing power from the state’s economy. Estimates are that the state loses $1 million a week in revenue while the state parks are closed and another $1.25 million a week while the state lottery is not operating.” Of course there are tremendous incalculable impacts too.  Background checks and license renewals for health care professionals simply aren’t happening. Let’s not forgot the impact to local governments, schools districts may actually end up having to pay higher interest costs because they may need to borrow more money to balance their own budgets because of delays in state payments.

The St. Cloud Times recently opined, “We don’t support Gov. Mark Dayton traveling the state to talk about his efforts to solve the state’s budget problem. History shows these efforts tend to preach to the choir, no matter the political faith. Then again, we can’t really blame Dayton because the people he needs to talk with — Republican legislative leaders — are clearly not willing to do anything remotely constructive to end this shutdown.”

Dayton has shown he’s willing to negotiate and he’s got the right idea to raise taxes in a progressive way to ensure vital services aren’t cut. Let’s hope for the sake of Minnesota that it doesn’t take the Legislature too much longer to come to a similar conclusion.

Photo via Governor Dayton Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

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, so-called Americans for Tax Reform, who have organized a "no new tax pledge" signed by many lawmakers.

On the other side is the American public, which has made clear that it prefers any reduction in the budget deficit to include a mix of spending cuts and revenue increases.

Bruce Bartlett, a Republican who worked for President Reagan and the first President Bush, presents a long list of polls showing support among Americans for raising taxes to deal with the deficit. Here's just a sample of the polls he cites:

A June 9 Washington Post/ABC News poll found that 61 percent of people believe higher taxes will be necessary to reduce the deficit.

A May 13 Bloomberg poll found that only one third of people believe it is possible to substantially reduce the budget deficit without higher taxes; two thirds do not.

A May 12 Ipsos/Reuters poll found that three-fifths of people would support higher taxes to reduce the deficit.

An April 29 Gallup poll found that only 20 percent of people believe the budget deficit should be reduced only by cutting spending; 76 percent say that higher taxes must play a role.

An April 22 New York Times/CBS News poll found that 72 percent of people favor raising taxes on the rich to reduce the deficit. It also found that 66 percent of people believe tax increases will be necessary to reduce the deficit versus 19 percent who believe spending cuts alone are sufficient.

An April 20 Washington Post/ABC News poll found that by a 2-to-1 margin people favor a combination of higher taxes and spending cuts over spending cuts alone to reduce the deficit. It also found that 72 percent of people favor raising taxes on the rich to reduce the deficit and it is far and away the most popular deficit reduction measure.

A March 15 ABC News/Washington Post poll found that only 31 percent of voters support the Republican policy of only cutting spending to reduce the deficit; 64 percent believe higher taxes will also be necessary.

See the rest of the polling that Bartlett cites on his blog.

Photo via Talk Radio News Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

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 a "repatriation holiday" by its proponents.

Immelt was selected by President Barack Obama in February of 2009 to chair his Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, which is to advise the White House on economic policy. He has been CEO of General Electric since 2000.

In March, the New York Times reported GE's federal corporate income tax bill of negative $4.1 billion over the five-year period in which it earned $26 billion in profits, which is an effective tax rate of negative 15.8 percent. A recent report from CTJ focuses on the three-year period 2008-2010 and finds that GE earned $7.7 billion in profits during this period and had a federal corporate income tax bill of negative $4.7 billion over this period.

Following the New York Times revelations, progressive activists spearheaded a call for Immelt's resignation from the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.

His call for an amnesty for offshore tax dodgers will surely give more ammunition to those demanding that he step down from the Council.

What Does an Infrastructure Bank Have to Do with an Amnesty for Corporate Tax Dodgers? Nothing.

A repatriation holiday is essentially a break from U.S. corporate income taxes on offshore profits that U.S. corporations bring back (repatriate) from foreign countries, particularly from tax havens.

The non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT), the official revenue-estimator for Congress, has concluded that a repeat of the repatriation holiday that was enacted in 2004 would reduce revenue by $79 billion over ten years.

Yet Immelt, confusingly, says that a repatriation holiday could be used to fund an infrastructure bank. How can a measure that reduces revenue be used to fund anything?

It's true that JCT finds that the holiday would raise some revenue initially because corporations would repatriate more profits to the U.S. than they normally would, and they would be taxed, albeit at a very low rate, on those profits. (The 2004 measure taxed repatriated offshore profits of U.S. corporations at a super-low rate of 5.25 percent.)

But in subsequent years the measure would cause much larger reductions in revenue, partly because corporations would be encouraged to shift even more profits and investments offshore.

Anything that costs $79 billion and encourages companies to shift even more profits and investments out of the U.S. has nothing to do with the goals of an infrastructure bank and should not be attached to any bill creating an infrastructure bank.

The infrastructure bank is supposed to create jobs, but the non-partisan Congressional Research Service (CRS) found that the repatriation holiday enacted in 2004 failed to create jobs and that the benefits went instead to corporate shareholders.

Read about how you can call your Senators and Representatives toll-free and urge them to oppose the amnesty for corporate tax dodgers. 

Photo via Steve Wilhelm Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

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 vehicle fees.  Rather than including the revenue in his own budget proposal, Brown stuck to a campaign promise to take all tax increases to the voters (this was also necessary because it takes a supermajority to pass tax increases in the legislature).  He was unable to garner the support of enough GOP legislators to put the extension on the ballot this summer or fall, so he gave up to allow the state’s budget to be completed in time for the new fiscal year.

On the eve of the new fiscal year, Governor Brown signed a plan that relies primarily on deep spending cuts and higher than previously forecast revenues to close the state’s budget gap.  Still, deeper cuts in spending will need to be made if revenues do not hit the $4 billion above target projection lawmakers counted on when balancing the budget.

In response to the enacted spending plan, the California Budget Project wrote: “This is a very tough budget for families and communities across California… it is deeply disappointing that the approved budget does not reflect a balanced approach that combines additional revenues with spending reductions to move the budget toward balance.”

One significant tax change did make it into the final budget.  California became the 7^th state to adopt an “Amazon law” which will make it more difficult for state residents to evade sales taxes when shopping online.  Under California’s new law (which went into effect July 1), a larger set of online and catalogue retailers (specifically, those partnering with in-state businesses in order to generate sales) are required to collect and remit sales taxes.  Traditional brick and mortar retailers have dutifully fulfilled this responsibility for decades – and indeed, having the retailer collect sales taxes is the only effective method for enforcing existing sales tax laws.

In response to the enactment of this new law in California, Amazon.com and Overstock.com ended their relationships with their California affiliates (a move the retailers also made in North Carolina, Rhode Island and Connecticut).  These large online retailers’ tactics are doing very little to slow the spread of this sensible method for reducing sales tax evasion.  Illinois, Connecticut and Arkansas enacted Amazon laws this year and nearly a dozen more states seriously considered them.  The seven states with Amazon laws include nearly 30 percent of the country’s population.

Photo via Neon Tommy Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

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, but the timing and method of the GOP leaders approach are potentially disastrous. Deficit reduction should be timed to occur largely after we have recovered from the recession so that there is enough private spending and investment taking place to partially offset cuts in public spending.

The method of deficit reduction is even more critical. Republican leaders have insisted that we reduce the deficit entirely by cutting spending and not by raising tax revenue. This is illogical because clearly raising a dollar of taxes has the same effect on the deficit as cutting spending by one dollar.

Even more importantly, the U.S. is one of the least taxed countries in the industrial world, as explained in a report released last week by Citizens for Tax Justice. The report finds that all the other OECD nations except Chile and Mexico have higher taxes as a percentage of GDP than the U.S. The U.S. is clearly undertaxed and a revenue increase is the obvious answer to our deficit problem.

Photo via Talk Media News Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

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 disprove this claim.

The New York Times reports that

"The president’s renewed efforts follow what knowledgeable officials said was an overture from [Republican House Speaker] Boehner, who met secretly with Mr. Obama last weekend, to consider as much as $1 trillion in unspecified new revenues as part of an overhaul of tax laws in exchange for an agreement that made substantial spending cuts"

But the article then goes on to say

"At a news conference on Thursday, Mr. Boehner, of Ohio, told reporters that “everything’s on the table, except raising taxes” on the American people, but he added that a tax overhaul that would close breaks and lower rates was part of the discussion."

The Times reporters fail to notice that closing loopholes and lowering rates, with a result that does not "raise taxes," is a description of revenue-neutral tax reform, which obviously does nothing to help reduce the budget deficit. How is this progress in negotiations over the deficit?

Last week, the Times ran an article with the headline, "2 Republicans Open the Door to Increases in Revenue." The article explained that Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) said he was willing to close tax loopholes, but went on to say that any tax changes must be "revenue neutral," meaning any reduction or elimination of tax loopholes must be accompanied by reductions in tax rates or some other type of tax cut so that the total amount of revenue would not increase.

The article also quoted Senator John McCain as saying he was open to some unspecified "revenue-raisers" but then also quoted him as saying, “The principle of not raising taxes is something that we campaigned on last November, and the result of the election was that the American people didn’t want their taxes raised and they wanted us to cut spending.”

In other words, the Times article is about one senator who is definitely not open to revenue increases and another who says nothing coherent at all about them.

Yesterday, the Washington Post added to the confusion by informing us that Eric Cantor, the House Republican Majority leader "signaled a new openness to raising taxes— at least for selected special interests."

The article also quoted Cantor as saying, "But listen, we’re not for any proposal that increases taxes, and any type of discussion should be coupled with offsetting tax cuts somewhere else.”

In other words, Cantor is not open to raising taxes overall and therefore not open to raising revenue, which is the only way any tax changes would help reduce the deficit.

Republican leaders appear to be sticking to an ideological position opposing any increase in tax revenue. It's a position that defies common sense in a country that is taxed far less than other industrial countries, and it's a position that is opposed by large majorities of Americans in swing states. Why the press is trying to present GOP leaders as more reasonable is anyone's guess.

Photo via Speaker Boehner Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

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 reduces the deficit. In some cases a dollar of additional IRS funding can generate $10 of revenue. Because of this, the non-partisan National Taxpayer Advocate noted in her recent report to Congress that the IRS should be viewed as not part of the deficit problem, but rather “as part of the solution.”

Taking this perspective, the Obama Administration proposed earlier this year to increase the IRS’s budget from $12.1 billion to $13.3 billion, in a move that was expected to actually reduce the deficit.

A $1.1 billion increase in funding would help the IRS reduce the “tax gap,” the difference between the amount of taxes owed and the amount of taxes actually paid on time. The tax gap is estimated to be between $400 to $500 billion each year.

One recent article points out that “the biggest losers” in the failure to stop tax evasion “are America's wage earners and salaried workers, who pay an estimated 99 percent of their taxes on time because their taxes are automatically withheld from their pay and reported by a third party, their employers.” These working people — the vast majority of Americans — must pay even more in taxes when others evade theirs.

Other than tax evaders, it’s unclear who the decrease in funding is supposed to benefit. It’s certainly not law-abiding businesses or individuals, who according to a report by the law and lobbying firm K&L Gates would actually face higher compliance costs if the cut in funding is enacted.

CTJ’s director, Bob McIntyre, addressed IRS enforcement a few years ago before the Senate Budget Committee. Just returning the IRS to the staffing levels of a decade ago, he said, would require a 50 percent increase in the IRS enforcement budget. Taking this a step further, McIntyre noted that, given the increase in tax sheltering in recent years, it may be necessary to double the resources for tax enforcement in order to keep up with tax evasion.

If lawmakers are serious about reducing the deficit, then reforming and dramatically increasing (rather than decreasing) funding for the IRS is one place to start.


Photo via alykat Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

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 have a “physical” presence in the state.

The "physical presence" standard doesn't make any sense in the internet age, when we all buy so many goods and services from companies that do not have physical facilities in our state but still benefit from the state and local services that make commerce possible.

In any event, BATSA does not create a "physical presence" standard anyway because it has so many loopholes allowing large corporations with lobbying clout to avoid state and local taxes even though they have what any rational person would call a “physical presence” in the jurisdiction.

In May, CTJ sent a letter to the subcommittee handling the bill, explaining that we oppose BATSA because it would:

1. make state and local taxes on businesses dramatically more complex,

2. increase litigation related to business taxes,

3. increase government interference in the market and

4. reduce revenue to state and local governments by billions of dollars each year.

Read CTJ's letter opposing the misnamed “Business Activity Tax Simplification Act” (BATSA).

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 part of the deal on raising the debt ceiling or any other legislation.”

Call this number to be connected to your members of Congress.

1-888-907-8574


Here’s why this is important.

A “repatriation holiday,” which has been proposed by some Republicans and Democrats in Congress, would remove all or almost all U.S. taxes on the profits that U.S. corporations bring back to the U.S. from other countries, including profits that they shifted to offshore tax havens using accounting gimmicks and transactions that only exist on paper.

If you want to give your lawmakers’ staffs more information, you can also tell them that:

1. Another repatriation holiday will cost the U.S. $79 billion in tax revenue according to the non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation.

2. Another repatriation holiday will cost the U.S. jobs because it will encourage corporations to shift even more investment offshore.

3. The repatriation holiday is an amnesty for corporate tax dodgers because those corporations that shift profits into tax havens benefit the most from it.

4. Congress enacted a repatriation holiday in 2004, and the benefits went to dividend payments for corporate shareholders rather than job creation, according to the non-partisan Congressional Research Service. Many of the corporations that benefited actually reduced their U.S. workforce.


For more information, see the recent post from Citizens for Tax Justice on one senator’s repeated flip-flops related to the repatriation holiday.

Thanks to AFSCME for providing the toll-free number to enable constituents to get in touch with their members of Congress regarding this critical issue.

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 is now balanced for the next two fiscal years, and compromise on some key issues was reached.

For example, the Press-Citizen reports that Democrats agreed to freeze school spending for the current fiscal year and then to increase funding by two percent in 2013. Republicans agreed to provide $59 million for the state's preschool program, more than they originally proposed.

In the case of costly cuts to corporate property taxes, however, no final agreement was reached; and that is a victory for tax justice advocates.

Governor Terry Branstad wanted to drastically reduce corporate property taxes. His proposal would have allowed businesses to shelter a full 40 percent of their property’s value from the property tax (by assessing commercial property at only 60 percent of its actual value for tax purposes). When fully implemented, the price tag for this measure was about $500 million. 

House Republicans weren’t willing to go that far, offering to shelter 25 percent of a property’s value. Senate Democrats were only interested in allowing targeted tax credits instead of across the board cuts. Ultimately, Iowa policy makers weren’t able to come to any sort of agreement.

But then, when it comes to handouts for corporations, that's not such a bad thing.

Photo via Gage Skidmore Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

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 state a desirable location” for individuals and businesses.

The study contains numerous absurdities and arbitrary features that could be picked apart in a longer article (for example: levying an estate tax, regardless of its size, is for some reason assumed to be exactly three times more damaging than failing to require a supermajority vote in the legislature in order to raise taxes).

But the more important problem is that the ALEC study makes almost no effort to evaluate the quality of public services provided within a state’s borders.  Virtually everyone agrees that good schools, adequate police protection, and an efficient transportation network are central to what makes a place a “desirable location” to live and work.  But none of these factors can boost a state’s “competiveness” score under the ALEC index.

In fact, it’s even worse than that.  Since more than half of the “levers” relate to keeping taxes low, adequately funding public services can actually hurt a state’s “competitiveness.”  And since states also lose points for every public employee living within their borders, most new laws designed to reduce class sizes, increase police patrols, or hire additional road construction workers will also hurt a state’s desirability and competitiveness, according to ALEC.

Unfortunately, the problems with this report aren’t just confined to its data and methodology.  As with previous editions of this study, a significant portion of its text was simply copied-and-pasted from the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page (one of the authors is on the Journal’s editorial board).  Most notable is the section on Oregon’s “missing” millionaires – a virtual carbon copy of a December 2010 editorial that ITEP and others thoroughly debunked on more than one occasion.

Ultimately, the authors have done little more than count the number of conservative priorities achieved in each state, and tack on some boilerplate anti-tax rhetoric that we’ve all seen before. "Rich States Poor States" is about as serious as the TV miniseries that inspired its name.

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 the Chicago Mercantile Exchange continue to complain about the corporate tax rate and threaten to skip town and find another state to do business in if the committee doesn’t respond with dramatic rate cuts.

Illinois Senate President John Cullerton says the committee will not only look at corporate tax rates, but will also consider reducing corporate subsidies and special exemptions to ensure any change in the rate won’t reduce the overall corporate tax revenues.

Many businesses have come out in support of eliminating loopholes, not surprisingly most of which pay the full statutory corporate tax rate.  David Vite, president of the Illinois Retail Merchants Association, said that “the most important thing is to have a fair structure that makes Illinois efficient and as attractive as it can possibly be so we can get more businesses here to spread the burden of running the government more broadly.”

A myth that the corporate tax rate is the primary factor in business decision-making just won’t die.  A recent CTJ article showed that business executives consider taxes low on their list of priorities.  The tax rate is just one small factor that businesses take into consideration when deciding what state will give them the best chance to be profitable.  As Doug Whitley, President and CEO of the Illinois Chamber of Commerce said, “robust economic activity also requires sustained and significant investments in transportation infrastructure…educational opportunities that ensure a quality workforce and support retraining when required.”  The fact is, these investments all cost money, and if corporations are going to benefit from them they should contribute to their funding, just as individual Illinois taxpayers do.

Similarly, when a family is looking for a place to settle down, low taxes are pretty low on their list of priorities.  They want to know about the educational system, the community, and whether or not this is a good place to raise their children. Everything that makes a community  appealing to that family is supported by the tax base.

You wouldn’t expect a family to uproot itself and move to another state simply because they could save a couple hundred dollars in taxes next year.  Why would a corporation?

Lost in this tax debate are the vital public services that support the growth of the private sector.  Corporate taxes are simply one cost of doing business.  This is not to mention that all of these complaining companies have failed to mention the extraordinary financial and logistical costs of moving an entire business to another state.

We can always expect business leaders to call for rate cuts that would fatten their profit margins, but we shouldn’t expect Illinois’ elected officials to believe they’re acting in the public interest.

Photo via spudart Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

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 wealthy. 

Ohio’s biggest revenue drop and boon for the state’s wealthiest taxpayers will come from the repeal of the state’s estate tax.  Ohio law held that estates worth more than $338,333 would be taxed before it was distributed to heirs or beneficiaries.  That’s less than 10 percent of all decedents’ estates in the state. Unfortunately, the loss of this highly progressive tax in Ohio will probably be made up through increases in regressive local taxes.  A recent CTJ article highlighted the need for an estate tax.  Eighty percent of the tax revenue from estates goes to local governments, which amounted to $230.8 million in FY 2011.  Coupled with other cuts in public services including education, local governments will really be feeling the pain this fiscal year.

A last minute addition to the budget is a new tax break for investors of Ohio small businesses worth up to $100 million a year, dubbed “InvestOhio.”  While supporters of the law claim it will spur job creation, there a few important details that suggest Ohio may just be wasting badly needed revenue.  Qualified investors will receive a tax credit, but nothing in the law requires that investment to contribute to job creation. Furthermore, the law may be subsidizing investing activity that would’ve happened anyway.  State Representative Mike Foley put it succinctly: “It’s basically just a giveaway to rich people.”

Perhaps the most telling part of the budget is what was left out. A common-sense law that would have required a review of Ohio tax expenditures (deductions, credits, and exemptions) worth $7 billion a year was removed from the final budget.  This sunshine provision would have allowed lawmakers to openly review and report on the success (or lack thereof) of tax policies annually.  By stripping the review law, the conference committee undermined the legislature’s authority, and demonstrated to Ohioans that accountability and transparency are too easily sacrificed in favor of narrow special interest groups.