The non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT), which estimates the revenue impact of tax proposals before Congress, has confirmed CTJ’s calculations of the dire consequences of House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi’s tax proposal.

Last week CTJ concluded that Pelosi’s plan to extend the Bush income tax cuts for the first $1 million of income earned by a taxpayer would save 43 percent less revenue than President Obama’s plan, which would extend the income tax cuts for “only” the first $250,000 earned by a family and the first $200,000 earned by a single person.

The JCT figures, which were cited in a new report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, show that Obama’s plan would save $829 billion over a decade, compared to the Republican proposal of extending the Bush income tax cuts for all income levels, and that Pelosi’s plan would save just $463 billion (44 percent less).

CTJ also found that 50 percent of the additional tax cut that would result from Pelosi’s plan (from extending the tax cuts for the first $1 million instead of “just” the first $250,000/$200,000) would go to people with incomes in excess of $1 million.

This would happen because under Pelosi’s plan, millionaires would pay the lower Bush-era tax rates on the first million of their income whereas under Obama’s plan they would pay the lower Bush-era tax rates on “only” the first $250,000 or $200,000 of their income.

• There’s a trend this year of Republican governors striking deals with Amazon.com to begin collecting sales taxes on purchases made by their states’ residents.  New Jersey’s Chris Christie penned a new agreement with the company that can be added to the list of similar deals struck in Indiana, Nevada, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia.

• When the richest woman in Wisconsin (and the governor’s biggest donor) pays no income tax to the state in 2010, it gets people asking about loopholes in the tax code.

• We aren’t the only think tank taking issue with the Kansas tax bill recently signed into law.  The fiscally conservative Tax Foundation recently issued a report which says that provisions in the bill to exempt “pass through” business income are “problematic” and an invitation to tax avoidance.  

• With summer road tripping underway, it’s bad news for Iowans that the state’s Department of Transportation appears to be more than $200 million short. Governor Branstad was right to say the state gas tax should be increased next year (as should almost every state’s).

Photo of Governor Christie via Bob Jagendorf Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

A new study from the Internal Revenue Service confirms your worst fears about the tax code: it’s riddled with loopholes and Congress isn’t doing anything about it.  Year after year since 1977, the IRS has dutifully issued its “data on individual income tax returns reporting income of $200,000 or more, including the number of such returns reporting no income tax liability and the importance of various tax provisions in making these returns nontaxable” because Congress mandates it. And year after year, it shows that some of the very richest Americans are finding entirely legal ways to avoid federal income taxes altogether.

The new (and most recent) IRS data show that in 2009, more than 35,000 Americans* with incomes over $200,000 paid not a dime in federal income tax. For this group—less than one percent of all the Americans with incomes over $200,000, according to the study— itemized deductions and tax-exempt bond interest are among the main tax breaks that make this tax-avoiding feat possible. 

And, as if to illustrate how loopholes never die, these two tax breaks are among the oldest on the books; the exemption of bond interest dates to the century old statute establishing the income tax itself!

Sensible tax reforms could close (or at least shrink) these holes in the tax code.  The president, for example, has proposed a limit on the value of itemized deductions for the wealthiest Americans, and to extend the “Build America Bonds” program which keeps revenues flowing to cities but phases out the tax shelter the current system provides for the bond holders.

Of course, these wealthy taxpayers avoiding all their federal income tax responsibilities don’t even include the ones paying zero or low federal taxes because of the low rates at which investment income is taxed.

There is no excuse for hundred-year-old loopholes in a tax code: it’s time for Washington to clean up the tax code and take a brave stand against unwarranted exemptions that drain revenues and reward the rich.

* Others have focused on a smaller number of taxpayers, 21,000, who have an adjusted gross income (AGI) of over $200,000. But simple AGI excludes many types of income, such as tax exempt bond interest which is key to the low tax liabilities.

Last week Kansas Governor Sam Brownback signed into law Senate Substitute for House Bill 2117, a tax bill that dramatically changes the Kansas income tax structure and makes Kansas a real outlier when it comes to tax fairness. ITEP released a report which finds that the legislation includes a broad tax cut that will cost the state over $760 million a year, and yet will actually increase taxes on some low- and middle-income families – while the wealthiest Kansans will see their taxes reduced by $21,000 on average.

As a result of this legislation, Kansas is now a member of a uniquely regressive tax policy club; it joins Mississippi and Alabama in taxing food, but not offering any targeted tax relief for the poorest families who have to spend a larger portion of their budgets on groceries.  Until last week’s bill signing, Kansas offered a Food Sales Tax Rebate (FSTR) that targeted tax relief to Kansans over 55 and those with children and an income less than $35,400. Families with income of less than $17,700 could claim a flat $91 per family member to offset the sales tax they paid on food.

Even after cutting income tax rates and increasing the standard deduction, a family of four with $17,000 of income will still lose $294 because of the elimination of the food sales tax credit.

For more on the new law and to learn more about the various tax plans that were debated in Kansas this legislative session, check out ITEP’s Kansas Tax Policy Hub.

(Photo courtesy Wikipedia)

• Michigan lawmakers recently slashed income taxes for businesses by about $1.6 billion, and paid for it mostly with income tax hikes on the elderly and poor.  Now lawmakers are debating a gimmicky income tax cut that would take effect about a month before voters head to the polls in November but do little to offset recent tax increases on the state’s working poor.

• Late last week, the Illinois House voted to raise the state’s cigarette tax. This is big news not only because the tax increase will help to fill a nearly $3 billion budget hole in the state’s Medicaid program, but because anti-tax zealot Grover Norquist was resoundingly defeated despite threats from his Illinois staffers that voting for the cigarette tax could “ruin the GOP brand in the state for a generation.”

• Question: Could the popularity of the no-new taxes pledge championed by Grover Norquist be waning? Answer: Yes. Read this.

• To understand how the regressive, multi-billion dollar tax cut bill signed into law last week in Kansas is being received, check out this news round up from the Wichita Eagle.  A lot of people are “horrified.”

On Wednesday, CTJ heard that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi had sent a letter to Speaker John Boehner asking for an immediate vote on extending the Bush tax cuts for incomes up to $1 million.  We crunched a few numbers and shot off a press release pointing out the fiscal folly of the plan.  Bloggers, reporters, pundits, outlets of all stripes and one very important editorial board cited CTJ’s numbers about the staggering cost of moving the threshold from the $250,000 mark previously set by President Obama.

In his article at RollingStone.com called “Democrats About to Give Away the Store on Bush Tax Cuts. Seriously?,” Jared Bernstein writes that “the (excellent) Citizens for Tax Justice – CTJ also points out that about half the benefits of this higher threshold accrue to – wait for it – millionaires.” He opined that moving the threshold to $1 million is “a bad genie to let out of the bottle.”

Also citing CTJ’s numbers, a Washington Post editorial decried Pelosi’s “risky pander” on the tax cuts, commenting on the minority leader’s “interesting definition of what constitutes the middle class.” The editorial ended with this question: “Do Democrats really want their new slogan to be ‘Almost as irresponsible as the Republicans?’”

The tax geek publication Bureau of National Affairs Daily Tax Report (subscription required) noted that “Citizens for Tax Justice skewered Pelosi’s request, saying that what she is actually proposing is a ‘windfall for millionaires.’”

In noting, “This town may never agree on who is middle-class, but surely we can agree it doesn't include anyone who makes over a million dollars a year,” CTJ’s Bob McIntyre helped frame the early coverage of what we hope will be a short lived idea on Capitol Hill.

• Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley signed a progressive income tax increase into law this week and successfully avoided large spending cuts.  An analysis of the tax package by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) showed that while 87 percent of the new revenue would come from the state’s richest five percent of taxpayers, the tax increases are fairly modest and would still leave Maryland with a regressive tax system on the whole.

• The North Carolina Budget and Tax Center issued a new report urging lawmakers not to enact the gas tax cap recently proposed by Governor Bev Perdue.  Among other things, the report uses data from ITEP to show that North Carolina’s gas tax rate, adjusted for inflation, is quite low by historical standards (all claims about the rate being at an “all-time high” to the contrary).  ITEP’s take on the long-running debate over a North Carolina gas tax cap can be found here.

• Last week it appeared that Oklahoma lawmakers had reached agreement on a plan to cut the state income tax, but that agreement might be unraveling.  The Associated Press reports that House lawmakers are unhappy with the fact that some low and middle-income taxpayers would see their taxes rise under the agreed-upon plan, and there’s a chance a tax cut won’t be enacted at all before the legislative session ends on Friday.  ITEP’s analysis of the controversial plan was recently blogged by the Oklahoma Policy Institute, and picked up by The Oklahoman and other outlets.

• One more hurdle remains before New Hampshire voters get the chance to amend their state’s constitution to permanently ban a personal income tax.  The Senate voted 20-4 on a measure, but made a few changes that must now be reconciled with the House version before sending it to the public ballot this fall.  The New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute points out, however, that this amendment seeks to solve a problem that doesn’t exist since there have been no serious income tax proposals in years, and, that it will tie the hamstring future generations of citizens and lawmakers.

• A New York tax fairness coalition called on Governor Cuomo this week to keep his promise to appoint a commission that would comprehensively review and make recommendations to improve the state’s tax system. The coalition’s recommendations for the commission are here. Cuomo has repeatedly pledged to appoint a “Tax Reform and Fairness Commission” but has yet to do so.

Photo of Governor Martin O'Malley and Governor Andrew Cuomo via Friends of Hillary and Patja Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

The nonpartisan New Jersey Office of Legislative Services (OLS) released estimates on Wednesday predicting that New Jersey revenues will fall a staggering $1.3 billion short of Governor Chris Christie’s previous estimate through fiscal year 2013. The estimated revenue shortfall is bad news for Christie because it makes his ten percent across the board income tax cut proposal appear that much more reckless.  Even the bean counters at Moody’s and Standard and Poor’s are worried.

The discrepancy between Christie’s previous revenue predictions and the estimated shortfall is due to the wildly unrealistic revenue estimate put out by the Christie administration in March, which an analysis by the New Jersey Star Ledger found to be the most optimistic in the country. In fact, Christie’s promised 7.4 percent in revenue growth was more than 2.5 times the national average of 2.8 percent.

For the moment, Christie is standing by his income tax cut plans, saying that the budget gap is actually only $676 million – and he is proposing to fill it by cutting $295 million in transportation funding next year. The Governor’s reduced gap estimate is derived from his faith in the millions in tax breaks his administration has given to the state’s wealthiest residents and corporations already being at work, unleashing unprecedented economic growth. This is what he’s been calling the “New Jersey Comeback.” Unfortunately, his predictions are based on the same old myths that have proven to be wrong time and again across the country.

The failure of Christie’s approach is borne out by New Jersey’s wobbly economy. As New Jersey Policy Perspective points out, the reality is the state is actually lagging behind the rest of the country, with its unemployment rate increasing slightly, to 9.1 percent in April 2012, higher than the regional rate of 7.9 percent. Rather than helping drive a recovery, it looks like Christie’s policy of favoring expensive tax breaks over critical government services has actually driven up joblessness by putting tens of thousands of public sector employees out of work.

The Governor is doubling down on tax breaks and service cuts when he should instead protect New Jersey’s basic quality of life and embrace, rather than veto, a millionaire’s tax -- which his constituents love, his Assembly passed, and would generate $500 million in desperately needed revenues for the Garden State.

Making matters worse, the Democratic Senate President Stephen Sweeney continues pushing his caucus to pass a compromise tax cut he says is for the middle class. For interested readers, there's a politics to all of it.

(Photo courtesy of Center for American Progress.)

Over 30 million Americans will take to the roads this Memorial Day weekend, and it’s all but guaranteed that many of them will be unhappy about the price of gas.  But while it’s easy to get frustrated by high prices at the pump, it’s also important that motorists realize gas taxes are not to blame for those high prices, and that gas taxes are absolutely essential to the safety and efficiency of the infrastructure we use everyday.

As the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) explains in a pair of new policy briefs, federal and state gas taxes are the main sources of funding for the roads, bridges, and transit systems that keep our economy moving (and that make our summer vacations possible).  Roughly 90 percent of federal transportation revenues come from the federal gas tax, while state gas taxes are the single most important source of transportation revenue under the control of state lawmakers.

Moreover, the amount of money we’re spending on gas taxes is much lower than what we used to pay. Families today are spending a smaller share of their household budgets on gas taxes than they have in about three decades—and that share is continuing to decline.

Of course, a low gas tax has a cost.  The federal government is increasingly using borrowed money to pay for our roads and bridges, while states that lack the luxury of borrowing are taking money away from education and other priorities in order to fund basic road repairs.  Meanwhile, even with these infusions of cash, the condition of our transportation infrastructure is continuing to decline.

ITEP’s new policy briefs put this issue into perspective by explaining how gas taxes work, their importance as a transportation revenue source, the specific problems confronting gas taxes, and the types of gas tax reforms that are needed to overcome these problems.

Read More:

• The Federal Gas Tax: Long Overdue for Reform (2-page brief)
• State Gasoline Taxes: Built to Fail, But Fixable (2-page brief)
• Building a Better Gas Tax (ITEP’s 50-state report from December 2011)

Photo of man pumping gas via Teresia Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

For Immediate Release: May 23, 2012

Minority Leader Pelosi’s “Middle Class” Tax Plan Benefits Millionaires, According to New Citizens for Tax Justice Estimate

Washington, DC – In seeking an immediate vote in the House of Representatives to extend tax cuts on incomes up to $1 million, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is actually proposing a windfall for millionaires, according to a preliminary analysis from Citizens for Tax Justice. Pelosi’s proposal to extend the Bush income tax cuts for taxpayers’ first $1 million of income is a departure from President Obama’s proposal to extend the tax cuts for the first $250,000 that a married couple makes and the first $200,000 a single person makes.

“This town may never agree on who is middle-class, but surely we can agree it doesn’t include anyone who makes over a million dollars a year,” said Robert McIntyre, director of Citizens for Tax Justice.

■ Pelosi’s proposal would save 43 percent less revenue than Obama’s plan.
CTJ’s preliminary estimates show that Obama’s proposal to extend the Bush tax cuts for the first $250,000 or $200,000 of income a taxpayer makes would save between $60 billion and $70 billion in 2013 compared to the GOP proposal to extend all the tax cuts, depending on economic conditions. Leader Pelosi’s proposal to extend the Bush tax cuts for the first $1 million of income would save 43 percent less revenue than Obama’s proposal.

■ 50 percent of the additional tax cuts proposed by Pelosi would go to millionaires.
The additional tax cut that would result from Pelosi’s plan compared to Obama’s plan (the additional tax cut resulting from extending the Bush tax provisions for taxpayers’ first $1 million of income instead of “just” their first $250,000 or $200,000 of income) would not be targeted towards the “middle class.” In fact, 50 percent of this additional tax cut would go to taxpayers with adjusted gross income (AGI) in excess of $1 million.

This would result because under Pelosi’s proposal, a married couple making $3 million a year, for example, would continue to pay the lower tax rates (enacted under President Bush) on $1 million of their income. Under Obama’s proposal, a married couple making $3 million a year would continue to pay the lower tax rates on just $250,000 of their income.

Taxpayers with incomes exceeding $1 million would therefore receive substantially larger tax cuts under Pelosi’s proposal than they would under Obama’s proposal.

Also see our fact sheet about these figures.

Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ), founded in 1979, is a 501 (c)(4) public interest research and advocacy organization focusing on federal, state and local tax policies and their impact upon our nation (www.ctj.org).

Today, Governor Sam Brownback signed into law a radical tax bill that is projected to cost more than $2 billion over the next five years.  It also means the poorest 20 percent of Kansas taxpayers will pay 1.3 percent more of their income in taxes each year, or an average increase of $148, while the wealthiest one percent of Kansans will see their state income taxes drop by about $21,087 on average.  (See ITEP’s analysis of the Senate plan here for more figures.)

In terms of fairness, the legislation is tragic. Kansas is one of a few states that taxes food, but the Food Sales Tax Rebate (FSTR) has, until now, given targeted relief to taxpayers that are hit hardest by this regressive tax. By eliminating the FSTR, this new law makes it that much harder for low-income people to make ends meet.

The legislation also exempts from taxation all business income that companies “pass through” to owners  – something that no other state that taxes business income does. It’s likely that tax avoidance will increase as a result of companies reorganizing their corporate structure to take advantage of this loophole, which was, of course, billed as a tax cut for small businesses. If lawmakers wanted to offer assistance to small business owners, there are more targeted ways to do just that, through credits or limiting exemptions.

Other provisions of the bill include reducing tax rates down to 3.0 and 4.9 percent; increasing the standard deduction for head of household filers and married couples; and eliminating the Homestead Property Tax Refund for renters.

Proponents of the bill and Governor Brownback himself have said that the tax cuts will pay for themselves because of increased economic activity, but these supply side arguments are groundless.  As the Wichita Eagle opines, this “extreme makeover” of the state’s tax system is a “huge gamble,” and the odds are against Kansas recovering any time soon.

Photo of Governor Sam Brownback via King Content Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

If your family makes around $60,000 a year and you work for a living, there’s a good chance you pay a larger percentage of your income in federal taxes than Mitt Romney and the other partners at Bain Capital.

We have explained before that a good portion of millionaires who live off investments pay a lower effective tax rate than people who work for their $60,000 a year.  Worse, the “carried interest” loophole allows people like Romney to enjoy the special low tax rate for investment income even though their income is really from work. CTJ’s Bob McIntyre was the first to predict that Mitt Romney’s effective federal rate was under 15 percent as a result.

Now comes Newark’s Democratic mayor, Cory Booker, defending Bain Capital and other “private equity” firms (really, buyout firms), calling attacks on Romney’s old firm “nauseating.”

Let’s put aside for a moment that fact that private equity firms buy up companies and fire people, and the fact that Mitt Romney doesn’t seem to see the difference between his former job of maximizing profits for investors and the job he seeks, which should be to maximize opportunities for all Americans.

Even if you accept all of that, do you believe that what Mitt Romney did at Bain Capital is so good for America that we should subsidize him through the tax code? Do you believe that discussing the role played by these buyout funds in our economy and in our public policies is off-limits?

Members of Congress, including Democrats and Republicans, have made claims in support of the carried interest loophole that defy common sense. They argue that millionaire fund managers like Mitt Romney should continue to enjoy this tax loophole because, for example, it encourages development in poor communities, helps minorities rise in the financial world, and helps cancer patients receive life-saving treatments.

These arguments are nonsensical for reasons we’ve explained before. The carried interest loophole does not encourage investment in poor communities or new technology or anything at all because it doesn’t affect the people who actually put up money to invest. The loophole subsidizes the people who manage the money, the fund managers who enjoy the special low tax rate on the compensation they receive so long as they maximize profits.

The arguments made in defense of the buyout firms’ privileges are so absurd that they beg the question of what really motivates their proponents in both parties. We cannot say why Mayor Booker does not express any outrage that the Bain partners can pay a lower effective tax rate than many working people in his city. But we are not blind to the many, many articles about campaign contributions from these fund managers and how they have attempted to use this money to protect their privileges. Now that’s nauseating.

• The Minnesota Vikings will get their new stadium and taxpayers are on the losing team.  In more sports news, the New Orleans Hornets can thank the Louisiana legislature, who recently voted to give the team a tax break that amounts to $37 million over the next ten years. But the Milwaukee Bucks might not be as lucky.  
• Kansas House Speaker Mike O’Neal said  that once the Governor signs the tax bill sitting on his desk, "Everybody's just going to be amazed, and your constituents will be very proud of you."  But in fact it’s more bad news for Kansans.
• Here’s a great opinion piece from the Canton (Ohio) City Council President showing the impact that state budget cuts have had on his community. Budget cuts don’t happen in a vacuum.
• It’s that time again. Louisiana’s hurricane preparedness sales tax holiday is a boondoggle (as is Virginia’s); they are the definition of “poorly targeted” and do little for consumers and local business.

Photo of Vikings Stadium via AFA Gen Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

The accounting firm Ernst and Young (E&Y) just released a report, commissioned by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), the purpose of which is to show that there are economic benefits for states that offer tax credits to film productions.  And since there are some economic benefits from almost every kind of business activity – including activity not getting tax subsidies – it shouldn’t be too hard to do.

The report, with its very un-Hollywood title, “Evaluating the effectiveness of state film tax credit programs: Issues that need to be considered,” however, is so riddled with wiggle words like can, could, may and might, you have to wonder if there is any evidence to support the claim that states reap economic development benefits when they give away tax credits to the film industry.  It’s as if the MPAA hired E&Y but then didn’t let them see any industry numbers.

For example, the section called, Case study of a credit program’s impact, is not a case study at all; rather, it’s a discussion of how a hypothetical $10 million production would result in nearly $19 million in economic activity, $ 4.4 million in wages and over half a million in new tax revenues – but it shows no calculations for how they reached these figures. For that level of detail, we are referred to an appendix, which has about the same information, adding only a little more detail about how a $10 million movie budget breaks down and some payroll averages. 

The only hard numbers from a real life example come from three instances in which a permanent film production facility was established. But the authors include an important caveat: “A state must reach a critical mass of productions to attract a studio investment, and not every state will be able to do so. Those that are able to attract a significant amount of production activity may [our emphasis] realize this benefit.”

Tax breaks for movies are like tax breaks for any kind of industry. Regardless of whether anyone can document the demonstrable economic benefits to the state, there is always a measurable cost of the tax deal itself, and the revenues not spent on public infrastructure.

The fiscal conservatives at the Tax Foundation read this same MPAA report and conclude, “The fact that E&Y's report is unwilling to call these programs successful, but rather limit itself to listing possible benefits, is telling. Their tepid conclusion should alert officials that even a paid-for study by a reputable firm can't prove something that's not true.”  The Tax Foundation also reports more states are abandoning tax credits for film production, realizing they don’t offer much economic bang for the fiscal buck.  Absent evidence that they do work – or at least some transparency about how well they work – elimination of these so-called incentives can’t come soon enough.

Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner announced Tuesday that he will refuse to approve any increase in the federal debt ceiling without matching spending cuts — essentially threatening to cause the U.S. to default on its debt obligations. During the same speech, he also announced that he would advance a bill to extend all the Bush tax cuts — which would increase the national debt by hundreds of billions of dollars each year.

The announcement came two months after the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) determined that the federal budget deficit would fall to around $250 billion a year or lower for most of this coming decade if Congress enacts no new laws that increase it. CBO also found that the most significant step that Congress could take to increase the deficit would be extending the Bush tax cuts, which would add about $450 billion to $600 billion to the deficit each year.

This is exactly what Boehner called for on Tuesday, saying Congress should extend the Bush tax cuts for all taxpayers. Under Boehner’s proposal, this would be followed next year by an overhaul of the tax code that eliminates some tax loopholes and tax subsidies, but he made it clear that the tax code should raise no more revenue than it would if the Bush tax cuts were simply made permanent. This would lead to the deficit increase illustrated by the light blue bars in the graph above from CBO’s report.

Bush Tax Cuts Among the Least Effective Ways to Stimulate the Economy

In a sane world, lawmakers would focus on increasing employment until the economy has improved enough for the U.S. to tackle deficit reduction, and many economists agree that almost any measure would do more to stimulate job creation than making the Bush tax cuts permanent.

For example, the noted economist (and former adviser to John McCain) Mark Zandi has concluded that for every dollar of revenue the federal government would lose from making permanent the Bush income tax cuts, U.S. economic output would increase by only 35 cents. On the other hand, he finds that for every dollar the federal government spends on increased food stamps, work share programs, or unemployment benefits, U.S. economic output would increase by $1.71, $1.64, and $1.55 respectively.

Debt Ceiling Needs to Be Raised Because Tax Cuts Increased the Debt

The statutory debt ceiling, first enacted in 1917, was an attempt by Congress to make borrowing easier because lawmakers decided their previous process of approving each bond issued was unwieldy. Little did they know that future Congresses would not increase the ceiling when necessary. Remember, the national debt rises only because Congress already enacted spending increases or tax cuts that could not be paid for, so it’s pretty illogical for the same Congress to then refuse to borrow the money necessary to meet those obligations or even pay holders of existing U.S. debt. This would cause the much-feared default that would send markets into chaos.  

The debt ceiling is like a limit on your credit card – if you could set that limit yourself. What makes the Republican position so bizarre is that it would be as if you spent a thousand dollars on such a credit card and then decided to set your own credit limit at less than $1,000!

Boehner and his allies on the Hill have consistently refused to acknowledge this. For example, they demanded in 2010 that the Bush tax cuts be extended for two years for even the wealthiest taxpayers, increasing the national debt by over half a trillion dollars, along with other tax cuts. (Two thirds of the tax cuts in that “compromise” went to the richest fifth of Americans and a fourth went to the richest one percent.)  

Then, in 2011, House Republicans decried the size of the national debt and threatened to reject a needed increase in the debt ceiling unless federal spending was cut by an equal amount.

2011 Debt Ceiling Deal Worse than Useless

After months of negotiations, President Obama largely capitulated by agreeing to a deal that would cut spending by around $2 trillion but raise no revenue. That 2011 deal allowed the needed increase in the debt ceiling and put in place automatic across-the-board spending cuts on defense and non-defense spending that, it was believed, would encourage Congress to find a more well-thought-out alternative to reduce the deficit.

Boehner’s House Republicans have already tried to undo that deal. The budget plan developed by Republican budget chairman Paul Ryan and passed by the House would cut safety-net programs for the poor while further cutting taxes for the very rich.

Now Speaker Boehner calls for a repeat of the battles over extending the Bush tax cuts and increasing the debt ceiling.

Obama Would Extend “Only” 78 Percent of Bush Tax Cuts

The strange thing is that President Obama’s approach to the Bush tax cuts is not that far off from the GOP approach. While Boehner and other Congressional Republicans demand that all the Bush tax cuts be extended, the President and his allies in Congress propose to extend the Bush tax cuts for the first $250,000 a married couple makes, and the first $200,000 an unmarried taxpayer makes. This comes to about 78 percent of the cost of extending the tax cuts entirely. If anything, President Obama’s proposal would extend far too many of the Bush tax cuts.

The fast moving developments over tax and budget policy in Kansas are mostly political, but the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) has generated three separate analyses of recent proposals that helped inform the policy debates.  

ITEP found the most recent compromise plan from a House-Senate joint committee would cost roughly $680 million and give the wealthiest one percent of Kansans a $20,000 tax break they don’t need. Earlier in the week, ITEP offered guidance on how to craft a new plan after the Kansas House pre-empted a Senate vote on a slightly less costly tax cut proposal. ITEP’s conclusion that this less costly proposal would raise taxes on low income Kansans and cost $600 million forced a public debate on the costs and benefits of all the bills drafted to comply with Governor Brownback’s goal of cutting – and ultimately eliminating – the state’s income tax.

All of our Kansas news is here.

Facebook® co-founder Eduardo Saverin is facing mounting public scorn for renouncing his US citizenship, presumably to save some tax money (which he says is not the case). There are even two US Senators after him! He left in September but the pile-on is happening this week because of Facebook’s Initial Public Offering (IPO) of its stock: Saverin’s share will be worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $4 billion.

Saving Capital Gains Taxes
If Eduardo Saverin were a US citizen and sold his stock, most of that income would be subject to special low rate capital gains taxes of 15 percent (or 20 percent in future years if the new rate goes into effect January 1 as scheduled). By renouncing his citizenship, Saverin avoids paying those current and future capital gains taxes (and he would never have to pay the full income tax rate that Facebook employees exercising their stock options will be paying), but he does have to pay an "exit tax" (see below). Saverin now lives in Singapore, which doesn’t have a capital gains tax. 

Lowering the “Exit Tax”
When wealthy Americans give up their citizenship, they must pay an “exit tax” which treats all of their assets as if they’d been sold for fair market value (the actual tax payment can be deferred until the assets are sold). The fair market value of publicly-traded stock is what it traded for that day; privately-held stock must be appraised.

A spokesman for Saverin said that he renounced his citizenship last September, well ahead of this week’s Facebook IPO. Therefore, the stock’s valuation for “exit tax” purposes was likely substantially below its expected $38 IPO value, allowing Saverin to reduce his exit tax cost.

Not Tax, But Financial Decision
According to a spokesman, Saverin is expatriating for financial, not tax reasons. He doesn’t mind paying tax, he says, he just dislikes the complicated rules. He claims that the US rules, like the recently enacted Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), are preventing him from making some foreign investments he’d like to make.

Why It Feels Like Treason
Saverin emigrated to the US with his family at age 13 when his name turned up on a list of potential kidnap victims in his native Brazil where criminal gangs target the children of wealthy citizens and hold them for ransom. In the US, not only was Saverin safe from such violence, but he benefited enormously from government investment in education, the court system, and the Internet. Would he be a billionaire today if his family had relocated somewhere else?

Farhad Manjoo, a fellow immigrant, wrote a brilliant post (one of many, including this one) on the IT blog PandoDaily about what Eduardo Saverin owes America (nearly everything) including, quite possibly, his life. Taxes are the least of it.

• On the controversial film tax credit front, movie goers should be thanking New Mexico taxpayers who gave away $22 million in tax credits to the Avengers movie – which has earned over $1 billion so far. The state doled out a total of $96 million in film tax credits last year.
• Stop the presses! There is public support for introducing corporate and personal income taxes in South Dakota. Read about it here.
• The list of tax cuts being promised by Indiana Gubernatorial candidate John Gregg continues to grow.  In addition to his earlier plan ,Gregg now promises to eliminate the corporate income tax for any company headquartered in Indiana, and to offer a variety of new “job-creation” tax credits to certain businesses, and to pay for it by asking online retailers to collect a sales tax from Hoosiers (despite the current governor’s agreement with Amazon.com to postpone such a tax until 2014).
• Yet another income tax cut proposal has been unveiled in Oklahoma, this time by Senate leadership.  In it, low-income families would fare poorly because it repeals the Earned Income Tax Credit and scales back the grocery sales tax credit.

In February, we noted that Facebook® will get huge federal and state income tax refunds and pay no tax for years to come because of an absurd tax break related to the stock options it granted to employees.

When employees exercise their stock options, they pay income tax on the difference between what they paid for the stock (its exercise price) and its fair market value (what it’s trading for). The employer, meanwhile, gets a tax deduction equal to the amount of that difference their employees report – even though the employer isn’t actually out any cash.

This week we have a vivid example of why this deduction makes no sense, and why Senator Carl Levin wants to see this loophole closed, too.

In February, Facebook estimated its tax deduction for the stock options it gave its employees to be $7.5 billion, based on the price of its soon-to-be publicly offered shares. But with its IPO price going up and up, the company has revised its estimated tax deduction. In documents filed with the SEC on May 15, Facebook now estimates the employee stock options that will be exercised in connection with the IPO will result in tax deductions for the company of $16 billion – more than twice their initial estimate!  This massive deduction will cost the federal and state governments about $6.4 billion in lost tax revenue.

The stock option loophole overall will cost the US treasury and taxpayers $25 billion over the next ten years. Surely there’s a better use of that money than making Mark Zuckerberg richer.

Photo of Facebook Logo via Dull Hunk Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

May 16, 2 PM UPDATE: The House has passed SB1302 and it now heads to Gov. O’Malley’s desk, where he is expected to sign it.

Maryland lawmakers are on the verge of bucking a national trend.  While most of the biggest state tax debates in 2012 have focused on proposals that would cut taxes and tilt state tax systems even more heavily in favor of the wealthy, Maryland appears poised to do exactly the opposite.  On Tuesday, the state Senate voted to raise tax rates and limit tax exemptions for single Marylanders earning over $100,000 and for married couples earning over $150,000 per year.  The House is expected to follow suit by passing the same bill (SB1302) as early as Wednesday.

If enacted into law, these changes will allow the state to avoid a variety of cuts to vital public services, as detailed by the Maryland Budget and Tax Policy Institute.  But in addition to improving the adequacy of Maryland’s tax system, a new analysis from our sister-organization, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), shows that the income tax changes contained in SB1302 would also lessen the unfairness of a regressive tax system that allows Maryland’s wealthiest residents to pay less of their income in tax than any other group.  Among ITEP’s findings:

• Because the income tax changes are limited to taxpayers earning over $100,000 or $150,000 per year, only 11 percent of Maryland taxpayers would face an income tax increase in 2012 as a result of SB1302.  (It’s worth noting, however, that increases in tobacco taxes, fees, and other provisions would affect additional taxpayers—though these increases make up just 3 percent of the bill’s total revenue.)
• 54 percent of the income tax revenue raised by SB1302 would come from the wealthiest 1 percent of state taxpayers—a group with an average income of nearly $1.6 million per year.  87 percent of the revenue would come from the top 5 percent of taxpayers.
• The changes in families’ income tax bills—even at the top of the income distribution—would be very modest.  After considering the "federal offset" effect, the tax increase faced by the top 1 percent of taxpayers would equal just 0.16 percent of their total household income, and taxpayers outside of the top 1 percent would face an even smaller increase.  Given the small size of these tax changes, Maryland’s tax system would undoubtedly remain regressive overall.
• The progressive nature of SB1302 means that it’s well suited to take advantage of the “federal offset” effect mentioned above, whereby wealthier taxpayers write-off their state tax payments and receive a federal tax cut in return.  17 percent of the revenue raised by SB1032—or $28 million in tax year 2012—would come not from Marylanders, but from the federal government in the form of new federal tax cuts for Maryland taxpayers.

See ITEP’s full analysis here.

• Michigan Governor Rick Snyder is voicing support for federal legislation that would allow states to collect sales taxes owed on purchases made over the Internet, but he has little interest in pursuing a state-level law that would allow Michigan to begin chipping away at the problem.

• The Gazette has an article about the failure of Maryland legislators to raise the gas tax during their recently concluded regular session.  It cites research from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) showing that the state’s gas tax rate would need to rise by 15.8 cents just to offset the last two decades of construction cost inflation.  In the article, Governor O’Malley explains the obvious: high gas prices caused lawmakers to delay this overdue reform, again.

• Legislators in New Hampshire were well on the way to eliminating a tax on internet access, until a flap between the House and Senate over other provisions in the legislation derailed it. Still, leadership in both chambers remain committed to eliminating the tax that appears on consumers’ broadband and wireless bills.  But the New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute (NHFPI) warns against eliminating the tax in a recent report which explains that $12 million in annual revenues are a stake, and that better, more targeted options for reducing taxes on New Hampshire families are available.

• This week, New Hampshire gubernatorial candidate Bill Kennedy came out with his own proposal to reduce property and businesses taxes and make up for the loss of those revenues by introducing a personal income tax in the state, which is one of nine states that doesn’t levy one. At the same time, the Granite State’s Senate is about to take up a radical and constraining proposal to amend their constitution to make sure no personal income tax can ever be levied. Stay tuned.

Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell wants to make tax reform a top priority during his upcoming (and final) year as Governor, according to the Associated Press (AP).  But while Virginia’s tax code is no doubt in need of reform, it’s hard to tell from the AP article what kind of change Virginians can realistically expect.

Virginia currently foregoes some $12.5 billion in tax revenue every year as a result of special breaks buried in the state tax code—almost as much as the $14.3 billion in annual revenues the Commonwealth takes in.  McDonnell said, “I think it’s time to take a look at all those tax preferences, both in income and sales, and see if there is not some way … we can save some money and put it into transportation.”

While such a development would be a positive one, McDonnell contradicts himself when he says that raising revenue is out of the question, and that the tax reform he has in mind might even reduce revenue overall.  Given that commitment, Virginians might expect the condition of their ailing transportation system to improve, but at a cost to other state services.

Moreover, there’s reason to be skeptical about how committed McDonnell really is to broadening the tax base.  While he’s right to point out that services like car repairs and pedicures should be subject to the state sales tax, his actual track record is not inspiring. Just two months ago, for example, McDonnell signed into law an expansion of a wasteful corporate tax giveaway that narrowed the tax base, despite very good reasons to doubt its effectiveness.

On transportation funding, too, McDonnell’s track record conflicts with his talk of tax reform. He has consistently refused to support tying—or “indexing”—the state’s stagnant gas tax rate to inflation, but now he says that “there may be a way to do that in the overall context of tax reform.”

That’s hardly a ringing endorsement of the idea, but at least it’s a start.  The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) recently found that only Alaska has gone longer than Virginia without raising its gas tax. And if Virginia lawmakers had indexed the state gas tax to construction costs the last time the tax was raised, annual revenues would be some $578 million higher.

But indexing by itself is not enough to fix the state’s legendary transportation problems.  Indexing helps prevent future construction cost increases from eating into gas tax revenue, but it doesn’t address the cost increases that have already occurred. According to ITEP, Virginia’s gas tax would have to immediately rise by 14.5 cents just to offset the last two and a half decades of transportation cost growth. 

But even if McDonnell believed the state’s gas tax needs to be raised and indexed, his opposition to raising any new revenue overall is almost guaranteed make his reform agenda bad for the state.  That’s because every dollar in new revenue McDonnell might generate for transportation would have to be offset with a dollar in tax cuts elsewhere in the budget—presumably from a tax that funds education, human services, public safety, and other core government functions.  The AP story says McDonnell sees a reformed tax code as his own legacy, but what about the legacy he leaves the Commonwealth?

Photo of Rand Paul via Gage Skidmore Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

House Ways and Means chair Paul Ryan’s budget proposal drew plaudits from some observers who didn’t notice its fundamental weakness: its utter failure to specify which tax “loopholes” it would close to pay for deficit reduction. As we’ve noted in the past, Ryan has a good reason not to disclose details on the tax side of his plan: they don’t add up. CTJ has shown that the Ryan plan’s promised top income tax rate of 25 percent would be insufficient to pay for federal spending at Reagan-era levels, let alone the current decade. 

Now, as details of Ryan’s plan emerge, it’s becoming clearer that its spending cuts are equally illusory, relying on alleged cost-saving measures that would likely cost more in the long term than they help right now. Case in point: Ryan’s plan to eviscerate the Census Bureau and eliminate its American Community Survey (ACS), an annual survey that provides a rapid-response supplement to the decennial Census.

As Businessweek notes, cuts to Census budgets in the past decade prevented Congress and the Obama administration from being able to quickly diagnose the scope of the financial sector’s collapse in 2007.  One expert observed, “The government saved $8 million, but how many trillions were lost as a result of not being able to see the crisis coming?”

Ironically, as the New York Times explains, the ACS itself was actually created as a sensible cost-cutting strategy, designed to provide more timely data than the decennial Census could.  Even the US Chamber of Commerce has vocally opposed further cuts to Census funding because it helps businesses large and small to inform their planning.  Which is why top conservative policy think tanks support the ACS, too.

An adequately funded Census Bureau is the best vehicle we have for finding a path to sustained economic growth for all of us; there is widespread agreement that without its data, we will be flying blind.

• Rhode Island lawmakers are considering legislation that would help the state better evaluate the nearly $1.6 billion in special tax breaks it hands out every year.  The way the bill couples evaluations of the tax expenditures and sunsets (i.e. expiration dates on tax breaks) is closely in line with what commissions in Massachusetts and Oklahoma have recently proposed.  Testimony from the Economic Progress Institute in support of the bill can be found here.

• Here’s a refreshing piece of news: A Texas judge has ruled that oil and gas companies can’t benefit from a special state sales tax break on equipment designed to aid manufacturers.  Southwest Royalties Inc. apparently tried to argue that removing oil from the ground should count as “manufacturing.”

• Good news in the Sooner State – new polling shows that Oklahomans oppose a regressive cut in the income tax rate, paired with tax credit reductions, by a 42-35 percent margin.  If education cuts are used to pay for the tax cut, the margin of opposition grows to a whopping 81-16 percent.  Oklahoma lawmakers are seriously considering a variety of income tax proposals that would likely require cuts in both tax credits and education spending, so let’s hope that they stop to listen to their constituents first.
• The details of the coming Maryland tax package that we mentioned earlier this week are beginning to take shape.  The Washington Times reports that income taxes will likely be raised on families earning over $100,000 per year, in a manner very similar to what lawmakers almost enacted at the end of the regular session. More as it happens.

• Last Friday, Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton vetoed a tax plan passed by the legislature which would have frozen statewide business property taxes permanently– and cost the state over $2 billion. He called the bill “fiscally irresponsible.” Thursday the Minnesota legislature gave approval to a smaller tax package that, among other things, only froze business property taxes for a single year.  Though the scaled down version is now on its way to the Governor's desk, the  Minnesota Budget Project  writes that the fate of this bill is up in the air:  “The bill may not receive Governor Dayton’s signature, as it still draws upon the state’s budget reserve and adds to future deficits, two things that he has opposed throughout the legislative session.”

It’s no longer news to most Americans that big, profitable corporations from Apple to General Electric are finding creative ways to zero out their income taxes.  Two widely cited recent reports on federal and state taxes from CTJ and ITEP identified dozens of companies that have achieved this dubious goal.

But the big news out of Illinois this week is that at least in the Land of Lincoln, lawmakers are taking positive steps towards doing something about rampant corporate tax avoidance. A bill introduced Wednesday by Senate President John Cullerton would require publicly traded companies to make available some basic information about the amount of state income taxes they pay, and specify which tax breaks reduced their taxes. The bill would also require companies to disclose their profits generated in Illinois, making it easy for lawmakers and the public to know whether these companies are really paying tax at the legal rate.

While the bill was approved by a Senate committee and sent to the Senate floor on Wednesday, its prospects for passage this year remain murky. And identifying the beneficiaries of unwarranted tax breaks is obviously only a first step towards repealing those tax breaks. But this legislation, along with a similar bill championed by the California Tax Reform Association in the Golden State, likely represents the beginning of a shift toward more transparency in corporate taxation—and that can only lead to improvements in the fairness of our overall corporate tax system.

Right now virtually every state (there are a few signs of hope) fails to disclose even the most basic information about corporate tax breaks. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities’ Michael Mazerov has the dirt on how your state can move in the right direction, as does the encyclopedic Good Jobs First.

Photo from Senator Cullerton's legislative website.

The CEOs of 18 large corporations have published an open letter to the Treasury Secretary seeking to extend tax breaks on investment income that overwhelmingly benefit the very wealthy. Barring Congressional intervention, these special breaks for capital gains and dividends will expire at the end of this year, along with all of the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts.

In an era when fiscal austerity is a reality in America, what makes this request even more obscene is that of these 18 CEOs, four of them head corporations which have paid less than zero in federal income taxes in recent years, in spite of consistent profits.  Another two barely paid any, and another five have paid well below the statutory 35 percent corporate tax rate. In fact, among these CEOs is Lowell McAdam of Verizon, one of the most notorious tax dodging companies in the U.S.  

The 11 corporations among the 18 that have paid less than the legal federal income tax rate are:

Gale E. Klappa, Wisconsin Energy Corp. — Average Negative 13.2% tax rate 2008-11
David M. McClanahan, CenterPoint Energy — Average Negative 11.3 tax rate 2008-11
Lowell McAdam, Verizon Communications Inc. — Average Negative 3.8% tax rate 2008-11
James E. Rogers, Duke Energy Corp. — Average Negative 3.5% tax rate 2008-11
Benjamin G.S. Fowke III, Xcel Energy — Average 1.0% tax rate 2008-10
Gerard M. Anderson, DTE Energy Co. — Average 0.2% tax rate 2008-11
Gregory L. Ebel, Spectra Energy Corp. — Average 13.6% tax rate 2008-10
Thomas A. Fanning, Southern Co. — Average 17.4% tax rate 2008-10
Glen F. Post III, CenturyLink Inc. —Average 23.5% tax rate 2008-10
Thomas Farrell II, Dominion Resources Inc. — Average 24% tax rate 2008-10
D. Scott Davis, United Parcel Service — Average 24.1% tax rate 2008-10

To bolster their case, these CEO’s are parroting the common claim that ending special preferences for dividends and capital gains (both of which are predominantly held by the wealthy) will depress economic activity. History shows this is not the case.

The fact is, about 85 percent of the expiring tax breaks for capital gains and dividends go to the richest five percent of Americans; most people won’t even notice if they expire.

The fact is, two thirds of all dividends are not subject to any personal income tax because they go to tax exempt entities rather than individuals.

Why is it that when corporate CEOs speak out on tax issues, they are treated like objective financial experts, as if they had no agenda other than job growth? You only have to think for a moment to realize that CEOs, for starters, typically own substantial amounts of stock in the companies they head, so in asking for reduced taxes on investment income, these 18 CEOs are pushing for substantial personal tax cuts for themselves – on top of the huge tax breaks their companies already receive.  Futher, the corporate boards who hire and fire these CEOs are populated by the super rich who’d benefit from things like capital gains tax breaks, so they are also serving their bosses.

These 18 captains of industry are part of an ongoing and well financed effort to limit taxes on business and on the rich. Why? Because it serves their interest. Our media and lawmakers need to bear that in mind.

Governor Terry Branstad has made “reforming” (cutting) the property taxes paid by Iowa businesses a top priority since taking office. The good news is that his latest proposal to accomplish that goal seems to have fallen short; unfortunately, this one was coupled with an increase in the state’s earned income tax credit (EITC), so it also fell by the wayside.

Last year we explained that Branstad’s first 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). The plan was estimated to cost as much as $500 million annually, but it ultimately failed.

On Tuesday, a Senate bill which offered a targeted property tax credit aimed at small businesses (and in some cases offering more relief to businesses than the Governor’s original proposal) was also narrowly voted down, 24-23. The Senate refused to even vote on a more costly tax cut proposal that passed the House, which would have assessed commercial property taxes at 90 percent of their actual value for tax purposes, taking effect over five years. Reports point to effective lobbying by cities and towns whose leaders came out against drastic cuts to business property taxes. One county, for example, stood to lose $7.3 million in just one year.

Governor Branstad is not giving up, though, and called on Iowans to vote out any legislator who voted against these business tax cuts. For now, it appears that counties and cities can breathe a sigh of relief. The same is not true, however, for the working poor who rely on the EITC to fill gaps in their household budgets; any increase in their tax credit won’t come around again until next year, either.

Republican leaders in the Senate claim that they agree with the Democrats’ goal of extending a temporary reduction in interest rates on student loans, but oppose the Democrats’ proposal to offset the costs. But this proposal, which would close the “Newt Gingrich/John Edwards Loophole” used by owners of “S corporations” to avoid payroll taxes, is a reason to support the Senate Democrats’ bill, which was filibustered by Senate Republicans on Tuesday.

CTJ’s recent report on revenue-raising options explains the loophole (on pages 17-18) and explains a proposal from Congressman Pete Stark to close it. The Senate Democrats’ proposal to close the loophole is a little weaker (as explained below) but still certainly deserves support.

Income from work, including wages and salaries, is subject to federal payroll taxes (Social Security taxes and Medicare taxes). Some wealthy individuals, including (at one time) former presidential candidates John Edwards and Newt Gingrich, have used a loophole to make their earned income appear to be unearned income, in order to avoid payroll taxes. (This is particularly true of the Medicare tax because there is no cap on the amount of earnings subject to the Medicare tax.)

The scheme involves a type of business called an “S corporation,” which is distinguished from other corporations in that its profits are not subject to the corporate income tax but are simply included in the taxable income of the owners and therefore subject to the personal income tax. These profits should also be subject to payroll taxes when they are income from work, but an odd feature of S corporations allows some “active income” (income a business owner receives as a result of being involved in the operations of the business) to be characterized as income that is not earned and thus not subject to payroll taxes.

This is an invitation for abuse, and John Edwards accepted the invitation when he was a trial lawyer. He claimed that his name was an asset and that this asset (rather than his labor) was generating the income for his firm (which was an S corporation). Newt Gingrich’s recently released tax returns demonstrated that he, too, took advantage of this loophole.

To be sure, the Senate Democrats’ proposal doesn’t go as far as it should. It would apply the Medicare tax to this income only when the S corporation is “a professional service business in which more than 75% of its gross revenues come from the service of 3 or fewer shareholders.” The proposal is more restrictive than Congressman Stark’s bill in that it would apply to S corporation owners only if their adjusted gross income exceeds $250,000. It’s hard to see why anyone at any income level should be allowed to get away with this.

Nonetheless, the Senate Democrats’ proposal certainly sounds like it would, if in effect, have prevented John Edwards and Newt Gingrich from using this loophole to avoid payroll taxes. And that’s a reason to support the legislation, which may come up for a vote again according to Democratic leaders.

Photo of Newt Gingrich and John Edwards via Gage Skidmore and SS Kennel Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley announced that he will call a special legislative session to start next week.  Lawmakers are widely expected to pass a progressive income tax package in order to avoid massive “doomsday” budget cuts.

Tennessee’s inheritance tax will be eliminated beginning in 2016.  Legislators recently sent Governor Haslam a bill repealing the tax, seduced by bogus claims about the economic benefits of repeal.  Lawmakers also passed two other notable tax cuts: one repealing the gift tax (which The Commercial Appeal says will benefit Gov. Haslam himself, along with other wealthy taxpayers), and another cutting the state sales tax on groceries by a quarter of a percent.

The gubernatorial race in Washington State is heating up and costly tax expenditures are getting long overdue attention from the candidates. But as this piece in the Seattle Times highlights, eliminating spending programs embedded in the tax code is easier said than done.  Read CTJ’s advice for how to do it here.

Finally, check out this timely column describing why Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton should veto a bill passed by the legislature under the guise of job creation. (Hint - it’s really a massive tax cut for business.)

• Florida Governor Rick Scott is attending grand openings of 7-Eleven® stores but a columnist at the Orlando Sentinel observes that “if incentives and low corporate tax rates were working, Florida wouldn't rank 43rd in employment.”  It’s a common sense column worth reading.

• As another massive tax cut for Michigan businesses continues to make its way through the legislature, the Michigan League for Human Services chimes in with a report, blog post, and testimony on why localities can’t afford to foot the bill for state lawmakers’ tax-cutting addiction.
• Bad tax ideas abound in Indiana’s gubernatorial race.  Democratic candidate John Gregg wants to blast a $540 million hole in the state sales tax base by exempting gasoline; he claims he can pay for it by cutting unspecified "waste" from the budget. And Gregg’s Republican opponent, Mike Pence, doesn’t seem to have any better ideas.  So far he’s only offered a "vague proposal" to cut state income, corporate, and estate taxes – without a way to pay for those cuts.

• Kansas lawmakers are feverishly working to meld differing House and Senate tax plans into a single piece of legislation. Governor Sam Brownback has endorsed an initial compromise which includes dropping the top income tax rate and eliminating taxes on business profits. Earlier in the week the Legislative Research Department said the plan would cost $161 million in 2018 and new state estimates say the price tag is more like $700 million in 2018.  Senate leaders have said that they aren’t likely to approve a tax plan that creates a shortfall in the long term. Stay tuned....

• Finally, a USA Today article should give pause to lawmakers hoping that drilling and fracking for natural gas leads to a budgetary bonanza.  It explains how the volatile price of natural gas is creating headaches in energy-producing states like New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Wyoming where a dollar drop in the commodity’s price means a budget hit of tens of millions.

Much of the spending that Americans see in their daily lives is the work of state and local governments, which build the roads, bridges and schools, and hire and train the teachers and police officers. In many ways, the most overlooked aspect of the debate over federal tax reform is the ways in which Congress might help — or seriously hinder — state and local governments from raising the revenue needed to pay for these public investments.

In response to a hearing held on this topic by the Senate Finance Committee, ITEP’s executive director Matthew Gardner submitted written testimony exploring this point. The testimony explains, for example, that the federal income tax deduction for state and local taxes has many justifications that do not apply to other tax expenditures. It also explains that President Obama’s Build America Bonds program would improve upon an existing federal subsidy (for state and local governments that borrow to finance capital investments) so that it will no longer provide a windfall to high-income individuals and corporations.

The testimony also addresses proposals to regulate state and local taxing power. Some of these proposals would facilitate efficient and fair tax collection (like the Marketplace Fairness Act, which is geared towards solving the internet sales tax problem). Others would simply restrict taxes and make taxes more complicated at the behest of corporate lobbyists (like the so-called “Business Activity Tax Simplification Act”).

While these proposals and details might sound awfully arcane, they ultimately will influence issues that are very central in our daily lives — like the class size in your neighborhood school or the length of your commute on local roads and highways.

In a span of less than two weeks, commissions in two very different states – Massachusetts and Oklahoma – have issued remarkably similar recommendations on how to deal with the slews of special tax breaks that evade scrutiny and accountability year after year, budget after budget. As CTJ has pointed out, state budget processes are essentially rigged in favor of tax breaks (loopholes, subsidies) and as a result it’s become far too easy for lawmakers to enact (and extend) tax giveaways for virtually any purpose imaginable.

In Massachusetts, the Tax Expenditure Commission just released eight recommendations designed to deal with this very problem.  According to the Commission, lawmakers should clearly specify the purpose of all tax breaks (or “tax expenditures”) so that analysts can begin evaluating their effectiveness on an ongoing basis and providing realistic policy recommendations to lawmakers.  The Commission further urged that those evaluations be carefully timed to coincide with the state’s normal budget process, and even suggested that some tax expenditures be scheduled to sunset (or expire) so that lawmakers are forced to debate those breaks after the evaluations are complete and the facts are out.

In Oklahoma, the Incentive Review Committee recently released its set of recommendations dealing with one category of tax expenditures in particular: those ostensibly aimed at spurring economic development.  As in Massachusetts, the Oklahoma Committee said that lawmakers need to more clearly articulate the purpose of tax breaks, and that evaluations of those breaks should be done in a rigorous and ongoing fashion. One of the Oklahoma Committee’s more important recommendations might sound obvious at first, but it’s actually often overlooked: good evaluations take time and resources, and the state should adequately fund whichever department is charged with completing the evaluations.

Jon Stewart hilariously skewered the phrase “spending reductions in the tax code” as another way of saying taxes need to be raised. These tax commissions (as well those in Minnesota, Missouri, and Virginia), tasked with realistically assessing state budgets, are forcing Americans to recognize that spending through the tax code exists and that it requires the same level of scrutiny as spending through government programs, as previously outlined by CTJ.

The history of states subsidizing professional sports stadiums with taxpayer dollars is long and, increasingly, controversial. Maryland provided nearly one hundred percent of the financing for the Orioles’ and Ravens’ shiny new facilities in the 1990s. In 2006, the District of Columbia subsidized the Washington Nationals’ new stadium at a cost to taxpayers of about $700 million.  And even though most stadiums are, in the long run, economic washes at best, losers at worst, there are still politicians willing to throw money at them.

Minnesota legislators, for example, are currently grappling with how to fund a new stadium for the Vikings in response to threats that the franchise may leave the state.  But before the legislature gives away nearly a billion dollars, State Senator John Marty raises some excellent points about the math, and morals, behind the proposed taxpayer subsidies for the stadium:

“The legislation would provide public money in an amount equivalent to a $77.30 per ticket subsidy for each of the 65,000 seats at every Vikings home game. That's $77 in taxpayer funds for each ticket, at every game, including preseason ones, for the next 30 years.… Public funds can create construction jobs, but those projects should serve a public purpose, constructing public facilities, not subsidizing private business investors. The need to employ construction workers is not an excuse to subsidize wealthy business owners, especially when there is such great need for public infrastructure work.” 

In  Louisiana, the House of Representatives has gone ahead and approved a ten-year, $36 million tax subsidy  to keep the state’s NBA team, the Hornets, in New Orleans until 2024. Some are asking if the state can really afford it given a $211 million budget gap.  Representative Sam Jones noted that while the state has cut health and education spending, it still found a way to come up with millions of dollars to help out the ”wealthiest man in the state.” That would be Tom Benson, owner of not only the Hornets but the legendary New Orleans Saints football team, whose net worth is $1.1 billion dollars.

In California, however, a different scenario is unfolding. Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson just abandoned negotiations with owners of the city’s NBA team, the Kings.  The Kings organization was unwilling to put up any collateral, share any pre-development costs, or commit to a more than a 15 year contract; this would have left the city shouldering all the costs – and all the risks – for developing the $391 million downtown facility.  Mayor Johnson said he’d offered everything he could to the team and it still wasn’t enough, so he pulled the plug. 

Given the high cost and low return (including in terms of jobs) that sports facilities generate, more leaders should follow Minnesota’s Marty and Sacramento’s Johnson and stand up for the taxpayers who pay their salaries.

(Thanks to Field of Schemes and Good Jobs First for keeping tabs on these subsidies!)

Remember the Tea Party? Well, freshman Kentucky Senator Rand Paul is living up to his reputation as the darling of the Taxed Enough Already movement that shook the 2010 elections. 

Rand Paul, son of Libertarian firebrand and GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul, is currently blocking the Senate’s ratification of an amendment to the US-Swiss tax treaty, apparently worried about the right of tax evaders to financial privacy. He says the language is too “sweeping” and might jeopardize US constitutional protections against unreasonable search and seizure. But as one former Treasury Department official said, Paul's move “smacks of protecting financial secrecy for those who may have committed criminal tax fraud in the US.”

The US and Swiss governments renegotiated their bilateral tax treaty as part of the 2009 settlement of the UBS case. That case charged the Swiss mega-bank UBS with facilitating tax evasion by US customers. Under the settlement agreement, UBS paid $780 million in criminal penalties and agreed to provide the IRS with names of 4,450 US account holders.

Before it could supply those names, however, UBS needed to be shielded from Swiss penalties for violating that country’s legendary bank-secrecy laws. The renegotiation of the US-Swiss tax treaty addressed that problem by providing, as most other recent tax treaties do, that a nation’s bank-secrecy laws cannot be a barrier to exchange of tax information.

Many tax haven countries were hiding behind their bank secrecy laws to deflect requests for account holder information, and the IRS and Justice Department have been investigating 11 Swiss financial institutions on criminal charges of facilitating tax evasion.

The Senate must ratify the treaty changes – which is normally a routine procedure.

By blocking the ratification, Senator Paul is holding up the exchange of information in the UBS case (and others) and hampering IRS efforts to crack down on tax evasion by Americans.

Tax evasion by individual taxpayers is estimated to deprive the US Treasury of as much as $70 billion per year (corporate offshore tax avoidance is estimated to cost the Treasury an additional $90 billion per year).

Given Senator Paul’s obvious concern about the deficit, he might have a hard time explaining to honest American taxpayers how he justifies protecting tax evaders with Swiss bank accounts as the deficit grows ever larger.

Photo of Rand Paul via Gage Skidmore Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

• Kansas Governor Brownback’s insistence on steep tax cuts has met more resistance.  A group called Traditional Republicans for Common Sense has come out against  even a watered down version of Brownback’s vision in the legislature. One of the group’s members (a former chair of the state’s GOP) said, “Now is not the time for more government intervention. Topeka needs to stay out of the way and make sure proven economic development tools – like good schools and safe roads – remain strong so that the private sector can thrive.” 

• Stateline writes about the problems with “the spending that isn’t counted” – meaning special breaks that lawmakers have buried in state tax codes.  The article highlights efforts in Oregon and Vermont to develop more rational budget processes where tax breaks can’t simply fly under the radar year after year.  CTJ’s recommendations for reform are in this report.

• In this thoughtful column, South Carolina Senator Phil Leventis writes, "I have been guided by the principle that government should invest in meeting the needs and aspirations of its citizens. This principle has been undermined by an ideology claiming that government is the cause of our problems and, accordingly, must be starved.” He praises tax study commissions and says being “business friendly” cannot be the only measure of state policy.

• An op-ed from the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center (PBPC) calls on lawmakers to address the issue of rampant corporate tax avoidance, and to do so responsibly. It raises concerns that legislation currently under consideration to close corporate loopholes could be a “cure worse than the disease.”  The legislation takes some good steps but is paired with business tax cuts that could cost as much as $1 billion over the next several years.  PBPC argues for a stronger and more effective approach to making corporations pay their fair share such as combined reporting, which makes it harder for companies to move profits around among subsidiaries in different states.

• Just four days after Amazon agreed to begin collecting sales taxes in Nevada in 2014, the company announced a similar agreement with Texas that will take effect much sooner – on July 1st.  As The Wall Street Journal reports, “With the deal, the Seattle-based company is on track to collect sales taxes in 12 states, which make up about 40% of the U.S. population, by 2016.”
  
  

Picture from Flickr Creative Commons.

Political leaders love to claim fealty to the idea of “loophole-closing” tax reform, but refuse to provide details on the specific tax breaks they would eliminate. As we’ve recently noted, House Budget Chair, Rep. Paul Ryan, is one of the worst offenders when it comes to punting on specific tax breaks he’d eliminate. President Obama has also avoided naming closeable loopholes in his outline for corporate tax reform. Yes, lawmakers are glad to pose convincingly as advocates of tax reform without assuming any of the political risks involved with real loophole-closing reforms.

Earlier this month, presidential candidate Mitt Romney took a welcome departure from this pattern, signaled by the headline, “Romney Specifies Deductions He'd Cut.”  The presumptive GOP nominee told a Florida audience that his plans for tax reform included eliminating the second home mortgage interest deduction for high earners.

This is a perfectly sensible reform, and is one that many tax reform advocates on both sides of the aisle (most recently, President Bush’s tax reform commission) have agreed on.  It also allows us to take Romney’s tax proposals a bit more seriously, since he has said he plans to cut income tax rates by 20 percent and pay for it with (as yet unspecified) loophole-closing reforms.

A few days later, however, Romney’s campaign backed away from this reform after Newt Gingrich accused him of surrenderring to "class warfare rhetoric of the Left." This and other pushback from within his own party led one Romney surrogate to explain it this way: the candidate “was just discussing ideas that came up on the campaign trail” with some friendly donors.

This strategic retreat may make sense politically (think of all the second homes in battleground states), but it also puts Romney’s tax plan squarely in talk-is-cheap territory—asking all the easy questions but answering none of the hard ones.

Photo of Mitt Romney via Dave Lawrence Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0