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Tax Code Changes: Industry in the Cross Hairs

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Congressional Quarterly - By Joseph J. Schatz - Apr. 14 (News Analysis) - Energized by a global summit meeting two weeks ago where world leaders called for a crackdown on abusive tax havens, Congress seems likely this year to debate significant elements of the federal income tax code as it affects corporations. But it’s not likely to be the debate those companies had been hoping for.

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Offshore Tax Havens: A State-By-State Breakdown Of The Cost To Taxpayers

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Arthur Delaney - Apr. 15 (Special Report) - A Senate report estimated in 2008 that the United States loses up to $100 billion a year in tax revenue to offshore tax havens (PDF). In a report released Wednesday, the U.S. Public Interest Research Group offers a state-by-state breakdown of the cost to taxpayers of tax revenue lost to "shell companies and sham headquarters" in places like Switzerland and the Cayman Islands.

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Tax Code Changes: Wealth Transfer — Aggressively Progressive?

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Congressional Quarterly - By Richard Rubin - Apr. 16 (News Analysis) - But trying to achieve fairness through the tax code is neither simple nor economically risk-free. The income tax is a crude, imperfect tool that doesn’t address the underlying causes of income disparity. Additionally, the tax system’s complexity as well as the wide regional differences in the cost of living make it difficult for lawmakers to effectively define rich and poor using a single national income standard.

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No proposal to end taxes for seniors making less than $50,000

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

PolitiFact - By Angie Drobnic Holan - Apr. 16 (News Analysis) - President Obama's campaign pledge to end taxes for seniors making less than $50,000 has fallen off the radar. It wasn't part of the tax cuts in the economic stimulus bill, also known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. It wasn't in Obama's first budget outline, which was approved by Congress on April 2, 2009. And it's not part of any proposed legislation that we can find. Today, on Tax Day, Obama gave a speech in which he talked about his other tax promises and how he wants to reshape the tax code to make it simple and more efficient. But he never mentioned his promise of curtailing the income tax for seniors. The Obama administration has done other things for seniors. Thanks to the stimulus bill, for example, everyone who gets Social Security benefits will receive a $250 check from the government in May. But the bold promise to end taxes for seniors if they make less than $50,000 seems to be forgotten.

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Resenting the rich

Fri, 17 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Economist - By Saugato Datta - Apr. 17 (Poll) - (Online Debate) Vote on this question: This house believes that the rich should pay higher taxes. Do you agree with the motion? 51%voted yes 49%voted no

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Views of Income Taxes Among Most Positive Since 1956

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Gallup - By Jeffrey M. Jones - Apr. 15 (Poll) - A new Gallup Poll finds 48% of Americans saying the amount of federal income taxes they pay is "about right," with 46% saying "too high" -- one of the most positive assessments Gallup has measured since 1956. Typically, a majority of Americans say their taxes are too high, and relatively few say their taxes are too low.

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Tax Tea Party Time, Part Two

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Forbes - By Bruce Bartlett - Apr. 16 (Opinion) - many protesters implicitly assume that that the deficit has increased solely as a result of Barack Obama's policies. But in fact, the Congressional Budget Office was projecting a deficit of more than $1 trillion this year back in January, before any of Obama's policies had been enacted, and a cumulative deficit of $4.3 trillion through 2019. (CBO made no assumptions about what his policies might be in making its projection.)

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The Small-Business Myth

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - Apr. 14 (Editorial) - Small business is the cute puppy of American tax policy, along with its related breed, the family farm. nvoke small business, and the inevitable response is the policymaking equivalent of awwww, how sweet. Suggest that a proposed change might hurt small business, and you might as well be advocating torturing puppies. Now we like a cute puppy as well as the next editorial board, and we're all for small business, too. But the problem with the way this argument is deployed is that the facts often do not support the claims of harm.

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Offshore tax evaders face carrots, sticks

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Christian Science Monitor - By Brendan Conway - Apr. 14 (News Report) - With severe budgetary distress in Washington, the IRS is using both carrots and sticks to make those with illicit offshore bank accounts pay up an estimated $100 billion in unpaid annual taxes.

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Cable Wars Are Killing Objectivity

Mon, 20 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By David Carr - Apr. 20 (Opinion) - Apparently there is an ingredient in tea that causes hysteria when given to cable news anchors. How else to explain the coverage of the tax day tea parties on Wednesday, which was the day when we procrastinators finally mailed the check to the feds?

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Teabaggers Stray Off Topic, HuffPosters Report

Sun, 19 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - Apr. 19 (News Report) - While a majority of the protesters who attended tea parties across the nation convened to oppose to taxes, many conservatives viewed these gatherings as a platform to voice their other political grievances. Dan Diviney, one of over 2,500 HuffPost citizen reporters who signed up to cover the Tea Parties, found that pervasive griping about taxes served as a backdrop for other issues that elicited more vehement outrage from attendees; the majority of citizen reporters submitted dispatches that illustrated a similar environment at their local event.

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Tax Fantasies of the Right and Left

Fri, 17 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Steven Pearlstein - Apr. 17 (Opinion) - Unless we're prepared to make major cuts in spending on defense and entitlements -- and there is no evidence of a political will to do so -- there's no way to balance the budget and do everything the president wants without a modest increase in the share of national income that goes to taxes.

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At tax time, cases like Geithner's raise pointed questions

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Los Angeles Times - By Tom Hamburger, Ralph Vartabedian - Apr. 15 (News Analysis) - The Treasury secretary, who oversees the IRS, initially didn't pay all his taxes. Neither did five other top nominees for the Obama administration or their spouses. Now, as tonight's tax deadline looms, some Americans are rhetorically asking: What would have happened to me if I had done the same thing?

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First in War, First in Peace, and Saddled With a Costly, Underperforming Taxpayer-Funded Stadium

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Reason Magazine - By Nick Gillespie - Apr. 14 (Opinion) - More to the point, the Nationals were brought to the District of Columbia amid overhyped claims that bringing baseball back to the nation's capital, especially in a fancy new stadium that would have to be paid for by taxpayers, would jazz up the local economy like Marion Barry on crack (give the former and future mayor his due: For a while, he was against taxpayers footing the bill for the stadium). Where would the more than $600 million come from? It didn't really matter, did it, because the thing would be a license to print money, right?

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Tax Me, Tax Me!

Fri, 17 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

National Public Radio - By Dick Meyer - Apr. 17 (Opinion) - You want to hear some deeply wise and thoroughly counterintuitive wisdom from the crowd? How about this: Americans are perfectly happy with how much they are taxed.

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Would a payroll tax holiday boost economy?

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

MSNBC - By Tom Curry - Apr. 13 (News Analysis) - As the April 15 tax deadline approaches, two freshmen House members are offering a new version of a hardy tax code perennial: a six-month “holiday” from payroll taxes that they say would benefit both small businesses and the working poor. Under the bill offered by Rep. Aaron Schock, R-Ill., and Rep. Walt Minnick, D-Idaho, employers and employees of businesses with 50 or fewer workers would pay no Social Security and Medicare taxes for six months. Currently, both employers and employees are required to pay the 6.2 percent Social Security tax and the 1.45 percent Medicare tax throughout the year.

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Sales-Tax Revenue Falls at Fastest Pace in Years

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Wall Street Journal - By Conor Dougherty - Apr. 16 (News Report) - State and local sales-tax revenue fell more sharply in the fourth quarter of 2008 than at any time in the past half century, and has continued to erode through the beginning of 2009, according to a report released Tuesday.

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Social Security's Surplus Disappearing Fast

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Time - By Justin Fox - Apr. 13 (News Analysis) - A better reason for the lack of attention paid to the disappearance of Social Security's surplus may be that it's starting to seem like small change. My earlier worry about 2017 was that the country was going to have to find a way — through raising taxes or cutting spending — to make up for the $100 billion or so that Social Security had been handing over to the rest of the Federal Government annually. Now, with a budget deficit projected at $1.8 trillion this year, we've got far bigger fiscal issues to worry about.

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IRS workers see double standard on tax errors

Fri, 17 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Chicago Tribune - By Tom Hamburger, Ralph Vartabedian - Apr. 17 (News Report) - The Treasury secretary, who oversees the IRS, didn't pay all his taxes. Neither did five other top nominees for the Obama administration, or their spouses. Now, as Wednesday's tax deadline looms, some Americans are wondering why they should comply with the arcane requirements of the Internal Revenue Service when top administration officials failed to do the same. Even some IRS employees are upset at what they see as a double standard. The most criticized example has been Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who admitted not paying $34,000 in payroll and Social Security taxes, saying his failure to pay was an oversight. Five other nominees disclosed similar tax issues, including one as recently as two weeks ago when Kathleen Sebelius, President Barack Obama's pick for secretary of health and human services, admitted she didn't pay $7,040. "Our members are upset and angry," said Colleen Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, referring to concern bubbling up within the IRS over unusually strict rules that can cost agents their jobs if they make a mistake.

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Tax Day Becomes Protest Day

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Wall Street Journal - By Glenn Harlan Reynolds - Apr. 15 (Opinion) - Today American taxpayers in more than 300 locations in all 50 states will hold rallies -- dubbed "tea parties" -- to protest higher taxes and out-of-control government spending. There is no political party behind these rallies, no grand right-wing conspiracy, not even a 501(c) group like MoveOn.org.

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