NewsTrust - Taxes - Most Recent Stories: News (Independent)

Tax Code Woefully Out of Date on Energy Policy

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Miller-McCune - By Emily Badger - Sep. 18 (Special Report) - From 2002 through 2008, the U.S. federal government spent about $72 billion subsidizing fossil fuel industries, much of those benefits embedded in arcane tax codes written in another era, for a different kind of energy economy.

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Feds Build Criminal Cases Against US Tax Evaders

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

CNBC.com - By Lynnley Browning The New York Times - Aug. 14 (News Report) - Federal prosecutors are building criminal cases against 150 wealthy American clients of the Swiss banking giant UBS as part of a continuing investigation into tax evasion. In February, UBS agreed to pay $780 million to settle charges that it had helped American clients evade taxes on nearly $20 billion hidden in offshore accounts.

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US, Swiss Cement Deal On Secret UBS Bank Accounts

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Jessica Gresko - Aug. 12 (News Report) - The Swiss and U.S. governments announced a deal Wednesday to settle American demands for the identities of suspected tax dodgers, despite Switzerland's vaunted bank secrecy. But they kept all details under wraps, including how many of the 52,000 names sought by the IRS from banking giant UBS AG will be revealed.

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TARP IG Reports Underscore Need for Better Transparency in Financial Bailout

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

ombwatch.org - Jul. 29 (Investigative Report) - Two recent reports by the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP), Neil Barofsky, provide useful information and stand in sharp contrast to the Treasury Department's attempt to provide comparable transparency for the program, also known as TARP. One report clearly presents existing TARP information, while the other supplies new data that Treasury should be providing. In both cases, the reports highlight changes Treasury should make to how it conducts and presents TARP data. To date, TARP, the most prominent element of the larger initiative colloquially known as "the bailout," has been a relatively secretive program.

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French panel to recommend carbon tax on fuel

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

timesoftheinternet.com - Jul. 23 (News) - A French experts' panel is to recommend introducing a carbon tax on fuel from January 2010, as part of a government drive to slash global warming emissions, the group's head said on Wednesday.

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Ten Reasons Undocumented Should File Income Taxes

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New America Media - By Elena Shore - Jun. 22 (News Report) - Many undocumented immigrants see paying taxes as a catch-22 -- they need to file income tax returns if they are ever going to qualify for legalization, but they believe filing taxes may expose them to deportation.

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Northwest's biofuel boom goes bust ?

Sun, 07 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

OregonLive.com - By Scott Learn, The Oregonian - Jun. 07 (News Report) - The biofuel downturn has been a national phenomenon, Van't Hof noted. Oregon's plants are likely to be restructured under Chapter 11 proceedings or sold, not shuttered. And the federal plans for more biofuel use in coming years leave Oregon in a good position to capitalize as the industry grows, he said.

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The Real Tax Outrage

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Mike Papantonio - Apr. 21 (News Analysis) - The Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) found billions of dollars hidden in offshore corporate tax havens. This would no doubt upset the teabaggers to know that there is more than 100 billion dollars worth of tax shelters offshore created by many of Santelli's Wall Street pals. We don't have money to pay for schools, teachers, new roads, and health care, but billions of dollars are sitting in no-ask no-pay corporate tax shelters offshore.

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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 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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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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FreedomWorks' Long History Of Teabagging

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

Talking Points Memo - By Brian Beutlar - Apr. 15 (News Analysis) - We haven't written much about the Tea Party Movement, because it's always seemed fairly blown out of proportion. Conservatives compare it to an anti-tax version of the Iraq war protests, but those protests drew scores of thousands of people into the streets and the "tea parties" that have occurred thus far haven't been nearly that large.

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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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Pulp Nonfiction

Fri, 03 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Nation - Apr. 03 (News Analysis) - Thanks to an obscure tax provision, the United States government stands to pay out as much as $8 billion this year to the ten largest paper companies. And get this: even though the money comes from a transportation bill whose manifest intent was to reduce dependence on fossil fuel, paper mills are adding diesel fuel to a process that requires none in order to qualify for the tax credit.

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Tax clawbacks: doing it right

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Interfluidity - By Steve Randy Waldman - Mar. 18 (News Analysis) - ... a tax clawback does represent a kind of escalation. It sits awkwardly with norms and ideals that are less a matter of law than we think but that are nevertheless an important part of American political culture. In our better moments, we dislike "collective punishment" and try not to change the rules of the game out from under people midstream. On balance, I think the benefits of a well designed tax clawback could exceed its costs. But a poorly designed clawback would set a corrosive precedent for no other purpose than to salve and misdirect public rage.

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Energy Taxes and the Electric Grid

Fri, 16 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

The Oil Drum - Jan. 16 (News Analysis) - The tax code is not at all generous with respect to investments in the electric grid. The effective tax rate on these investments is very close to the unadjusted statutory tax rate of about 39%. If investment is to be encouraged in the electric grid, Dr. Metcalf believes that this tax rate must be lowered.

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Pelosi Parts With Obama Over Bush Tax Cuts

Thu, 08 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By Ryan Grim - Jan. 08 (News Report) - Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters Thursday that she wants to see the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy repealed "as early as possible." The call for repeal may place Pelosi at odds with President-elect Obama; during the campaign he called for repeal but his aides have since indicated that due to the deteriorating economy, he was leaning towards allowing them to expire.

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Tax Havens: The Hidden Hand in the Financial Crisis

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

American News Project - Jan. 07 (Special Report) - The financial crisis seems as if it emerged from nowhere and struck as hard and fast as lightning. How did so many financial institutions crumble with so little warning? There are many reasons, but one that has not been given much attention is how tax havens helped enable and how several of the big companies that have received billions of bailout dollars were also the most active in the shady world of offshore finance.

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Tax Cuts Still on Track

Sun, 28 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

3BlueDudes - Dec. 28 (News Report) - David Axelrod, Senior adviser and campaign manager to President-elect Barack Obama, said today that the ailing economy will not halt the effort by Obama to reduce taxes from the middle class, a key and critical campaign theme. According to Axelrod,

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Banishing The GOP's "Socialist" Boogyman

Fri, 31 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

NewsVine - By Killfile - Oct. 31 (News Analysis) - To suggest that Senator Obama's proposed tax structure falls towards the conservative end of American politics would be a gross understatement. Indeed the maximum marginal tax rate under the Obama plan, 36.9%, is a whopping 13.1 points lower than the marginal tax rate throughout Ronald Reagan's first term. Indeed, only the Wilson, Hoover and Bush Administrations have seen maximum income tax rates lower than those proposed by Senator Obama.

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Fox News' Carlson falsely asserted "roughly 40 percent" of Obama's tax plan "is a handout to people who do not pay taxes"

Wed, 29 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Media Matters - Oct. 29 (News Analysis) - Fox News' Gretchen Carlson falsely claimed that "roughly 40 percent" of Sen. Barack Obama's plan to cut taxes "is a handout to people who do not pay taxes." In fact, all American workers are required to pay taxes on their wages for Social Security and Medicare, and according to an Obama economic adviser, "every person that receives a tax cut under Barack Obama's plan is working."

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Spread the Tax Hooey!

Sun, 26 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

FactCheck - By Viveca Novak, Jess Henig - Oct. 26 (News Analysis) - Republicans are misrepresenting Obama's tax proposals right down to the bitter end. New radio ads from the McCain campaign and a TV spot from the pro-Republican group Let Freedom Ring are targeting voters nationwide with some of the same tax deceptions we've been hearing all fall, rolled in a bundle and flung through the airwaves. One of the radio ads features Hank Williams Jr., the other Florida Gov. Charlie Crist. But new packaging doesn't make the charges any less false.

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Why Obama Pulled Ahead on Economy

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

TruthOut - By Mark Weisbrot - Oct. 24 (News Analysis) - With millions of Americans facing foreclosure notices on their homes, insufficient and collapsed retirement savings, rising unemployment, falling real wages, and what is likely the worst recession for at least three decades - it's getting tougher to distract voters from the most important economic issues that affect their lives. Hence, the Republicans' bad luck in the polls.

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Obama's "Welfare"

Fri, 17 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

FactCheck - By Brooks Jackson - Oct. 17 (Special Report) - As we've said any number of times, what Obama proposes would not raise taxes on any "hard-working families" unless they make more than $250,000 a year, a very small fraction of families. Independent analysis has shown than 95 percent of families with children would see federal income taxes go down.

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