The Joint Economic Committee yesterday released two tax reports:

Press release:  U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer, Chairman of the Joint Economic Committee (JEC), released a state-by-state analysis revealing that free e-filing would save taxpayers and the federal government billions of dollars and reduces tax return errors dramatically. Online tax filing is clearly the easiest, cheapest, and most efficient way for Americans to pay their taxes, especially when this year the IRS projects that 62% of the 138 million U.S. taxpayers will file electronically. However, because the IRS made exclusive deals with private software companies, taxpayers are forced to pay to file their taxes electronically. The Joint Economic Committee analysis includes a state-by-state breakdown for how much taxpayers spent in 2007 to file their taxes online and also charts the progress of e-filing from 1995-2007.

Press release:  Senator Charles E. Schumer, Chairman of the Joint Economic Committee (JEC), and Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney, Vice Chair of the JEC, released a report showing that the Bush tax cuts have not benefitted middle income families and have saddled future generations with tremendous debt. The Bush tax cuts, which disproportionately benefit the top one percent of households, were initially justified with a series of dubious claims about their economic effectiveness. But the JEC paper, Extending the Bush Tax Cuts Is the Wrong Way to Stimulate the Economy, shows that the President’s tax policy has done little to stimulate the economy and guard against recession. The Bush tax cuts have had a negligible or negative impact on annual income growth for the vast majority of U.S. households.