Paul L. Caron
Dean
Pepperdine Caruso
School of Law
Congressional News
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Senate Hearing on Distribution and Efficiency of Spending in the Tax Code
The Senate Budget Committee held a hearing today on Distribution and Efficiency of Spending in the Tax Code (video here), with these witnesses: Robert Greenstein (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities) Scott Hodge (Tax Foundation) Robert S. McIntyre (Citizens for Tax Justice)
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Senate Holds Hearing Today on Tax Reform
The Senate Finance Committee holds a hearing today on Does the Tax System Support Economic Efficiency, Job Creation and Broad-Based Economic Growth?. Here are the wtinesses scheduled to testify Alan Auerbach (UC-Berkeley) James K. Galbraith (University of Texas) Micheal Graetz (Columbia Law School) R Glenn Hubbard (Dean, Columbia Business School)
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Senators Introduce Taxpayer Receipt Act
Senators Scott Brown (R-MA) and Bill Nelson (D-FL) have introduced The Taxpayer Receipt Act of 2011 Under this bipartisan legislation, every taxpayer who files an income tax return would receive an itemized receipt – similar to a grocery store receipt – from the IRS that lists where their payroll and income taxes are spent. The receipt
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House Holds Hearing Today on Corporate Tax Reform and Small Businesses
The Subcommittee on Select Revenue Measures of the House Ways & Means Committee holds a hearing today on Corporate Tax Reform and Small Businesses. From the hearing announcement: ]Subcommittee Chairman] Pat Tiberi (R-OH) … announced that the Subcommittee will hold a hearing on the special burdens that the tax code imposes on small businesses and pass-through entities and the
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Senate Holds Tax Reform Hearing Today
The Senate Finance Committee holds a hearing today on How Did We Get Here? Changes in the Law and Tax Environment Since the Tax Reform Act of 1986. Scheduled to tetsify are five former Assistant Secretaries for Tax Policy: Fred T. Goldberg Jr. (1992) Jonathan Talisman (2000-01) Mark A. Weinberger (2001-02) Pamela F. Olson (2002-04)
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CRS: Tax Policy Options for Deficit Reduction
Congressional Research Service, Tax Policy Options for Deficit Reduction (R41641) (Feb. 18, 2011): This report analyzes various revenue options for deficit reduction, highlighting proposals made by the President’s Fiscal Commission and the Debt Reduction Task Force.
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Christopher Hanna Named Senior Policy Advisor to Senate Finance Committee
Christopher H. Hanna (SMU) has been named Senior Policy Advisor for Tax Reform on the minority staff of the Senate Finance Committee: He joins the Committee after serving as the Altshuler Distinguished Teaching Professor and Professor of Law at SMU, where he has received the Dr. Don M. Smart Teaching Award for excellence in teaching
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MSNBC Calls Congressmen Who Sleep in Their Offices ‘Tax Criminals’
Do Congressmen Who Sleep in Their Offices Receive a Taxable Fringe Benefit? (Feb. 12, 2011) Maule: The Tax Consequences of Congressional Sleepovers (Feb. 14, 2011) (Hat Tip: Michael Cahill.)
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Maule: The Tax Consequences of Congressional Sleepovers
Jim Maule (Villanova), Sleeping in An Office Might Be Taxable But Perhaps It’s Not: So, Do Congressmen Who Sleep in Their Offices Receive a Taxable Fringe Benefit?. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington thinks so. In a press release summarizing a letter to the Office of Congressional Ethics, CREW concludes, “[U]nder the Internal Revenue Code, members who
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CBO: Projecting Individual Income Tax Revenues
CBO, Improving CBO’s Methodology for Projecting Individual Income Tax Revenues: In preparing its annual report on the budget outlook, and updates to that report during the course of the year, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects revenues from the federal individual income tax. This background paper discusses two possible ways to use information about tax
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Do Congressmen Who Sleep in Their Offices Receive a Taxable Fringe Benefit?
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) has sent this letter asking the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) to investigate whether 33 members of Congress (7 Democrats and 26 Republicans. all men) who sleep in their offices are violating the tax law by failing to report the free lodging as a taxable fringe benefit. From CREW’s press
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CRS Releases Tax Reports
Open CRS has posted two tax reports: The Bush Tax Cuts and the Economy (R 41393) Reform of U.S. International Taxation: Alternatives (RL 34115)
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Senate Holds Tax Reform Hearing Today
The Senate Budget Committee holds a hearing today on Tax Reform: A Necessary Component for Restoring Fiscal Responsibility. Here are the witnesses scheduled to testify: Rosanne Altshuler (Rutgers University) Lawrence B. Lindsey (The Lindsey Group) Donald B. Marron (Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center) C. Eugene Steuerle (Urban Institute)
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CBO on Tax Expenditures
Congressional Budget Office, The Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2011 to 2021 96-97 (Jan. 26, 2011):
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Joint Tax Committee Releases List of Expiring Federal Tax Provisions, 2010-2020
The Joint Committee on Taxation today released List of Expiring Federal Tax Provisions 2010-2020 (JCX-2-11): This document … provides a listing of Federal tax provisions (other than those providing time-limited transition relief after the repeal of an underlying rule) that are currently scheduled to expire in 2010-2020 (with references to the applicable section of the Internal Revenue
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House Holds Tax Reform Hearing Today
The House Ways & Means Committee holds the first in a series of tax reform hearings today at 9:00 a.m.: The hearing will examine the economic and administrative burdens imposed by the current structure of the Federal income tax. It will explore the cost of complexity borne by American families, the cost of a corporate tax system
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Joint Tax Committee Releases Report on Federal Excise Taxes
The Joint Committee on Taxation yesterday released Present Law and Background Information on Federal Excise Taxes (JCS-1-11). Here is the Introduction: The Internal Revenue Code imposes numerous excise taxes on goods and services. In addition to excise taxes the primary purpose of which is revenue production, excise taxes also are imposed to promote adherence to other policies (e.g.,
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Man Arrested for Threatening to Kill Congresmman Because of His Tax Views
Charles Habermann, 32, of Palm Springs, California, was arrested yesterday for phone calls he made in December to the office of Representative Jim McDermott (D-WA), threatening to kill the congressman for, among other things, his position on extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. (Hat Tip: Jim Maule.) DOJ Press Release Bloomberg The Hill National
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Sen. Grassley Releases Review of Tax Issues Raised by Media-based Ministries
Senator Charles Grassley, Ranking Member of the Senate Finance Committee, yesterday released his review of tax issues raised by six media-based ministries. From his press release: Grassley wrote to six media-based ministries in November 2007, based on requests for review from members of the public who wrote to him because of his previous tax-exempt oversight
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New Republican House ‘Cut-Go’ Rules Take Business Tax Increases Off the Democratic Pay-Go Table
Bloomberg, Oil Companies, Buyout Firms Avoid Tax Hits With New House Rules: The oil companies, multinational corporations and private-equity managers that fought off tax increases over the past four years can breathe easier. New rules that the Republican-led House of Representatives will adopt today make it less likely that Congress will raise business taxes in
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Georgetown Names John Buckley Visiting Professor in Tax LL.M. Program
Georgetown has named John L. Buckley, Chief Democratic Tax Counsel, U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Ways and Means, as a visiting professor in the tax LL.M. program for the 2011-12 academic year: Buckley … has spent nearly four decades on the Hill participating in the development of federal tax legislation. He began his career as associate counsel in
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Fundamental Tax Reform in the 111th Congress
Chaka Fattah (Member, U.S. House of Representatives (D-Pa.)) has published Deja Vu All Over Again: Reexamining Fundamental Tax Reform and Evaluating the Feasibility of a Transaction Tax in the 111th Congress. 47 Harv. J. on Legis. 327 (2010). Here is the abstract: Few issues have been the subject of more conversation, debate, and frustration than
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Schmalbeck: With Tax Vote, Congress Will Have Blood on its Hands
Richard Schmalbeck (Duke), Protecting the Rich from Themselves: Unless Congress acts very quickly, there will be blood as the accidental estate tax “holiday” slouches toward expiration on December 31. Tax “holidays,” during which a tax is temporarily suspended, are questionable tax policy at best. But they are truly disastrous in the case of a tax
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Obama Tax Compromise Better for Low-Income Taxpayers Than Alternatives
Tax Foundation, Obama’s Tax Compromise and its Effects on Low-Income Taxpayers: With both the Bush-era tax cuts and stimulus tax cuts set to expire at the end of this year, Congress has been vigorously debating the future of federal tax policy. There has been little agreement on which cuts to extend, whom to extend them
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More on the Obama-GOP Tax Compromise
CCH, Special Briefing Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Unpacking the Senate Tax Cut-Unemployment Compromise Citizens for Tax Justice, Compromise Tax Cut Plan Tilts Heavily in Favor of the Well-Off Citizens for Tax Justice, Tax Extenders Study: Commitment to Tax Reform & Deficit Reduction Forbes, In Filibuster Of Obama Deal, Sanders Calls Estate Tax Proposal “Horrendous” (Hani