Paul L. Caron
Dean
Pepperdine Caruso
School of Law
Think Tank Reports
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State Tax Revenues Rise for Sixth Consecutive Quarter
The Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government reported yesterday that state tax revenues increased for the sixth consecutive quarter, up 10.8% for the second quarter of 2011: Corporate income tax: +19.1% Personal income tax: +16.5% Sales tax: +2.9% The largest increase was in the Mid-Atlantic (+14.9%); the smallest increase was in the Southeast (+7.1%). State tax revenues rose in 49 states. Here are the states…
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AEI Hosts Are the Poor and Middle Class Actually Getting Poorer? Today
The American Enterprise Institute hosts a lunchtime program today on Are the Poor and Middle Class Actually Getting Poorer? Reassessing Prosperity Trends Since 1980 (webcast begins at 12:30 p.m.): Our current “Great Recession” has hit the poor and middle class hard, but does this short-term downturn in prosperity characterize the last three decades? Bruce Meyer…
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61% of Recipients Receive EITC for Two Years or Less
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, New Research Highlights Importance of EITC for Working Families: New research shows that a larger share of families than we might think turn to a key federal work support — the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) — but that most of them receive the credit for only a year…
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Dynamic Scoring, the Estate Tax, and the Supercommittee
American Family Business Foundation, Estate Taxes, Deficits and Budget Implications, by Stephen J. Entin: This paper reveals that lower estate taxes actually reduce more of the deficit over the long-term than do higher estate taxes, making an increased estate tax one of the worst policies the Super Committee could adopt. Unfortunately, efforts to eliminate or reduce…
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The Top 1%: Incomes Down, Taxes Up
Tax Policy Blog, An Overlooked 2-Year Trend: Incomes of Top 1% Decline While Effective Rates Increase: Top 1% of Taxpayers (at least $343,927 per year) Average AGI Per Year Average Tax Rate 2007 $4.9 million 22.45% 2008 $4.4 million 23.27% 2009 $3.9 million 24.01%
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TPC: Bottom 84% Would Pay More Under Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 Plan
Following up on yesterday’s post, Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 Plan: Tax Cut for Top 20%, Tax Hike for Bottom 60%: the Tax Policy Center has released a distributional analysis of the plan: Bloomberg, Cain 9-9-9 Plan Challenged as Raising Taxes for Lower Income CNN, 84% Would Pay More Under Cain’s 9-9-9 Plan The Hill, Tax Group: 9-9-9 Raises…
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CTJ: Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 Plan — Tax Cut for Top 20%, Tax Hike for Bottom 60%
Citizens for Tax Justice, Herman Cain’s “9-9-9 Plan”: If presidential candidate Herman Cain’s proposed “9-9-9 tax plan” was in effect today, then the richest 1% of taxpayers would each pay $210,000 less in annual taxes on average, while the poorest 60% of taxpayers would each pay about $2,000 more in annual taxes on average, than…
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Highest (and Lowest) State & Local Sales Tax Rates
Tax Foundation, Ranking State and Local Sales Taxes: 1 Tennessee 9.43% 2 Arizona 9.12% 3 Louisiana 8.84% 4 Washington 8.79% 5 Oklahoma 8.66% 6 Alabama 8.64% 7 Arkansas 8.50% 8 New York 8.48% 9 Illinois 8.27% 10 Kansas 8.26% 41 Wisconsin 5.43% 42 Wyoming 5.34% 43 Maine 5.00% Virginia 5.00% 45 Hawaii…
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Watchdogs Ask IRS to Investigate Tax-Exempt Status of 501(c)(4) Political Groups
The Campaign Legal Center and Democracy 21 sent this 23-page letter to the IRS today, challenging the tax-exempt status of Americans Elect, American Action Network, Crossroads GPS, and Priorities USA under § 501(c)(4): Section 501(c)(4) organizations are required to primarily engage in the promotion of social welfare in order to obtain tax exempt status. Court…
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CBPP: Supercommittee Should Include Tax Increases in Package
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, ‘Supercommittee’ Should Develop Balanced Package of Tax Increases and Spending Cuts: The new congressional committee on deficit reduction (the so-called “supercommittee”) not only can consider revenue increases, but must consider them — as well as spending cuts — if it’s going to produce a balanced plan. There are five…
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CTJ: The Need for the ‘Buffett Rule’
Citizens for Tax Justice, The Need for the “Buffett Rule”: How Millionaire Investors Pay a Lower Rate than Middle-Class Workers: This report shows why the Buffett Rule is sorely needed: The federal tax system taxes income from work at a much higher rate than income from wealth. Buffett’s effective tax rate of 17.4% is typical…
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Social Media and Tax Law for Nonprofits
Alliance for Justice, Influencing Public Policy in the Digital Age: The Law of Online Lobbying and Election-related Activities: This is an age of vibrant and rapidly evolving communication technologies. It’s the era of Facebook and Twitter and YouTube, Websites and blogs, smartphones and tablets. The way we share and consume information, and engage in interaction…
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Tax Foundation: U.S. Effective Corporate Tax Rate Is Among Highest in World
Tax Foundation, U.S. Corporations Suffer High Effective Tax Rates by International Standards: The U.S. currently lays claim to the second-highest statutory corporate income tax rate in the developed world. At 39.2%, the rate is only 0.35 percentage points behind OECD-leading Japan. Since 1997, 30 of the OECD’s 34 member nations have lowered their statutory rates…
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CTJ: Tax Issues in the Republican Debate and President Obama’s Jobs Speech
Just the (Tax) Facts: GOP Candidates Parade Terrible Tax Ideas, Huntsman Bucks Grover Norquist: "On Wednesday night, the GOP presidential candidates gathered at the Reagan Library for a particularly spirited debate in which candidates repeatedly turned back to tax policy. As with past debates, the GOP candidates attempted to rewrite tax history and reinforce their…
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Tax Portions of President Obama’s American Jobs Act
White House Fact Sheet Linda Beale (Wayne State), Obama's Jobs Act Plan David Brooks (New York Times), Stimulus for Skeptics Len Burman (Syracuse), Very Quick Thoughts on President Obama's Jobs Speech Michael Cohn (Accounting Today), Obama Calls for Tax Credits for Hiring in Jobs Bill J.D. Foster (Heritage Foundation), Doubling Down on Payroll Tax Holiday…
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Holtz-Eakin: Repatriation and Other Pro-Growth Corporate Tax Reform
U.S. Chamber of Commerce, The Need for Pro-Growth Corporate Tax Reform: Repatriation and Other Steps to Enhance Short- and Long-Term Economic Growth, by Douglas Holtz-Eakin: Policymakers are considering a temporary reduction in the taxes on foreign earnings brought back to the United States by its multinational corporations (“repatriation tax policy”). For example, H.R. 1834, the…
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Tax Foundation: What Do Corporations Pay in Income Tax?
Tax Foundation, Beyond the Headlines: What Do Corporations Pay in Income Tax?: A number of recent news stories and think tank reports have drawn attention to the amount of income taxes paid by large corporations. … To many Americans, such reports are an indication that the tax code is riddled with preferences that allow large…
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4,933 Jurisdictions in 17 States Impose a Local Income Tax
Tax Foundation, Local Income Taxes: City- and County-Level Income and Wage Taxes Continue to Wane: Most U.S. cities and counties do not impose a local income tax, but they are imposed by 4,933 jurisdictions in 17 states, encompassing over 23 million Americans. Varying from minute amounts in several states to an average 1.55% in Maryland,…
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25 Corporations Paid Their CEOs More Than They Paid the IRS
Institute for Policy Studies, The Massive CEO Rewards for Tax Dodging: Corporations don’t dodge taxes. The people who run corporations do. And these people — America’s CEOs — are reaping awesomely lavish rewards for the tax dodging they have their corporations do. In fact, corporate tax dodging has gone so out of control that 25…
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Progressive Think Tank Backs Corporate Tax Reform That Lowers Rates
Third Way, The Case for Corporate Tax Reform: High rates, low revenues, cash kept overseas, and thousands of pages of complexities—nothing about our corporate tax system seems to be working. Our corporate tax code is a relic, last substantially reformed in 1986—before the Internet, before the Euro, and before capitalist China. Many of America’s competitor…
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CTJ: Progressive Think Tank Ignored Data in Backing Repatriation Tax Holiday
Following up on yesterday’s post, Progressive Think Tank Backs Repatriation Tax Holiday: Citizens for Tax Justice, Data on Top 20 Corporations Using Repatriation Amnesty Calls into Question Claims of New Democrat Network: The twenty companies that repatriated the most offshore profits under the temporary repatriation amnesty enacted by Congress in 2004 now have almost triple…
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IZA: Tax Policy and Income Inequality in the U.S., 1978-2009
Institute for the Study of Labor (Bonn, Germany), Tax Policy and Income Inequality in the U.S., 1978-2009: A Decomposition Approach: We assess the effects of U.S. tax policy reforms on inequality by applying a new decomposition method that allows us to disentangle mechanical effects due to changes in pre-tax incomes from direct effects of policy…
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State-by-State Growth of High-Income ($200k/Year) Taxpayers
Tax Foundation, Growth of High-Income Taxpayers: These data show percentage growth of taxpayers earning over $200,000, minus the percentage growth of all taxpayers, over the decade-long period from 1999 to 2009. The $200,000 threshold is in nominal dollars, so all states will have had considerable growth, but the differences between the states demonstrate that certain…
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The Rich Already Pay More Than Their Fair Share of Taxes
Tax Policy Blog, Maybe the Rich Can Afford to Pay More Tax, But Should They?: As the following graph shows, in 2007 those households in the highest income quintile (the top 20%) had an effective tax rate of a little less than 15%. This has changed very little since 1986 or anytime in the 1980s. …
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Progressive Think Tank Backs Repatriation Tax Holiday
The think tank NDN today released The Revenue Implications of Temporary Tax Relief for Repatriated Foreign Earnings: An Analysis of the Joint Tax Committee’s Revenue Estimates, which estimates that a repatriation tax holiday would raise $8.7 billion of revenues over ten years, compared to the Joint Committee on Taxation’s recent estimate of a $78.7 billion…