Federal Tax Policy

Feb 8, 2016

Top 400 Taxpayers See Tax Rates Rise, But There’s More to the Story

As Americans were gathering party supplies to greet the New Year, the Internal Revenue Service released their annual report of cumulative tax data reported on the 400 tax r...

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Feb 4, 2016

Chlorine Bleach Plants Needlessly Endanger 63 Million Americans

Chlorine bleach plants across the U.S. put millions of Americans in danger of a chlorine gas release, a substance so toxic it has been used as a chemical weapon. Greenpeace’s new repo...

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Jan 25, 2016

U.S. Industrial Facilities Reported Fewer Toxic Releases in 2014

The Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) data for 2014 is now available. The good news: total toxic releases by reporting facilities decreased by nearly six percent from 2013 levels. Howe...

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Jan 22, 2016

Methane Causes Climate Change. Here's How the President Plans to Cut Emissions by 40-45 Percent.

UPDATE (Jan. 22, 2016): Today, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) released its proposed rule to reduce methane emissions...

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Requiem for Reform: Passing of a Presidential Panel

Oct 15, 2007 by Adam Hughes*

The world may little note, nor long remember what the President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform proposed in its Final Report of November 2005. That may be because the proposal was a mess, actually involving two sets of mutually exclusive, equally politically unpalatable reforms, even for the then-GOP-controlled Congress. It would have been DOA if it had ever formally arrived anywhere. In any event, the Bush administration has now quietly ended the existence of the Panel. So, these questions:

why even issue an executive order ending the life of the Panel?

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Wall Street Quick & Dirty on Carried Interest

Oct 12, 2007 by Dana Chasin

Got a Minute? OK, here's the CliffsNotes version Wall Street folk don't have much time for nonsense. Motley Fool ran an interview this week with private equity veteran Dan Primack of Thomson Financial entitled The Golden Age of Private Equity? Primack doesn't mince words: Motley: What is the current political spat about carried interest all about? Primack: Do you have a few hours? OK, here's the CliffsNotes version: Democrats want to raise taxes on private equity professionals. Republicans don't. The Democrats are right.

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Four-Year Internet Access Tax Ban Gains

Oct 11, 2007 by Dana Chasin

The House Judiciary Committee voted 38-0 yesterday to approve a bill extending the moratorium on the taxation of Internet access, due to expire Nov. 1, for four years, through November 2011. In an OMBW Watcher on the issue published yesterday, Internet Access Tax: The Immodest Moratorium, we noted House hyperbole about the impact of such a tax. The Judiciary Committee's ranking member, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) offered his own yesterday:

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Fiscal Responsibility Prevails in House Estate Tax Vote

Oct 11, 2007 by Dana Chasin

The reality of a $10 trillion national debt -- and the realization that a tax paid by the 30 thousand richest Americans (out of 300 million) helps contain it -- prevailed in yesterday's 212-196 House vote defeating a measure to repeal the estate tax. Not everyone sees it this way, of course. Among the unreconstructed fiscal ostriches is House Republican Whip Roy Blunt (MO), who commented after the vote that the estate tax is

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House Passes Repeal of Private Tax Collection Program!

Oct 10, 2007 by Matt Lewis

Great news- the House just passed HR 3056, which would repeal the program that privatizes tax collection. It won approval by 232-173 (roll call). The Bush administration says it will veto the bill. And the Senate has not begun serious work on a counterpart. But this is a necessary and big step forward nonetheless!

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Rangel Baffled by Reid, with Reason

Oct 10, 2007 by Dana Chasin

Or by Birnbaum, with an Assist by Industry Per this afternoon's Congress Daily ($) House Ways and Means chair Rangel (D-NY) spoke out about yesterday press reports (see our comment) that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has told industry officials that carried interest will not come before the Senate this year: I don't see how he could say that. ... It would be wrong to say that we're not looking at the discrepancy that exists between partnerships and corporations on the management of equity funds.

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Internet Access Tax: The Immodest Moratorium

With a federal moratorium on state and local Internet access taxes set to expire on Nov. 1, Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee Chair Daniel Inouye (D-HI) withdrew a bill on Sept. 27 that would extend the tax moratorium rather than face the likelihood members would approve a Republican-backed permanent moratorium. Inouye said a compromise among those seeking an extension of the moratorium and those proposing a permanent ban had not yet been worked out. There has been no formal action in the House to date, other than a full Small Business Committee hearing on Oct.

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House To Vote On IRS Private Tax Collectors

Oct 9, 2007 by Matt Lewis

This Thursday, the House is scheduled to take a floor vote on a bill to repeal the IRS private tax collection program.

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Carry the News -- How Interesting is This?

Oct 9, 2007 by Dana Chasin

The front page of today's WaPo has another Jeff Birnbaum job with "news" that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has privately told lobbyists he does not plan to bring a carried interest bill to the Senate floor this calendar year. First of all, this qualifies as news, let alone front-page above-the-fold news? Reid has been saying repeatedly for three months that he did not intend to bring such a bill to the full Senate in 2007.

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EJ Dionne's Column and A Rant About Fiscal Responsibility

Oct 5, 2007 by Matt Lewis

Not much to disagree with in E.J. Dionne's column on the war tax today. I wanted to highlight this passage, though: Would conservatives and Republicans support the war in Iraq if they had to pay for it? That is the immensely useful question that Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, put on the table this week by calling for a temporary war tax to cover President Bush's request for $145 billion in supplemental spending for Iraq.

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