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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Republicans Inch Toward Fiscal Responsibility

Jul 16, 2008 by Craig Jennings

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Senate Finance Committee ranking member Charles Grassley (R-IA), and a pair of their caucus members are promulgating ($) new language on legislation that would extend a bevy of tax cuts for another year (collectively known as "extenders") and a one-year AMT patch. The total cost of the bill would be $130 billion; the AMT portion of the measure is about $62 billion.

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Competiting Claims on Our Fiscal Future

Jul 11, 2008 by Adam Hughes*

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has released a report from leading economists and budget experts criticing a recent paper from the Brookings Institute and the Heritage Foundation called "Taking Back Our Fiscal Future." From the CBPP

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New TPC Analysis of AMT Legislation

Jul 9, 2008 by Craig Jennings

The Tax Policy Center has published a distributional analysis of the recently House-passed Alternative Minimum Tax legislation (H.R. 6275). The TPC has produced distributional estimates for H.R. 6275, the alternative minimum tax (AMT) patch legislation passed by the House on June 25, 2008. In addition, we have updated our estimates of the number of AMT taxpayers, AMT revenue, and the distribution of AMT liability. Finally, we have published an updated list of 12 key facts and projections about the AMT. Read the TPC Analysis

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Fiscal Policy Agenda Returns to Washington

Jul 7, 2008 by Adam Hughes*

The Fiscal Policy Team and Congress both return to action this week with a number of fiscal policy issues to be tackled during the next five weeks. Below is a rundown of issues coming up soon, with most of the action happening in the Senate:

Debate continues between Senate Democrats and Republicans over whether to offset the cost of a popular package of tax breaks called the "extenders." The latest development is that Senate Republicans are now challenging Democrats to offset the cost of the package with spending cuts rather than other tax increases. BNA ($)

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BudgetBlog on Hiatus for Holiday: Happy Fourth Everyone!

Jun 27, 2008 by Adam Hughes*

Happy Fourth of July! Just wanted to let our loyal BudgetBlog readers know we're going on a short hiatus next week. With Congress heading out of town for a short summer recess and the upcoming Fourth of July holiday next week, the Fiscal Policy team is heading out of town in order to escape the heat for some well-deserved vacation. This means, though, that the BudgetBlog will be dormant next week. But don't despair. Craig and I will return in one short week on July 7 to continue to bring you all the news, gossip, information, and analysis on federal fiscal policy you've come to expect.

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House Approves Fiscally-Responsible AMT Patch

Jun 25, 2008 by Craig Jennings

The voted this afternoon (233-189) to pass a fully-offset, one-year AMT patch that would prevent some 25 million Americans from falling into an alternate tax universe in which their tax bills would jump by an average of $2,000. The bill's $61.6 billion cost is fully offset mostly by:

Treating income of equity fund managers as income, rather than capital gains
Revoking some tax cuts for oil companies
Closing a loophole currently enjoyed by some foreign-owned firms using tax havens
Tighter tax enforcement of merchant credit card payments

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Everybody Needs to Pay Their Taxes...Everybody!

Jun 24, 2008 by Adam Hughes*

Our friends over at the Government Accountability Office released another great report a week or two ago concerning how Medicare providers (hospitals, nursing homes, and doctors) are failing to pay federal taxes to the tune of at least $2 billion a year. Findings from the report:

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Kyl Language in Senate Housing Bill "Hooey"

Jun 24, 2008 by Craig Jennings

The housing legislation that the Senate may vote on this week contains a property deduction similar to one found in the House version of the bill. The provision would allow homeowners who do not itemize their taxes to deduct a fixed amount from their taxes -- $500 for individuals and $1,000 for couples.

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Congress Struggles with Tax Bills ahead of July 4 Recess

In the dwindling days before the July 4 congressional recess, the House and Senate will try to break the longstanding logjams on three critical pieces of tax legislation: a proposal to approve a "patch" to hold constant the number of taxpayers liable to the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), a bill to renew dozens of tax provisions collectively referred to as the "extenders," and the tax title of Rep. Barney Frank's (D-MA) Federal Housing Administration (FHA) foreclosure guarantee bill.

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President Closes Contractor Loophole

Jun 19, 2008 by Craig Jennings

When President Bush signed into law the Heroes Earnings Assistance and Relief Tax Act (HR 6081) on Tuesday, he forced domestic firms employing workers through off-shore shell companies to pay payroll taxes when performing work on federal contracts. The provision in the bill uses language from the Fair Share Act (HR 5602). Writing on Womenstake, the National Women's Law Center blog, Joan Entmacher notes that Bush signed the bill despite its inclusion of the Fair Share Act language.

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