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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Bad Apple!

Jun 17, 2013 by Patrick Lester

On June 13, the tech-savvy pranksters at Americans for Tax Fairness and the San Francisco Light Projection Team projected the image above on the building hosting Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference in San Francisco.

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House Republican Tax Committee Chairman Opposes Capping Deductions

Jun 13, 2013 by Patrick Lester

At a June 12 event, House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI) said he opposes the Obama administration's proposal to limit the value of itemized deductions for high-income taxpayers to 28 percent.

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Debt Limit to be Reached in October or November

Jun 11, 2013 by Patrick Lester

The federal government will not reach its statutorily-set debt limit of $16.7 trillion until October or November, according a report released June 11 by the Congressional Budget Office.

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Does Growth on Wall Street Slow Growth Everywhere Else?

Jun 11, 2013 by Patrick Lester

Bruce Bartlett, a former senior official in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, has an interesting new column at The New York Times that concludes that the growing "financialization" of our economy has resulted in increased income inequality and slower economic growth.

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Dissent: The Case for Higher Taxes (in Graphics)

Jun 11, 2013 by Patrick Lester

Colin Gordon, a professor of history at the University of Iowa, has written an interesting (and interactive) article for Dissent that shows historic trends in taxes in the United States.

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Administration, Congress Still Searching for Elusive 'Grand Bargain'

Jun 11, 2013 by Patrick Lester

Although declining budget deficits would appear to have undercut pressure for another grand bargain on deficit reduction, administration officials are continuing to meet with Congress in search of an agreement.

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Charitable Deduction Should Be Preserved

Congress is currently considering tax changes that could substantially reduce charitable giving in the United States. One threat is a proposal from President Obama to cap the deductibility of itemized deductions by high-income taxpayers at 28 percent. A second threat is less understood – tax reform that lowers tax rates. Tax rate changes like those in the tax reform plan proposed by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) would reduce the tax benefit of charitable giving even more than the proposed Obama limit on itemized giving. This report reviews the impact on charitable giving of both the Obama proposal and tax reform more generally. It concludes that both would substantially reduce charitable giving and that the impact on the nonprofit sector could be comparable to sequestration.

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Who Pays for Corporate Tax Dodgers? YOU DO.

Find out how multinational corporate tax cheating hurts the average tax payer. From We're Not Broke, the story of U.S. corporations dodging billions of dollars in income tax, and how seven fed-up Americans take their frustration to the streets... and vow to make the corporations pay their fair share.

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What do America's Biggest Tax Avoiding Corporations Want Now?

Big Corporations are pushing for a Territorial Tax System. Find out what it is and how it's going to affect Americans! From We're Not Broke, the story of U.S. corporations dodging billions of dollars in income tax, and how seven fed-up Americans take their frustration to the streets... and vow to make the corporations pay their fair share.

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The Truth About Corporate Tax Rates

The tax rate is 35%. Corporations complain it's too high. But how much are they really paying? From We're Not Broke, the story of U.S. corporations dodging billions of dollars in income tax...

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