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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more news

House SCHIP Markup Proceeding

Jul 26, 2007 by Matt Lewis

After some delay, the House Energy and Commerce Committee is now marking up the SCHIP reauthorization and expansion. Some resources on the bill:

A summary of the chairman's mark
A section-by-section analysis
CBO's preliminary score
Families USA's chart that compares the House bill with the Senate version.

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Orszag Examines Options and Objectives re PAYGO

Jul 25, 2007 by Dana Chasin

Congress is taking a hard look at PAYGO again, which expired at the end of fiscal year 2002, after a decade in which it played a big role in restoring fiscal balance during the 1990s and producing the federal government's first balanced budget in 30 years.

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Another Attempt at Ending IRS Privatization Program Moves Forward

Both the House and Senate have taken important steps toward ending the wasteful and risky Internal Revenue Service (IRS) private tax collection program. The House Ways and Means Committee approved a bill (H.R. 3056) that would repeal the program, and the Senate Appropriations Committee cleared a bill (H.R. 2829) that would tightly limit the funding available at the IRS to administer the program.

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Reauthorization of Children's Health Insurance Program Gains Momentum

On July 19, the Senate Finance Committee approved a proposal to expand coverage of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) to four million additional children who would otherwise not have health insurance. The entire Senate is expected to vote on the proposal this week (July 24-27), while the House is expected to act soon to approve legislation providing insurance for even more children than the Senate's version. The president has threatened to veto the Senate Finance Committee-approved version, even though it cleared the committee with strong bipartisan support, 17-4.

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CBO Puts a (Steep) Price on 2001/2003 Tax Cuts

Jul 23, 2007 by Dana Chasin

Last Friday, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released an estimate of the cost to the Treasury in 2007 of the temporary 2001 and 2003 tax cuts -- the Economic Growth and Taxpayer Relief Act of 2001 (EGTRRA) and the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 (JGTRRA). With the caveat that "the precise budgetary effects therefore typically can never be known with certainty," and taking account of previous revenue loss estimates, estimated debt-service costs, and estimated short- and medium-term effects on the economy, CBO's analysis found:

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Another Reason to Support a Tobacco Tax Increase

Jul 19, 2007 by Craig Jennings

Big Tobacco is against it. On Monday, the parent company of four tobacco companies, Reynolds America, issued a press release in which they decry the notion that Congress needs more people to smoke in order to fund an SCHIP expansion. "Policy makers will somehow need to recruit new smokers if they insist on using the tobacco tax revenue to support SCHIP at proposed funding levels over the long term," wrote Heritage Foundation authors Michelle C. Bucci and William W. Beach.

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Committee Approves Bill to End IRS Privatization Program

Jul 18, 2007 by Matt Lewis

The House Ways and Means Committee has approved HR 3056- the legislative package that will end the IRS private debt collection program- by a vote of 23 to 18. Great! This morning, the Joint Committee on Taxation released its interpretation of a Chairman's amendment to the bill. if passed, it will not affect contracts that have already been issued to private debt collectors. That sounds fair, as the debt collectors who have contracts might take a loss if the program is ended wholesale.

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Private Debt Collection Fables

Jul 18, 2007 by Matt Lewis

A favorite canard put forward by the defenders of the IRS private tax collection program is that there's no other way to collect these taxes (watch a hearing on the issue here). If Congress gave IRS the resources it needed to pursue these cases, IRS administrators would instead direct the money to functions that would yield a greater return-on-investment.

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Making My Job Easier

Jul 17, 2007 by Craig Jennings

A tax on tobacco is a regressive tax, and so equity-based opposition to a tobacco tax increase generally makes sense. However, if the tax will be used to fund an expansion of a fiscally progressive program, then it is possible that the net result will be progressive. I spent some time this morning compiling info that would give some indication of how the SCHIP expansion would shake out. Well, someone has already done the yeoman's work and crunched the numbers.

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Ways and Means to Consider New Anti-Privatization Bill

Jul 17, 2007 by Matt Lewis

Tomorrow, the House Ways and Means Committee will consider a new "good government" bill to end the IRS private debt collection program. Check out the bill here. It includes virtually the same language as HR 695- Rep. Steve Rothman (D-NJ) and Rep. Chris Van Hollen's (D-MD) bill to end the program. It also includes six other measures that tweak tax laws. Previous efforts to end the program have been caught up in procedural issues. At first blush, this new bill seems get around those problems- it has proper jurisdiction and probably wouldn't violate PAYGO.

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