What the GOP’s Putting Under Corporate America’s Tree

This year-end tax package is a grab bag of gifts for corporations and a lump of coal for working families.

read in full

Over $1 Trillion in Tax Breaks Are Detailed in New Report

Tax breaks cost the federal government approximately $1.13 trillion in fiscal year 2013, according to a new report by the National Priorities Project (NPP). That is just slightly less than all federal discretionary spending in FY 2013 combined.

read in full

How Big of a Joke is Our Tax System?

Monkeys on Bikes

Anyone with a cursory knowledge of our current tax code can tell you that it is broken. According to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB), which posted an interesting piece this morning on the need for comprehensive tax reform, our tax system "is inefficient, distorts behavior, stifles economic growth, and raises insufficient revenue to fund current or projected levels of government spending." CRFB included several suggestions for the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board (PERAB), which was due to release a set of publicly generated recommendations on reforming the tax code today, but postponed the release until after the holidays.

read in full

Will There Be a Budget Resolution?

"Paygo" rules, once a little-known budget technicality, are now proving to be the main impediment in reaching a budget resolution for FY 2005, which begins on October 1, 2004.

read in full

No Budget is Better than the Senate Budget

The budget resolution approved last week by the Senate Budget Committee has nothing good to recommend it. It will hand more tax breaks to the extremely wealthy while slashing assistance to low-income working families and children. Funds for education, housing, the environment and a host of other services that benefit ordinary Americans will also be cut. Ironically, in spite of all these cuts, the committee?s resolution will increase -- not reduce -- the deficit.

read in full

Appropriations Update

Following are some issues of interest that have risen during the FY 2004 appropriations process.

read in full

Internal Revenue Service Scales Back EITC Certification Plan

Initial Internal Revenue Service (IRS) plans to "pre-certify" certain recipients of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) have come under considerable criticism by advocates during the past few months. After agreeing to allow a comment period on the process and the forms, the IRS substantially modified the program. See the IRS press release.

read in full

IRS Revises EITC Certification Program

On August 5, the IRS announced significant changes in its proposed pilot program to require pre-certification of EITC taxfilers. (See previous entry for more information.)

The changes include:

read in full

Watcher Articles

Pages