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Taxes Tag

Posted by Mary Chastain on June 12, 2017 7 Comments
Cook County in Illinois, home to Chicago, has decided that its soda tax will not apply to food stamps. Purchases made with food stamps cannot have state and local taxes tacked onto them, according to federal law. Cook county tried to bypass that law, but none of the options officials used took off. So this means that the 827,000 people in Cook County who have food stamps will not have to pay the tax. This is the second reversal of the tax, which has caused massive confusion as the bankrupt county and state have tried everything to raise revenue.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on June 03, 2017 32 Comments
Connecticut governor Dannel Malloy (D) is facing a situation that may make him reconsider his position on taxing the wealthy.  Aetna insurance company, based in Hartford since 1853, is looking for a new state to call home, a state that is more business-friendly in terms of taxation. Having lost GE to Boston last year due to the massive tax load piled on businesses, Malloy is desperate to keep Aetna in Connecticut, but it may be too little, too late. The Wall Street Journal reports:

Posted by Mary Chastain on May 29, 2017 5 Comments
I think it's safe to assume that a tax reform plan will take a lot longer than Trump's administration thinks, especially when his officials cannot agree on how the plan will work. That's exactly what happened when White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin testified in front of two different Senate committees. Mulvaney told the Senate Budget Committee that the "tax plan doesn't bank on any revenue stemming from faster economic growth." At the same time, Mnuchin told the Senate Finance Committee that the "tax plan will partly pay for itself with economic growth."

Posted by Mary Chastain on May 24, 2017 11 Comments
Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) will not let go of a border adjustment tax (BAT) when it comes to tax reform, which will set up a major showdown with the White House and possibly the Senate. Ryan admitted today that the House could pass a tax bill without the BAT, but he's still trying to sell the idea to his fellow lawmakers and the White House.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on May 06, 2017 15 Comments
President Donald Trump plans to pursue public-private partnerships for develop the space industry, which is likely to increase the development and profitability of these firms. The State of California obviously foresees this possibility as well. Never having seen a tax that it will not try and collect, the state's Franchise Tax Board is seeking public comment on its proposal for computing taxes on commercial space transportation companies (hat-tip, Legal Insurrection reader Robert).

Posted by Mary Chastain on May 03, 2017 22 Comments
Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy did the unthinkable for a Democrat: He admitted taxing the rich does not work. The state has witnessed "two high-end tax hikes in the past six years." So the wealthy in Connecticut have done what any sane person would choose to do: LEAVE. Now the state faces a $2.2 billion deficit as income state revenue continues to collapse. WTNH reported:
It’s happening because the state of Connecticut depends too much on its wealthy residents, and wealthy residents are leaving, and the ones that are staying are making less, or are not taking their profits from the stock market until they see what happens in Washington.

Posted by Mary Chastain on April 26, 2017 18 Comments
Secretary of Treasury Steven Mnuchin and National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn spoke to the press at the White House today about President Donald Trump's tax reform plan. Trump wants to slash the corporate tax rate to 15%, which I covered yesterday. But he also wants to place income taxes for us regular Americans into three brackets. From The Wall Street Journal:
“Clearly we have a unique opportunity to do something major here,” Mr. Cohn told a small group of reporters in the White House on Wednesday morning. “It’s our intention to create a huge tax cut and equally as important, a huge simplification of the tax system in America.”

Posted by Mary Chastain on April 25, 2017 17 Comments
President Donald Trump has offered us a little hint into the tax reform plan he wants to unveil on Wednesday. He has demanded aides to draft a plan that cuts the corporate tax rate to 15%. It would help him keep one of his campaign promises. On the trail, he vowed to bring the tax rate to 15% from 35%. Yet, it could cause a fight on Capital Hill. Republicans want to cut taxes, but they cannot agree on how much.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on April 24, 2017 6 Comments
April 23rd of this year was Tax Freedom Day, or "the day when the nation as a whole has earned enough money to pay its total tax bill for the year". A whopping 31% of the nation's earnings are confiscated by the government for federal and state taxes for a total of $5.1 trillion. Amazingly, that's still not enough to pay off state and national deficits.

Posted by Mary Chastain on April 21, 2017 6 Comments
President Donald Trump will sign an executive order for Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to target financial regulations from former President Barack Obama that have caused companies trouble to conduct business. Mnuchin has said that the orders from Trump "are meant to emphasize the administration's economic priorities to the American people." This includes parts of the Dodd-Frank Act and tax regulations handed out in 2016.

Posted by Mary Chastain on April 10, 2017 31 Comments
White House aides have told the Associated Press that President Donald Trump has decided to scrap the tax reform plan he campaigned on and start from scratch as a way to bring in more Republicans. Trump and House Republicans already endured one defeat when many Congressional Republicans would not vote for their healthcare plan. The White House wants to take a more active role with tax reform so failure does not happen again.

Posted by Mary Chastain on March 26, 2017 2 Comments
Now that the GOP healthcare bill is dead, the administration will more than likely set its eyes on tax reform. However, this could very well end like the healthcare bill. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) insisted that the party has "more agreement" when it comes to tax reform while Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin explained that the "plan to overhaul the U.S. tax code would face smoother sailing" than healthcare. Oh really?

Posted by Mary Chastain on March 10, 2017 9 Comments
Tax reform has been at the forefront of GOP policy issues in Washington. Under the Trump administration, tax reform includes a proposed border adjustment tax or tariff. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and the White House want tax reform legislation in the works by August, but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said an August timeframe is unlikely:
"I think finishing on tax reform will take longer. But we do have to finish the health-care debate, up or down, win or lose, before we go to taxes," McConnell told Politico.

Posted by Mary Chastain on February 21, 2017 41 Comments
With higher construction costs and low revenue from low pump sales, a few states have considered raising the gasoline tax in an effort to raise funds for infrastructure. President Donald Trump has promised to put forth $1 trillion to fix infrastructure across the country, but state officials have realized they need to do something for themselves. Tennesse Governor Bill Haslam (R) believes a higher tax would raise $278 million for his state.

Posted by Mary Chastain on February 18, 2017 40 Comments
House Republicans desperately want to reform taxes, but so far the only plan they have developed has gained no leverage. That's because border adjustment makes up a majority of the plan, which few, including top retailers, want anything to do with. The border adjustment is a tariff. It adds a tax on imports, which will inevitably raise prices on consumers. Common sense economics: A business must make a profit in order to supply goods and services. It cannot do that without money. In order to make money when a tax is added or raised, the business must raise the price on its goods in order to make that profit.
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