Taxes

With The GOP Tax Plan, A New Economic Epoch Begins

December 5, 2017 Sam Pizzigati, inequality.org Educate! Economics, New Economy, Tax Reform, Taxes

By Sam Pizzigati for Inequality - The U.S. Senate has now passed the most significant tax “reform” legislation since 1986. The legislation, most pundits believe, will likely become the new law of the land within weeks. What will that mean? We already have all sorts of numbers from reputable researchers on who will now see really big savings on their tax returns (the rich) and who won’t (everybody else). We also have official — and sobering — congressional research estimates on what the GOP tax changes, once put in place, will mean for the nation’s economic growth and the federal budget deficit. But we don’t yet have what we need: a sense of the “big picture.” Ten years down the road, twenty years down the road, how will the lives that Americans lead change if this Republican tax plan gets to shape our national future? The answer may well rest in new research just out from three of the world’s most prolific inequality analysts, Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez, and Gabriel Zucman. Piketty and Saez have been pushing the envelope on income distribution stats ever since the 21st century began. The duo, joined in recent years by Zucman, have become ever more sophisticated in crunching the numbers that tell us who gets what and why in America.

5 Ways The Republican Tax-Reform Plan Hits Black Folks The Hardest

December 5, 2017 Charles D. Ellison, theroot.com Educate! New Economy, Racism, Reform, Tax Reform, Taxes

By Charles D. Ellison for The Root - Right now, at this very moment, the single biggest threat to the group of people already in a compromised position because of their race is the congressional Republicans’ tax-reform plan. Not the sound of the police. Not lead in your water and not a jail cell. The tax-reform plan that both Congress and the White House are pushing seems obscure. It’s that thing only geeky Washington, D.C., insiders pass crush notes over, so you glance away from the television screen because it sounds irrelevant. It’s so innocuous, you ask, “What’s a tax cut got to do with me?” especially when shit is already tight. So long as you get that refund check for a down payment on that next car, you could care less. As the latest YouGov poll (pdf) shows, you are among the vast majority of Americans who hate Congress, yet you’re probably in that 46 percent who don’t follow what congressional lawmakers do, including the nearly 70 percent of whom are black. But black folks should be paying the most attention because we’ll feel the most hurt as congressional Republicans, along with an oligarchic Trump White House, try to make the plan into law (House Republicans passed their version of the bill on Thursday). Not only is black America the least likely to see a tax cut, but it’s also the most likely to see future tax increases, shredded safety nets, and a flurry of fines and fees to make up the difference.

The Unpredictable Consequences Of The Republican Tax Plan

December 1, 2017 Sam Pizzigati, inequality.org Strategize! Inequality, Ruling Class, Taxes

By Sam Pizzigati for Inequality - The Earth doesn’t quite shake when lawmakers in Washington, D.C. take one of their periodic votes on tax “reform.” But sometimes history does turn, and this coming week’s expected vote on the Senate version of the GOP tax plan could be one of those rare times that history actually turns for the better. Indeed, this year’s situation bears a remarkable resemblance to the epic tax battle of 1932, a largely forgotten struggle that set the stage for an entire generation of increasing equality. Could this history repeat? It certainly is already echoing. Back in 1932, just as today, conservatives had a lockgrip on the White House and both houses of Congress. Then as now, America’s wealthy lusted for fundamental tax changes that would significantly reduce their already reduced tax burden. Then as now, those wealthy — and the pols they subsidized — framed tax breaks for the rich as our only road to prosperity.That prosperity seemed incredibly distant in early 1932. The nation had sunk into the Great Depression, and the federal government was collecting far too little revenue from a Depression-ravaged economy to function. The government, nearly everyone understood, simply had to raise more revenue. But the new revenue the government so desperately needed, top Republicans and Democrats in Washington agreed, must not come from the rich.

Congressman Bars Delivery Of Messages On Impacts Of GOP Tax Plan

December 1, 2017 Staff, texasaft.org Resist! Congress, Electoral Politics, Taxes

By Staff of Texas AFT - More than a dozen Houston-area educators and union leaders arrived at U.S. Rep. John Culberson’s office this afternoon prepared to hold a rally outside protesting the GOP “tax scam” and to deliver a flier outlining their objections to the legislation. But they were met by Houston police officers and private security guards who told them they were not welcome. Culberson represents the swath of west and northwest Houston where the educators live. “We had a flier prepared that highlighted one particularly egregious part of the House tax plan—the loss of the $250 deduction available to teachers who use their own money to buy supplies for their classroom,” said Nikki Cowart, president of Cy-Fair AFT, which represents teachers in Cy-Fair ISD. “But we were told we couldn’t send anyone in to talk to the congressman’s staff, and we were told by security to get off the premises.” Cowart said she had heard this wasn’t the first time that Culberson or his staff was unwilling to meet with constituents, but that she was shocked to find a police car waiting when they arrived. “Culberson is sending a clear signal that he doesn’t care what his constituents have to say and that he’d rather have uniformed officers greet them instead of a staff person willing to listen,” she said.

The Tax-Cut Weapon In Their One-Sided Class War

November 30, 2017 Nicole Colson, socialistworker.org Educate! Class Struggle, Inequality, New Economy, Tax cuts for the rich, Taxes

By Nicole Colson for Socialist Worker - AFTER FAILING so far to get a single major legislative accomplishment, the Trump administration is pressing hard for the tax plan to make it onto the president's desk--and the bulk of the Republicans in Congress, despite their largely mutual fear and loathing of Trump, are on board. Readers of SocialistWorker.org will likely be familiar with many of the low--and even lower--points of the House bill. In short, it's a massive giveaway to corporations and the rich and an unmitigated disaster for working and poor people. According to an analysis by the Tax Policy Institute, those making less than $55,000 a year would see almost no change in their taxes, while those in the top 1 percent would receive nearly 50 percent of the total benefits. Among other things, there are cuts to the estate tax starting in 2018--and its total repeal by 2024. That alone amounts to a $265 billion tax break for the top 0.2 percent--a handful of the wealthiest families in this country, like the Walton family, the Koch brothers...and, oh yes, Trump and his Village of the Damned brood. In early November, Trump told reporters, "My accountant called me and said 'You're going to get killed in this bill.'" Either his accountant is an idiot or Trump is a liar. In fact, under the House plan, the Trump family personally stands to save more than $1 billion in taxes--mainly through the repeal of the estate and alternative minimum taxes. The plan also includes the largest one-time cut in taxes for large corporations ever--with the top tax rate dropping from 35 percent to 20 percent.

What Else Could Tax Cut For Richest 1% Buy?

November 18, 2017 Jill Richardson, otherwords.org Educate! Economic inequality, Ruling Class, Taxes

By Jill Richardson of Other Words - Inequality in America has been growing for decades, stymying our national potential and contributing to the growing political rift in the country. According to estimates by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act introduced in the House of Representatives would disproportionately benefit the richest 1 percent of Americans. The ITEP estimates reveal that nationwide, the richest 1 percent of earners would receive a 31 percent share of the tax cuts in 2018 – and by 2027, the richest 1 percent would receive a 48 percent share, leaving the remaining 99 percent to share roughly half the tax benefits. What the ITEP estimates cannot reveal is the lost potential in federal investment represented by this reallocation of resources to the 1 percent. The House bill is designed to increase the deficit by no more than $1.5 trillion over ten years – the equivalent of about a year of federal discretionary spending. The loss of revenue will trigger other choices, as decision makers in Congress either accede to a higher than customary level of national debt, or face political pressures to drastically reduce spending on federal programs and services. Pressure to cut spending could result in losses to popular federal programs ranging from education to health care and infrastructure, and more.

Prosperity Through Keystrokes: Understanding Federal Spending

November 18, 2017 Steve Grumbine, www.popularresistance.org Create! Austerity, Budget Cuts, Money, New Economy, Taxes

By Steve Grumbine. It has long been known that our electoral system and methods of voting are corrupt, untrustworthy, and easily manipulated by less than savvy politicians, state actors, and hackers alike. The answers to many of these issues is the same answer that we would need to push for any progressive reforms to take place in the United States: namely, we need enlightened, fiery, peaceful, and committed activists to propel a movement and ensure that the people rise, face their oppressors, and unify to demand that their needs be met. What is not as well-known, however, is how a movement, the government, and taxes work together to bring about massive changes in programs, new spending, and the always scary “National Debt” .

CBO: House GOP Tax Plan Triggers $25 Billion In Medicare Cuts

November 15, 2017 Ethan Wolff-Mann, finance.yahoo.com Educate! Electoral Politics, Medicare, Taxes

By Ethan Wolff-Mann for Yahoo Finance - If the House GOP tax plan passes, it is projected to cut revenue significantly, likely increasing the deficit by $1.456 trillion from 2018 to 2027, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation and Congressional Budget Office (CBO). With a number that large, Congress’s “pay as you go” rules that prevent unchecked spending would fall into place, a move that could cut Medicare’s budget by as much as $25 billion for 2018. In a letter to House minority whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD), the CBO explained that without any more money to offset the fall in revenue, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) would be required to issue a “sequestration order” to reduce spending in 2018 by $136 billion. The effects of this sequestration order would trigger automatic cuts to various programs, including Medicare. According to the CBO, this could be as much as 4% for Medicare, which amounts to $25 billion in 2018. Furthermore, all non-exempt programs would be eliminated, which include some farming subsidies, border security, and student loan help. Others, like Social Security, would remain untouched. At the same time, the tax plan’s changes to the estate and gift taxes would cut revenue $151 billion from 2018 to 2027, according to the JCT.

Experts Explain How Wall Street Loots The Economy

November 12, 2017 Pam Martens and Russ Martens, www.wallstreetonparade.com Educate! New Economy, Tax Haven, Tax Reform, Taxes, Wall Street

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens for Wall Street on Parade. If you feel lost in the cacophony of contrasting claims that Wall Street was adequately reformed under the Dodd-Frank legislation of 2010 or that it remains an insidious wealth transfer system for the 1 percent, then you need to invest one-hour of your time to listen carefully to some of the smartest experts in America address the topic. A free one-hour video is now available (see above) which should settle the debate once and for all that the Dodd-Frank legislation of 2010 has failed to deliver the needed reforms to Wall Street’s corrupt culture and fraudulent business models and that nothing short of restoring the Glass-Steagall Act is going to make the U.S. financial system safe again. Don’t let the grainy quality of the video turn you off (it was made from a live webinar): the integrity of the voices will quickly reassure you that you are watching something powerful and critical to the future of the U.S.

National Low Income Housing Coalition On Tax Proposal

November 4, 2017 Diane Yentel, www.popularresistance.org Create! Affordable Housing, Housing, Tax cuts for the rich, Taxes

By Diane Yentel for Natinal Low Income Housing Coalition. WASHINGTON, D.C.- The tax reform legislation proposed by House Republican leaders takes a historic step in directly revising the mortgage interest deduction (MID), a $70 billion annual tax expenditure that primarily benefits higher income households—including the top 1% of earners in the country. The Republican tax proposal makes sensible reforms in lowering the amount of a mortgage against which the MID can be claimed to $500,000 for new home loans and doubling the standard deduction. This change to the MID would impact fewer than 6% of mortgages nationwide and would save an estimated $95.5 billion over the first decade.

This Year’s Real Halloween Horror

October 31, 2017 Bob Lord, inequality.org Educate! Economic inequality, Ruling Class, Taxes

By Bob Lord for Inequality - The family that has made billions off trick-or-treat candy has gone generations without paying any appreciable tax on its enormous fortune. And the Trump tax plan, if adopted, would ax a huge chunk of the tax on the family’s income! The Mars family has made billions selling us M&Ms, Snickers, and countless other Halloween treats for a century now. But when it comes to paying tax, the Mars family seems to be all tricks and no treats. In fact, the family’s latest tax trick may have cost the U.S. Treasury a whopping $10 billion. What could $10 billion do? That’s the cost of delivering prenatal care to hundreds of thousands of expectant moms under Medicaid, an essential program that President Trump and the GOP Congress plan to cut by up to $1 trillion. According to the current U.S. tax code, any American worth $25 billion can expect 40 percent of that, or $10 billion, to go to Uncle Sam in estate tax, the federal levy on the personal fortunes of deep pockets who kick the bucket. Forrest Mars Jr. had a $25-billion fortune when he died in July 2016. But the Mars family has apparently been able to avoid estate tax on that entire $25 billion. How do we know? Researchers at Forbes and Bloomberg, the two business publications that track America’s billionaire wealth, have some fascinating numbers for us.

Big Tax Cuts Will Lead To Big Federal Budget Cuts

October 30, 2017 Sharon Parrott, www.cbpp.org Educate! Budget Cuts, Budgets, Congress, Taxes

By Sharon Parrott for CBPP - Many Republican policymakers are already talking about using the same fast-track process (“budget reconciliation”) next year to push large cuts in entitlement programs as they plan to use this year to push the tax cuts. Reconciliation bills can’t be filibustered, and they require only a simple majority to pass the Senate, unlike most legislation that requires 60 Senate votes. Roll Call reports that it “interviewed half a dozen House Budget Committee members, as well as a few other fiscal hawks in the GOP conference, and they all said that they anticipate mandatory spending cuts [i.e., cuts in entitlement programs] being a priority for the fiscal 2019 budget reconciliation process.” Indeed, some Republican lawmakers weren’t shy about their two-step strategy. “We dream those big dreams here,” Budget Committee member Rob Woodall said. “I’ll take half of that dream in tax reform, and then I’ll come back next spring for the other half.” Budget Committee Chair Diane Black similarly promised “some real attention on [deficit reduction] next year,” based on “the acknowledgement of our leadership,” Roll Call reports. Congressional Republicans could have chosen to write a single bill with both tax cuts and the program cuts (or tax increases) to pay for them.

Cutting Corporate Taxes Will Not Boost American Wages

October 30, 2017 Josh Bivens, www.epi.org Educate! Corporate tax, Corporations, New Economy, Taxes, Wages

By Josh Bivens for EPI - Bivens and Blair (2017) explain in detail how the theory for corporate tax cuts as a wage-boosting tool breaks down in the face of real-world data. This report provides a quick overview of this theory and then highlights how its predictions compare with real-world data. The theory is the following: First, corporate income tax cuts boost post-tax profits, which then boost the returns to owning stocks or bonds. These higher returns induce households to spend less and save more, and this increased supply of savings pushes down the cost of borrowing, or interest rates. Lower interest rates then induce firms to borrow more to finance new plants and equipment, and this raises productivity by giving workers more and better tools to work with. Second, competitive labor markets force employers to reward workers for their productivity increases buy paying them higher wages. This theory provides a number of empirical propositions regarding the effect of corporate tax changes on wage growth that can be tested with real-world data. The data show that many of the key predictions will almost surely fail. Before looking at the specific weak links in the causal chain, we review evidence relating to the overall claim that lower tax rates will boost productivity growth and wage growth.

Current Taxes And Tax Reform Undermine Social Security & Medicare

October 26, 2017 Sam Pizzigati, www.otherwords.org Educate! Medicare, New Economy, Reform, Social Security, Taxes

By Sam Pizzigati for Other Words - You probably pay about four times more of your income to Social Security than millionaires, who want to cut their taxes and your benefits. How much did your paychecks total last year? You know the answer, of course. So does the Social Security Administration. The totals for every American’s paycheck income are sitting in Social Security’s computers. Once every year, Social Security does a serious data dump out of those computers to let us know just how much working Americans are actually making. The latest totals — covering 2016 — have just appeared. Most of us, the new numbers show, are simply not making all that much. In fact, nearly half of our nation’s employed — 49.3 percent — earned less than $30,000 in 2016. A good many of these Americans lived in poverty. In 2016, families of four that earned less than $24,339 ranked as officially poor. We don’t have an “official” figure for middle class status. But the Economic Policy Institute has calculated the costs of maintaining a no-frills middle class existence in various parts of the United States. In Houston, one of our nation’s cheaper major cities, a family of four needed $62,544 in 2016 to live a bare-bones middle class lifestyle.

GAO: Climate Change Already Costing US Billions In Losses

October 24, 2017 Staff, www.AP.org Educate! Budgets, Climate Change, Taxes

By Staff of Associated Press - A non-partisan federal watchdog says climate change is already costing U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars each year, with those costs expected to rise as devastating storms, floods, wildfires and droughts become more frequent in the coming decades. A Government Accountability Office report released Monday said the federal government has spent more than $350 billion over the last decade on disaster assistance programs and losses from flood and crop insurance. That tally does not include the massive toll from this year's three major hurricanes and wildfires, expected to be among the most costly in the nation's history. The report predicts these costs will only grow in the future, potentially reaching a budget busting $35 billion a year by 2050. The report says the federal government doesn't effectively plan for these recurring costs, classifying the financial exposure from climate-related costs as "high risk."

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