On Tax Day, Still 'No Evidence' Trump Tax Cuts Are Trickling Down to Workers. AT&T Plans to Fire 7,000 People Despite Tax Breaks, Net Neutrality Repeal. This site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this page.
Terms of use. When the GOP passed tax reform in 2017, the party justified its corporate tax cuts with claims that the reductions would boost US employment, wages, and the overall economy. The FCC similarly justified its repeal of net neutrality by arguing that the onerous regulation of wireless and wireline service was hampering innovation, imposing ruinous costs, and generally harming the telcos, ISPs, and cellular service providers in the United States. AT&T's Planning Yet More Layoffs Despite Tens Of Billions In Tax Breaks And Government Favors.
What billionaires want: the secret influence of America’s 100 richest. If we judge US billionaires by their most prominent fellows, they may seem to be a rather attractive bunch: ideologically diverse (perhaps even tending center-left), frank in speaking out about their political views, and generous in philanthropic giving for the common good – not to mention useful for the goods and jobs they have helped produce.
The very top titans – Warren Buffett, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates – have all taken left-of-center stands on various issues, and Buffett and Gates are paragons of philanthropy. The former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg is known for his advocacy of gun control, gay rights, and environmental protection. George Soros (protector of human rights around the world) and Tom Steyer (focused on young people and environmental issues) have been major donors to the Democrats. In recent years, investigative journalists have also brought to public attention Charles and David Koch, mega-donors to ultra-conservative causes. We don’t want billionaires’ charity. We want them to pay their taxes.
“Charity is a cold, grey loveless thing.
If a rich man wants to help the poor, he should pay his taxes gladly, not dole out money at a whim.” It is a phrase commonly ascribed to Clement Attlee – the credit actually belongs to his biographer, Francis Beckett – but it elegantly sums up the case for progressive taxation. According to a report by the Swiss bank UBS, last year billionaires made more money than any other point in the history of human civilisation. Their wealth jumped by a fifth – a staggering $8.9tn – and 179 new billionaires joined an exclusive cabal of 2,158. Some have signed up to Giving Pledge, committing to leave half their wealth to charity. Republicans Will Cut Social Security and Medicare After Tax Plan Passes, Says Marco Rubio. Update | Florida Senator Marco Rubio admits that the Republican tax cut plan, which benefits corporations and the wealthy, will require cuts to Social Security and Medicare to pay for it.
To address the federal deficit, which will grow by at least $1 trillion if the tax plan passes, Congress will need to cut entitlement programs such as Social Security, Rubio told reporters this week. Advocates for the elderly and the poor have warned that entitlement programs would be on the chopping block, but this is the first time a prominent Republican has backed their claims. "You have got to generate economic growth because growth generates revenue,” Rubio said at a Politico conference. "But you also have to bring spending under control. And not discretionary spending. Rubio's talk of structural change is vague but will likely include changing the rate and age of Social Security and Medicare payouts. Trump will personally save up to $15m under tax bill, analysis finds. Donald Trump and six members of his inner circle will be big winners of the Republicans’ vast tax overhaul, with the president personally benefiting from a tax cut of up to $15m a year, research shows.
The US president chalked up his first big legislative win on Wednesday with the $1.5tn bill, the most sweeping revamp of the tax code in three decades, slashing taxes for corporations and the wealthy and dealing the heaviest blow yet to Obamacare. Some States Spend Billions on Economic Tax Incentives for Little or No Return. By one estimate, state and local governments spend at least $45 billion a year on tax breaks and other incentives to lure or keep job-producing businesses and plants in their jurisdictions.
New York, for example, plows billions of dollars into the Empire State Development Corp. and Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s signature Start-Up NY program. For more than three decades, Florida has offered an array of tax incentives to businesses that locate, invest, and hire in the state’s distressed areas through an initiative called the Enterprise Zone Program. Related: The Growing Funding Gap for State Pensions Puts Millions at Risk Colorado provides as much as $4 billion a year in economic incentives and deals to enhance the state’s economy. House Republicans just went after your property tax break again, this time for good. WASHINGTON -- House Republicans on Friday voted to make that limit on how much you can deduct for state and local taxes permanent.
The provision was included in legislation that made permanent the provisions in the Republican tax law now scheduled to expire in 2025. The bill, dubbed "Tax Reform 2.0" by proponents, permanently capped the federal deduction for state and local property, income and sales taxes at $10,000, less than the average claimed in 20 of the New Jersey's 21 counties by those who itemize, according to the Internal Revenue Service.
Truth Behind Tax Day: Where Your Taxes Go. This post first appeared at the Campaign for America’s Future blog, OurFuture.org.
If you groan about tax day, you’re certainly not alone. But what if tax day was something we could be proud of as members of a democracy? Would you feel differently about paying taxes if you knew they were going to support public services that you, your family and your community rely on — such as public safety, roads and bridges, schools, health care, social services and national parks? Millions of Americans file their federal income tax returns in April each year with no idea what the government actually does with all that money.
This is surprising, considering that individuals are our nation’s primary bill payers. Given how much taxpayers collectively contribute to our nation’s revenue stream, it goes without saying that we should be able to influence how the government spends that money. What's the matter with Kansas? Republicans. In 2011, Kansas passed a Kobach-written voter ID law that included a requirement for documentary evidence of citizenship in order to register to vote.
That went into effect in 2013 which, coincidentally, was right after the Supreme Court struck down a similar law in Arizona. Undeterred, Kobach proceeded to purge the voter list and has suspended the registrations of 37,000 Kansans; 90 percent of said suspensions were due to lack of citizenship documentation. He sued the EAC (Elections Assistance Commission) for its repeated refusal to include Kansas’ documentation requirement on the federal voter registration form. Sanders: GOP health care plan gives wealthiest a $275 billion tax break. Sen Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., put a different spin on the Republican House’s plan to overhaul the health care system.
Speaking on MSNBC, Sanders said the House plan isn’t really a health care plan at all. It’s a tax cut package, he says, that overwhelmingly helps the wealthy. "Look at it as a tax plan with $275 billion in tax breaks for the top 2 percent, people earning $250,000 a year or more," Sanders said on All In With Chris Hayes March 8. He said the change amounted to a transfer of wealth from working families to the wealthiest.
Is that true? Sanders’ office told us they got their tax numbers from the Joint Committee on Taxation, a congressional committee that lawmakers rely on for core fiscal data. One is a 0.9 percent payroll tax on earnings and the other is a 3.8 percent tax on net investment income for individuals with incomes over $200,000 and couples with incomes over $250,000. Donald Trump's tax plan would turn the whole U.S. into Kansas. Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images It is hard to think of a more obvious recent public-policy failure than the tax cuts that Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback championed in 2012. How the black middle class was attacked by Woodrow Wilson’s administration.
When Woodrow Wilson arrived in the nation’s capital in March 1913, he brought with him an administration loaded with white supremacists. Wilson’s lieutenants segregated offices, harassed black workers and removed black politicians from political appointments held by black men for more than a generation. Racism had always been a part of life in Washington and its government buildings, but the U.S. civil service had never been formally segregated prior to Wilson’s inauguration. More than a century later, Wilson’s racist legacy was called out by protesting students at Princeton University.
In response, in November 2015 the university agreed to examine the past of the former university president whose name graces both a residential college and a graduate school. GOP tax plan doubles down on policies that are crushing the middle class. The U.S. middle class has always had a special mystique. Kansas abandons massive tax cuts that provided model for Trump's plan. Kansas has rejected the years-long tax-cutting experiment that brought its governor, Sam Brownback, to international attention and provided a model for the Trump administration’s troubled tax plans.
In a warning shot to the Trump administration, even Brownback’s fellow Republicans voted to override his veto of a bill to reverse many of the tax cuts he championed as a way to spur entrepreneurs and the economy, but which have left the state with a $1bn hole in its budget. Starting in 2012, Brownback’s plan has been to “march to zero” – cutting taxes wherever possible in the belief that the money Kansans saved would flow into the wider economy and drive growth.
For the third time, Donald Trump, U.S. is not 'highest taxed nation in the world' Donald Trump released a tax plan in September that would give huge tax cuts to the top 0.1 percent and bloat the deficit by at least $10 trillion over the next decade. I helped create the GOP tax myth. Trump is wrong: Tax cuts don’t equal growth.
Trump's Tax Plan Has Echoes Of The Kansas Tax Cut Experiment. Kansas Tried a Tax Plan Similar to Trump’s. It Failed. - The New York Times. Five Reasons the GOP Tax Plan Is a Cruel Joke. Robert Reich: Five Reasons the GOP Tax Plan Is a Cruel Joke Representatives of progressive political activist groups join members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus for a news conference outside the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on Oct. 4, 2017. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) 'Death tax' that Republicans want to repeal is paid by only 2 of 1,000 people who die? As Trump Proposes Tax Cuts, Kansas Deals With Aftermath Of Experiment.
In 2012, Republican Gov. Republican Tax Cut Plan Will Drive Up Deficit and Debt. America’s Tax-Cut Peronists President Donald Trump delivers remarks following a meeting on infrastructure at Trump Tower on Aug. 15, 2017 in New York City. Standing alongside him (left to right): Director of the National Economic Council Gary Cohn, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao and Director of the Office of Management and Budget Mick Mulvaney.
All Taxes statements that are False. It Started as a Tax Cut. Now It Could Change American Life. The GOP tax plan is filled with petty cruelties aimed at the vulnerable and the middle class. Here's a list – LA Times.