Category: Federal Taxes

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Help for Your Thanksgiving Day Tax Debates

  By Federal Taxes, PA Budget and Policy Center, PBPC Blog posts, Taxation

If your family is anything like ours, politics tends to come up around the Thanksgiving Day table and diverse opinions are often put forward, including by one or more of our cranky uncles who mutter about “those people” and the “damn government.” Since your cranky uncles like mine no doubt listens to Rush and his friends, they are going to present you with a lot of misinformation about the GOP federal tax cut bill. But have no fear as we have your back.   Claim: Of course we are cutting taxes for the rich and not for the poor. Only the rich pay income taxes. Answer: This is the myth that helped cost Mitt Romney the election in 2012. It’s totally misleading. It is true that in good economic years, about 40% of households don’t owe federal taxes. But: 1. If we include federal payroll taxes, only about 14% of… Continue reading

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The Rich Get Richer: Why the Senate Tax Bill Is a Total Sham

  By Budget analysis, Federal Taxes, Inequality, PA Budget and Policy Center, Taxation

The Senate Republican tax plan would provide enormous, permanent tax cuts to high-income households and corporations – all while adding at least $1.5 trillion to the deficit. And to pay for its permanent tax cuts for corporations, the bill would raise taxes on many middle-income families and repeal the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate, increasing the number of uninsured Pennsylvanians by 505,000 and raising individual market premiums nationwide by 10 percent. Congressional Republicans’ skewed and fiscally irresponsible tax plan would raise taxes on many middle-income families and drive up health insurance premiums to pay for permanent corporate tax cuts. The tax plan would fail Pennsylvania’s families and economy. The House passed its bill on November 16. Senate Republicans are moving quickly to ram through their tax bill the week after Thanksgiving and work with the House to send a final bill to President Trump by the end of the year.… Continue reading

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The House GOP Tax Plan — Redistributing Wealth to the Wealthy

  By Federal Taxes, Taxation

President Trump loves superlatives. Everything he does is record-breaking, the biggest or the best. And that goes for the tax cut plan he will sign if the House Republicans have their way. It won’t be the biggest tax cut in American history. But it will the most one-sided tax cut in our history with most of the benefits flowing to the top 1% of Americans. The House plan is truly an extraordinary piece of legislation. No tax proposal in American history — not even the big tax cut put forward by President Reagan — ever proposed giving 75% of the tax cuts to corporations and other large businesses. Yet that is what this plan does. It proposes a steep drop in the corporate tax rate from 35% to 20%. And rather than close the loopholes that allows most corporations to pay an effective tax rate of only 14%, it makes… Continue reading

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Why the House Tax Proposal is Bad for Pennsylvanians

  By Federal Taxes, Memos, PA Budget and Policy Center

While the tax cuts proposed in the House of Representatives plan may not be the largest in American history, they are very likely the ones most weighted to benefit the very richest Americans. This press memo, shared on November 13, 2017, outlines why the House of Representative’s tax proposal is bad for Pennsylvanians. Click here to print or read full screen.  Continue reading

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On the U.S. House GOP Tax Bill

  By Federal Taxes, Statements, Taxation

This press statement, released on November 2, 2017, shares our reaction to the House GOP tax bill and how it will disproportionately benefit the top 1% of Pennsylvania families. “While we won’t have a detailed analysis of the U.S. House tax cut bill released today for a week or so, it is a direct descendant of previous GOP-Trump tax plans, so the rough impact of the bill becoming law is fairly clear. “Republican rhetoric that portrays the bill as benefiting the middle class is hollow. We expect that around half of the benefit of the legislation will flow to the top 1% of Pennsylvanians — those with an average income of $1.7 million. Pennsylvanians in the bottom 60% of families will see little benefit. And because of limitations on the deductibility of state and local taxes, a significant portion of middle-class and upper-middle families will see their taxes increase under… Continue reading

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GOP-Trump Tax Plan: A Windfall for Top 1% of Pennsylvania, a Tax Increase for Many Middle-Class Pennsylvanians

  By Federal Taxes, Pennsylvania, Taxation, Uncategorized

  A 50-state analysis of the GOP tax framework reveals that in Pennsylvania, the top 1 percent of taxpayers would receive a substantial tax cut worth $67,970 while many upper-middle-class Pennsylvanians would face a tax increase. This plan is bad for Pennsylvania and our country. At a time when incomes are rising for the very rich and relatively stagnant for everyone else, a plan that lavishes tax breaks on the top 1 percent, and pays for it in part by taxing others, should not be the starting point of our tax reform debate. The Washington-based Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy released the 50-state numbers today. While GOP leaders have pitched the plan as a tax cut for the middle class, the analysis shows that this is not true for the nation as a whole or for Pennsylvania. While most Pennsylvanians would receive a modest tax cut, on average that cut… Continue reading

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Limitations on the State and Local Tax Deduction Hurt Pennsylvania in Two Ways

  By Federal Taxes, PA Budget and Policy Center, PBPC Blog posts, Resisting Trump, Taxation, US

A major issue in the debate over the Republican tax cut bill is whether the deduction for state and local taxes (the SALT deduction) should be eliminated or reduced. The conference committee bill released on Friday proposes a “compromise” that would allow individuals to deduct up to $10,000 in some combination of state and local property and income or sales taxes. That compromise is deeply problematic for Pennsylvania and many Pennsylvanians, in two different ways. First, substantial numbers of upper middle-class Pennsylvanians will see their taxes go up as a result of the limitation on state and local tax deductions in the conference committee bill. These taxpayers are likely to be concentrated in the suburbs of Philadelphia, where a high percentage of taxpayers take the state and local deduction. Second, the state as a whole will suffer because the limitation on the state and local tax deduction will make it… Continue reading

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Bush era tax cuts fall short

  By Federal Taxes, Published op-eds, Social Justice

Originally appeared in the Harrisburg Patriot News, July 3, 2011 Ten years ago last month, President George W. Bush signed a bill cutting taxes by $1.35 trillion over 10 years. It was the first of several Bush tax cuts that ended up costing two and a half trillion dollars over a decade. Dan Gleiter, The Patriot-News Ten years later, what have we gotten for this tax cut? Where is the prosperity President Bush promised? Pennsylvania’s official unemployment rate in June 2001 was 4.8 percent. Today, the seasonally adjusted rate is 7.4 percent. Nationwide, the unemployment rate was 4.7 percent. Today, it is hovering around 9 percent. At the end of last year, supporters of Bush’s policies pushed through an extension of the Bush tax cuts for another two years. Many lawmakers say they want to extend the tax cuts again into 2013 and beyond, which would almost double the federal… Continue reading

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Take action today to block tax cuts for the rich!–and some notes on where we stand on the tax issue

  By Federal Taxes, Penn ACTION, Take political action

The Senate is scheduled to vote today on the tax cut plan President Obama negotiated with Senate Republicans. Click here  to send an email to Senators Casey and Specter to urge them to vote no and encourage President Obama to stand united with Democrats in the House and Senate to seek a better deal. Urge them to seek a deal that continues extended unemployment benefits, that stimulates the economy, that cuts taxes for working people and the middle class and that stands against unnecessary, wasteful tax cuts for the rich. Click here  to send that message now. An interesting week This has been one of the more interesting weeks since I began at Penn ACTION in June. Our actions and emails about President Obama’s tax compromise have created more controversy among the people on our email list than anything else we have done. So this is a good opportunity for me… Continue reading

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Tell Congress to fight for a better deal

  By Federal Taxes, Unemployment Insurance

The news is full of reports that President Obama has cut a deal with Republican leaders in Congress on taxes. There is one good element in this bill: the 13 month continuation of extended unemployment insurance for which we’ve been fighting. But the price the Republicans have demanded for this good policy is an unnecessary and unjust extension of the Bush tax cuts for millionaires and a further reduction in the estate tax. A growing number of Democratic Members of Congress are saying that extended unemployment insurance should not be held hostage to tax cuts for the rich. They are telling their leaders and the President to stand up and fight for a better deal. Their position reflects all of the polls, which show 70% of the public opposing a continuation of the Bush tax cuts. Congress will be voting on the deal before they go home for the holidays.… Continue reading