Month: October 2021

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The “Billionaire Tax”: What It Is and Why We Need It

  By Billionaire tax, Federal Taxes, PA Budget and Policy Center, PBPC Blog posts, Taxation, Uncategorized, US

UPDATE: Senator Ron Wyden has released his “Billionaires Income Tax” legislation—read the language of the bill here:  https://www.finance.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Billionaires%20Income%20Tax.pdf. As negotiations between President Biden and House and Senate members over the Build Back Better plan have developed in the last few weeks, a new tax proposal to fund the close to $2 billion investment in health care, child care, paid family leave, climate change, and other programs, has come to the fore: a “billionaire tax.” While Senator Wyden and others have been discussing this proposal for some time, it is a relatively unknown concept and would be a new form of federal taxation. Here we briefly explain what it is and why it is an excellent idea. The new proposal is to tax the increased wealth of the richest Americans each year. The tax would apply immediately to tradeable assets—stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and derivatives—where the value of the asset is… Continue reading

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MEMO: The Corporate Profits Minimum Tax and Why We Need It

  By Corporate Taxes, Federal Taxes, Taxation, US

Democrats are set to introduce a 15% corporate minimum tax as a funding mechanism for the Build Back Better plan. The Corporate Profits Minimum Tax legislation would ensure that roughly 200 corporations that report more than $1 billion in profits to shareholders pay at least a 15% tax rate on those gigantic profits. It would stop giant, profitable corporations, such as Amazon, Bank of America, FedEx, General Motors, Netflix, and Nike, from escaping all federal taxes. These corporations and others like them make huge profits that they report to their stockholders in filings required by the federal government. But they take advantage of multiple tax loopholes to avoid paying federal corporate income taxes. This new tax would raise roughly $200 billion to $300 billion dollars over ten years. These revenues would enable the federal government to make new investments in helping families with children, health care, child care, elder care,… Continue reading

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Build Back Better: A Transformative Plan for 21st-Century America

  By Economic Development, Economic Justice, Education, Energy, Infrastructure, PA Budget and Policy Center, Statements, Taxation, US

President Biden’s Build Back Better framework is an unprecedented and transformative plan to better the lives of all Americans—Black, brown, and white; those with low, moderate, or high incomes; the youngest children and the oldest seniors. It will help families care for children while making quality pre-K available to all 3- and 4-year-olds. It will create hundreds of thousands of good jobs, many in unionized trades and clean manufacturing while drastically cutting greenhouse gases and reducing energy costs for every household. It will reduce the cost of health care and housing for millions. And it will make college education more affordable, boosting the future prospects of our young people and our economy as a whole. It will be paid for by new taxes on the largest, most profitable corporations and the wealthiest Americans while cutting taxes for working people—all while reducing the deficit. The legislative process in America is always… Continue reading

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This Is How (and How Many) Pennsylvanians Are Helped by the Build Back Better Plan

  By Economic Development, Economic Justice, Health Care, PA Budget and Policy Center, PBPC Blog posts, Taxation, US

Updated November 18, 2021. President Biden’s Build Back Better plan is an unprecedented and transformative plan to better the lives of all Americans—Black, brown, and white; those with low, moderate, or high incomes; the youngest children and the oldest seniors. We have given an overview of the whole program—but here we want to focus on the many ways Pennsylvanians will be touched by the Build Back Better plan. These preliminary estimates of the numbers of Pennsylvanians who will benefit from Build Back Better are from official government sources. Soon, we will be updating them with additional and more detailed estimates from policy analysts outside government. How the Build Back Better plan helps Pennsylvania’s children and families Provides access to affordable child care. Child care is a huge burden for families in our state. The annual average cost of sending a young child to a child care center in Pennsylvania is… Continue reading

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The Prospects for Progress in DC

  By Economic Justice, PBPC Blog posts, US

News stories from Washington, D.C., are beginning to remind us of a melodrama with one cliffhanger after another—and they got worse after Speaker Pelosi decided not to hold a vote on the infrastructure bill last night. The key question appears to be: “will division between progressives and moderates in the Democratic party” be overcome so they can pass a reconciliation bill, an infrastructure bill, and an increase in the debt limit? Drama is almost always a part of major policy change, and cliffhangers sell newspapers and generate clicks on the Web. But looking forward, it seems clear that much of this daily drama is hysterical. In fact, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that President Biden and the Democrats in Congress are going to do all of these things within the next week or two. Why do I believe this? First, as a recent poll by… Continue reading