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Tax Reform Details: An Example of Comprehensive Reform
This report describes a tax reform plan that would raise $2 trillion over a decade, make the tax code more progressive, and end tax incentives for corporations to shift jobs and profits offshore.
10/23/2013
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Tax Reform Goals: Raise Revenue, Enhance Fairness, End Offshore Shelters
Most Americans and politicians probably like the idea of "tax reform," but not everyone agrees on what "tax reform" means. If Congress is going to spend time on a comprehensive overhaul of America's tax system, this overhaul should raise revenue, make our tax system more progressive, and end the breaks that encourage large corporations to shift their profits and even jobs offshore.
09/23/2013
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Congressman Delaney's "Rebuttal" on His Proposed Tax Amnesty for Offshore Corporate Profits Continues to Misinform
In July, a letter signed by thirty national organizations and a report from Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ) both warned members of Congress about a proposal from Congressman John Delaney of Maryland that would have the effect of rewarding corporations that use offshore tax havens to avoid U.S. taxes. Rep. Delaney's staff responded with a "rebuttal" that is itself based on misinformation about corporate tax law and about the likely effects of the proposal, which would provide a tax amnesty for offshore profits for corporations that agree to finance an infrastructure bank.
09/11/2013
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FedEx Paid 4.2% Federal Tax Rate over 5 Years
Between 2008 and 2012, FedEx reported $9.381 billion in US pretax income, and paid just $395 million in current federal income taxes. This computes to a 4.2 percent effective tax rate over this period.
09/05/2013
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Corporate-Backed Tax Lobby Groups Proliferating
In recent years, the corporate tax reform debate in the nation's capital has been invaded by an army of acronyms such as T.I.E., A.C.T. and R.A.T.E., representing different businesses and corporate interest groups. These groups seek to rebrand and build momentum for a corporate tax reform that benefits corporate rather than public interests.
08/21/2013
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Reforming Individual Income Tax Expenditures
This report evaluates the ten largest tax expenditures for individuals based on progressivity and effectiveness in achieving non-tax policy goals - which include subsidizing home ownership and encouraging charitable giving, increasing investment, encouraging work, and many other stated goals.
07/22/2013
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Presentation: Nuts & Bolts of Corporate Tax Reform
The corporate income tax is a progressive source of revenue and Congress should increase this revenue by limiting or eliminating breaks that allow large, profitable corporations to avoid taxation. The most important of these are breaks for corporate profits that are generated offshore or claimed to be generated offshore. Lawmakers should also oppose proposals discussed today that would expand these breaks and result in more corporations relying on offshore tax havens.
07/19/2013
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Delaney's Delusion
The latest proposed tax amnesty for repatriated offshore profits would create an infrastructure bank controlled by the most aggressive corporate tax dodgers.
06/25/2013
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Fact Sheet: Why We Need the Corporate Income Tax
Some observers have asked why we need a corporate income tax in addition to a personal income tax. They use a deceptively simple argument that ignores the massive windfalls that wealthy individuals would receive if there was no corporate income tax.
06/10/2013
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Apple Is Not Alone
Recent Congressional hearings on the international tax-avoidance strategies pursued by the Apple corporation documented the company's strategy of shifting U.S. profits to offshore tax havens. But Apple is hardly the only major corporation that appears to be engaging in offshore-tax sheltering: seventeen other Fortune 500 corporations disclose information, in their financial reports, that strongly suggests they have paid little or no tax on their offshore holdings.
06/02/2013
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Presentation: Nuts & Bolts of Tax Reform
This presentation was given to the United Church of Christ, Office of Justice & Witness, and the Presbyterian Church (USA), Office of Public Witness.
05/31/2013
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Apple Holds Billions of Dollars in Foreign Tax Havens
An analysis of Apple Inc.'s financial reports makes clear that Apple has paid almost no income taxes to any country on its $102 billion in offshore cash holdings. That means that this cash hoard reflects profits that were shifted, on paper, out of countries where the profits were actually earned into foreign tax havens.
05/20/2013
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State-by-State Figures on Obama's Proposal to Limit Tax Expenditures
President Obama has proposed to limit the tax savings for high-income taxpayers from itemized deductions and certain other deductions and exclusions to 28 cents for each dollar deducted or excluded. This proposal would raise more than half a trillion dollars in revenue over the upcoming decade. Despite this large revenue gain, only 3.6 percent of Americans would receive a tax increase under the plan in 2014, and their average tax increase would equal just less than one percent of their income.
04/29/2013
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Executive-Pay Tax Break Saved Fortune 500 Corporations $27 Billion Over the Past Three Years
Earlier this year, Citizens for Tax Justice reported that Facebook Inc. had used a single tax break, for executive stock options, to avoid paying even a dime of federal and state income taxes in 2012. Since then, CTJ has investigated the extent to which other large companies are using the same tax break. This short report presents data for 280 Fortune 500 corporations that, like Facebook, disclose a portion of the tax benefits they receive from this tax break.
04/23/2013
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Bernie Sanders Is Right and the Tax Foundation Is Wrong: The U.S. Has Very Low Corporate Income Taxes
Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont recently appeared on Real Time with Bill Maher and disputed the claim by the Tax Foundation that the U.S. has the highest corporate tax in the world. Senator Sanders is right, the Tax Foundation is wrong.
04/23/2013
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Six Things You Need to Know on Tax Day
The critical facts you need to know about our tax system.
04/15/2013
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President Obama's Tax Proposals in his Fiscal 2014 Budget Plan
President Obama has proposed some very modest changes in federal taxes in his Fiscal 2014 budget plan. Over the upcoming decade, the President's proposal would boost total federal revenues by only $851 billion. That's less than a 3 percent increase.
04/11/2013
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Ten (of Many) Reasons Why We Need Corporate Tax Reform
This CTJ report illustrates how profitable Fortune 500 companies in a range of sectors of the U.S. economy have been remarkably successful in manipulating the tax system to avoid paying even a dime of tax on billions of dollars in profits. These ten corporations' tax situations shed light on the widespread nature of corporate tax avoidance. As a group, the ten companies paid no federal income tax on $16 billion in profits in 2012, and they paid zero federal income tax on $57 billion in profits over the past five years. All but one paid less than zero federal income tax in 2012; all paid exceedingly low rates over five years.
04/10/2013
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The U.S. Continues to Be One of the Least Taxed of the Developed Countries
The U.S. was the third least taxed country in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in 2010, the most recent year for which OECD has complete data. Of all the OECD countries, which are essentially the countries the U.S. trades with and competes with, only Chile and Mexico collect less taxes as a percentage of their overall economy (as a percentage of gross domestic product, or GDP).
04/08/2013
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Who Pays Taxes in America in 2013?
America's tax system is just barely progressive even after the fiscal cliff deal's effects. Claims that the rich pay a disproportionate share of taxes often focus only on the federal personal income tax and ignore the other taxes that people pay, like federal payroll taxes, federal excise taxes, and state and local taxes.
04/01/2013
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