Expanded CTC payments helped reduce food insecurity. TPC researchers used data from the Urban Institute’s Well-Being and Basic Needs Survey to compare adults who received expanded Child Tax Credit payments from July through December 2021 with those who did not. They found food insecurity declined more among those who received the payments.
IRS paid billions of dollars in interest on delayed refunds. The Wall Street Journal reports (paywall) on a new GAO report that found the IRS paid $3.3 billion in interest to tax filers in fiscal 2021, triple what it paid in 2015. The main reason: Slow return processing. In April, the IRS began paying 4 percent interest on refunds that are not disbursed after 45 days.
And the IRS destroyed 30 million paper information return documents in March 2021 because of its backlog. The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) reports that the IRS usually uses those documents to identify taxpayers who don’t accurately report their income. TIGTA recommends the IRS do more to encourage electronic filing. In Fiscal Year 2020, the IRS spent over $226 million to process paper returns.
Analysis: Barclays may have avoided almost $2.4 billion in tax. The Guardian reports the London-based bank continues to benefit from its 2009 decision to book profits in Luxembourg rather than in the United Kingdom from the $15.2 billion sale of a fund management business. The move allows Barclays to offset future profits against a drop in the value of company shares it acquired as part of the deal.
In Brazil, a defense of smaller tax reform. Economy Minister Paulo Geddes says Brazil could propose a leaner version of tax reform that would increase taxes on the super-rich while reducing corporate taxes. He also told a government panel that Brazil is working with the Organization for Economic and Cooperative Development to assure that countries are rewarded for preserving natural resources. Brazil is the largest oil producer in South America and the eighth largest in the world.
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