Americans still want to tax the fella behind the tree. As part of a budget-cutting exercise, a new online survey finds that a majority of Americans would raise taxes on the top 5 percent of earners. On average, they’d hike taxes by less than 1 percent on those with middle-and lower incomes, but by 3 percent on the wealthy and 4 percent on the super-rich. Former Senate Finance Committee Chair Russell Long was right: “Don’t tax me, don’t tax thee,” well, you get the rest.
Hard choices don’t come easy to Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump. TPC’s Howard Gleckman hears a similar pitch when Sanders promises to reduce the cost of his single-player plan through future reductions in medical costs and Trump claims that his big tax cut will pay for itself by boosting economic growth. He explains why both promises are politically appealing but implausible.
A Senate vote next week on an ACA replacement? Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told his caucus that he’ll schedule a vote on the Graham-Cassidy bill next week, just days before the window closes for the GOP to pass a bill this year with no Democratic support. Among other provisions, the measure would repeal the Affordable Care Act’s tax subsidies for insurance buyers, tax penalties for those with no coverage, and the excise tax on medical device makers. It would retain all other ACA taxes, including the Net Investment Income Tax and the Medicare surtax on high-income taxpayers.
Will Wisconsin’s FoxConn deal end up like Brazil’s? This week GOP Governor Scott Walker signed a bill to give $3 billion in tax incentives to microchip maker FoxConn if the Taiwanese company invests $10 billion in the state and creates 13,000 jobs. FoxConn made a similar promise in Brazil six years ago, explains The New York Times, but Brazil is still waiting for the investment—and the jobs.
A draft European Commission report says digital companies pay half the taxes to EU nations that other companies pay. Adopted yesterday, the draft report finds that large brick-and-mortar firms pay a median 23.2 percent effective tax rate in the European Union but digital firms like Amazon and Facebook pay 10.1 percent. When they sell directly to consumers, that rate falls to 8.9 percent. The European Commission says the EU should overhaul taxes on digital firms no matter what other industrialized nations do.
India’s big tax reform brings big tax… rebates? The Financial Times reports that businesses in India are seeking tax rebates worth more than two-thirds of the tax revenue collected under the new goods and services tax in its first month. That’s $10 billion out of $14 billion. A civil servant named Mahender Singh has asked tax commissioners to review every rebate claim exceeding $155,000, which would affect 162 companies. “The possibility of claiming ineligible credit due to mistake or confusion cannot be ruled out,” Singh said.
