The President’s Infrastructure Ideas: Four Facts TPC’s Richard Auxier helps you keep up with evolving debate with four facts (and charts) on President Trump's plan, current infrastructure spending, and motor fuel taxes (both federal and state).
Hatch is still mulling a corporate integration plan. While tax geeks have been focusing nearly all their attention on the House GOP leadership’s tax plan and the Administration’s tax outline, Senate Financing Committee Chair Orrin Hatch has been quietly sitting back, perhaps waiting for the border adjustable tax to collapse. Yesterday chief tax counsel Mark Prater said that Hatch was still working on his plan to end the double taxation of corporate dividends. "We continue to work on that and we see that as a valuable tool," he told the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's tax conference. Hatch first promised to release his plan a year ago.
Another Trump foundation controversy. Forbes.com reports that the Eric Trump Foundation funneled tax deductible charitable gifts made ostensibly to help sick children to the Trump Organization. About $500,000 “was re-donated to other charities, many of which were connected to Trump family members or interests, including at least four groups that subsequently paid to hold golf tournaments at Trump courses,” reports Forbes’ Dan Alexander.
Inside the Beltway: A hearing, health care, and listening. The House Budget Committee will consider pro-growth policies in a hearing with Douglas Holtz-Eakin of the American Action Forum and Jason Furman of the Peterson Institute for International Economics. Meanwhile, Senate leadership grapples with health care legislation, while the Trump Administration holds listening sessions about tax reform.
Governor Brownback: I’ll veto the Kansas budget. Kansas Legislature: We'll override. Kansas lawmakers just approved a $1.2 billion tax cut package that would repeal income tax cuts pushed by Brownback in 2012. Brownback says the bill would unleash “draconian tax increases” on Kansas families over two years and vetoed it, but the House and Senate both voted to override him late last night.
Seattle approves a tax on sugary drinks. Beginning in January, the 1.75-cent-per-ounce tax will apply to drinks like Gatorade, Red Bull and Sunny D, along with syrups used in soda-fountain carbonated drinks. The Tax Hound considers whether the bill, narrower in focus than Mayor Murray hoped for, will have the impact the city wants.
Will Massachusetts soon have a “millionaire’s tax?” The state’s House and Senate may vote next week on an income tax hike that could collect between $1.6 billion and $2.2 billion from the state’s highest earners. The proposed constitutional amendment would levy a 4 percent surtax on income over $1 million. If passed, voters would decide to reject or ratify it in 2018.
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