Matheson: A petroleum profit tax would be efficient and progressive. TPC’s Thornton Matheson reviews proposals to tax excess profits earned in the oil industry. She compares Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse and Rep. Peter De Fazio's proposals: Whitehouse would tax oil production while De Fazio would temporarily tax excess profits. Thornton recommends a permanent profit tax that allows equipment expensing. She also urges Congress to repeal existing tax breaks for fossil fuel producers.
They are still fighting over pandemic health spending. Lawmakers are still trying to figure out the next steps after Congress dropped President Biden’s proposal for $15 billion for vaccines, testing, and treatments from the omnibus spending bill. Republicans want it financed through other unspent funds. Democrats want at least some new money.
Rhode Island lawmakers propose raising the income tax on the rich. A bill would create a new 8.99 percent tax bracket for the state’s top 1 percent of earners, whose adjusted gross income exceeds $500,000. The current top rate is 5.99 percent. State Sen. Melissa Murray, a Democrat, says new revenue of $144.5 million could help pay for schools, infrastructure, housing, and veterans programs. But opponents wonder why the state should raise taxes when running a $1 billion surplus thanks partly to federal aid.
West Virginia state lawmakers hop on the gas tax holiday bandwagon. Senate Democrats are asking GOP Gov. Jim Justice to call a special session to consider suspending the 37.5 cent gasoline tax for at least 30 days. They say the state’s current $600 million surplus could grow by June and offset the estimated $35 million in lost gas tax revenue.
IRS: CI…. A Utah dentist is convicted of evading nearly $2 million in taxes. Between 1998 through 2014, the Ogden dentist evaded $1.8 million in taxes. He also obstructed IRS efforts to collect those taxes by filing false liens against his properties and submitting to the IRS fake “bonds to discharge debt” that he claimed were from the account of a former Treasury Secretary. The dentist will be sentenced at a later date.
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