EU will delay its digital tax. European Commission spokesman Daniel Ferrie told reporters that the European Union’s will delay its new digital levy at least until the fall. The EU had planned to impose it later this month but wants to clear a path for a global 15 percent corporate minimum tax. One obstacle still in the way: Ireland. It wants to preserve its 12.5 percent corporate rate.
What wealth tax advocates can learn from Michael Jackson estate. TPC’s Howard Gleckman reviews how lawyers argued for nearly a decade over how to value the King of Pop’s estate, and what that battle says about the administrability of a wealth tax. Backers of the wealth levy should remember the time an IRS appraiser argued Jackson’s likeness and image was worth $161 million but a tax court judge knocked it down to $4 million.
Arizona voters may weigh in on the state’s recently passed $2 billion tax cut. Advocates, unhappy that the legislature’s recently enacted $2 billion tax cut disproportionately benefits the state’s wealthiest households, want voters to have the final say. They’re collecting signatures to put the tax cut’s key provisions, already part of the state budget signed by Gov. Doug Ducey, on the 2022 ballot. They have until September 28 to collect about 118,000 names. If they reach their goal, the tax cuts would be delayed until after the 2022 referendum.
Aloha tourists! Here’s a new tax… State lawmakers overrode Gov. David Ige’s veto of a bill that overhauls how Hawaii funds its tourism authority. The new law allows Hawaii’s counties to collect a 3 percent surtax from visitors staying at hotels and other short-term rentals. Under the old law, the state collected a 10 percent hotel tax and distributed a share to each county. The new arrangement could be a windfall for the counties. Maui, for example, could see its revenue triple.
Russia considers longer-term taxes on mining profits. The nation’s temporary export tax of at least 15 percent on steel, nickel, aluminum and copper expires at the end of the year. Russian officials are now considering changes to mineral extraction taxes to replace those export taxes starting in 2022.
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