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Congress is in recess. The Daily Deduction will publish Mondays until Congress returns in mid-September.
In Detroit, Marco Rubio shared a little ditty about “David” and “Danielle.” The GOP presidential candidate touted his tax plan’s effect on a hypothetical auto service shop owner and a single mother who works at the shop’s front desk. Under the plan he released this spring with Senator Mike Lee, Rubio claims “David” would be able to give “Danielle” a raise, and she’d be able to keep more of her earnings. Rubio did not mention that the plan would add trillions to the debt.
Scott Walker’s ACA replacement would not replace health care coverage. TPC’s Howard Gleckman explains the real problem with the GOP presidential candidate’s plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act and replace it with age-based tax subsidies. They “are too small and too poorly targeted to help low income people, who were most likely to be uninsured prior to the ACA and who would lose coverage if the law is repealed.” Then there’s the fact that “Walker’s health plan would add hundreds of billions of dollars in new tax preferences to the Code. Not exactly Reaganesque,” as Walker proclaims his goals to be.
Will California raise its gas tax? The state faces a $59 billion backlog in infrastructure repairs over the next 10 years, and hasn’t increased its gasoline tax in 20 years. A Senate panel would increase the 42 cent-per-gallon gas tax by 12 cents, but California Republicans would rather reallocate existing funds. Democratic Governor Jerry Brown noted that in 1982, Republicans wanted to raise the gasoline tax. He called a special legislative session to address the funding backlog, but lawmakers have yet to reach a deal. The session ends on September 11.
Meanwhile, a Los Angeles audit uncovers a revenue shortage. The city’s database of businesses that pay the gross receipts tax doesn’t sync with similar state and county tallies. That means the state and county can’t collect the correct amount of revenue, shorting LA by about $20 million a year in business tax revenue. About 44 percent of the city’s general fund comes from taxes collected on its behalf by the county and state.
The European Union approves UK’s expansion of film production tax breaks. Film and television companies of all sizes can now claim a 25 percent tax credit on their production costs. United Kingdom Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne says the incentive could bring in £2 billion in business. Maybe he can convince Netflix to shoot the next season of its remake of BBC’s "House of Cards" in the UK.
Speaking of tax subsidies… TPC’s Howard Gleckman says kudos to the Government Accounting Standards Board for requiring states and localities to be more transparent about the tax breaks they give businesses and other entities.
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