Trump signs the USMCA. The president signed the revised North America Free Trade Agreement, which he calls the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement. Trump invited no Democrats to the signing ceremony, though Democrats said they were pleased by last minute labor and environmental concessions the White House wrote into the final agreement. The deal, which makes only modest changes to the prior pact, still must be approved by Canada.
Infrastructure Day. House Democrats released the outline of a five-year, $760 billion plan to build and fix roads, bridges, transit, and other public infrastructure. The Democrats did not say how they’d pay for the initiative. While most lawmakers agree on the need to upgrade these facilities, they’ve never agreed on how. Two years ago, President Trump announced a 10-year, $1.5 trillion plan of his own but nothing ever came of it. He never had a plan to pay for his effort either.
House Democrats want to lift a hold on their lawsuit seeking President Trump’s tax returns. Judge Trevor McFadden froze the case until an appeals court rules on a separate lawsuit. But House lawyers wrote that “This case has been stalled long enough… The requested relief is necessary for the Committee to move forward … and to carry out its constitutional functions in the limited time remaining in this Congress."
Democratic lawmakers want to know how the IRS will implement the Taxpayer First Act. The bipartisan legislation designed to protect lower-income taxpayers from tax debt collectors goes into effect in 2021. Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Sherrod Brown, and Ben Cardin and Rep. Jimmy Gomez wrote the agency that “it is critical that the IRS accurately identify the taxpayers whose accounts can no longer legally be referred to private debt collectors.” They said that the IRS should exclude taxpayers whose adjusted gross income is less than 200 percent of the federal poverty level or who receive most of their income from Social Security disability insurance or Supplemental Security Income.
How does the individual income tax code interact with racial inequities? The Internal Revenue Service does not ask for a filer’s race or ethnicity on tax forms, but the tax system still affects people of different races in different ways. Using the Form 1040 as a guide, a new TPC feature allows you to explore how the federal income tax code interacts with existing racial inequities. You can follow the lines of the 1040 to see how income tax provisions can have disparate impacts by race, based on eligibility, criteria benefits, or tax liabilities.
A new SLFI resource makes tracking state fiscal policy easier. TPC’s State and Local Finance Initiative has a new resource for anyone who cares about state tax and budget policy: A collection of State Fiscal Briefs. TPC’s Richard Auxier explains that “each brief summarizes a state’s finances, political environment, economics, and demographics, and helps get you up to speed on recent debates on taxes, education, and Medicaid.”
Utah’s tax reform: Enacted in a year, repealed in an hour. Soon after state voters put a repeal initiative on the November ballot, the Utah House and Senate voted nearly unanimously to repeal controversial tax legislation. The law would have cut taxes by $160 million, largely by lowering income tax rates and expanding dependent exemptions. But it also would have raised sales taxes on food, services and fuel. Governor Gary Herbert signed the repeal hours later. Lawmakers will now go back to the drawing board.
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