The eighties and nineties were not so good to Donald Trump. The New York Times has obtained President Trump’s tax returns from 1985 to 1994. The printouts of official IRS tax transcripts show that Trump's businesses lost more than $1 billion over the decade.
Will there be a New York State fight over the president’s tax returns? The state senate may pass as early as today a bill to allow congressional committees to see President Trump’s New York State tax returns. It would allow the commissioner of the Department of Taxation and Finance to release any state tax return requested by the chair of either the House Ways & Means Committee or the Senate Finance Committee, or by the Joint Committee on Taxation for any “specific and legitimate legislative purpose.”
The post-TCJA economy continues to grow. TPC’s Howard Gleckman and Aravind Boddupali explain that the US economy’s second post-TCJA year started out pretty well, but there may be trouble ahead. The first quarter of 2019’s strong growth largely comes from “a burst in exports, a decline in imports, and a rise in inventories that, combined, accounted for about half of the economy’s first quarter growth. It is hard to attribute any of those factors to tax cuts. And they likely are temporary factors that could well reverse in coming months.”
Harris: Let’s call the whole TCJA off. California senator and presidential hopeful Kamala Harris called for a full repeal of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. She says she’d do it on day one of her administration and use the money to help fund the LIFT Act, a nearly $3 trillion refundable tax credit program focused on middle-income earners. Repealing the TCJA, whose individual income tax provisions will expire in 2025 even if she does nothing, would pay for less than half of her tax credit program.
Governor Gavin Newsom’s budget exempts diapers and tampons from sales tax. The Democrat's fiscal plan would no longer apply sales tax to purchases of diapers and feminine hygiene products. The state’s Legislative Analyst’s Office estimates California would lose about $55 million in sales tax revenue as a result. The governor also would double from $500 to $1000 his proposed tax credit for families with children under 6.
Also in California: Los Angeles’ city attorney sues Intuit, H&R Block. In the complaint, City Attorney Mike Feuer alleges that the tax prep companies "defrauded the lowest earning 70 percent of American taxpayers" because they impeded use of the IRS Free File program. The suit claims the companies have undermined public access to the program so taxpayers would buy their commercial tax prep software.
Missouri’s revenue office breathes a sigh of relief, but is it being premature? Last month, Missouri tax filers either paid bigger-than-expected tax bills or received smaller-than-expected refunds—a so-called “April Surprise” caused by the state’s conformity with the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. As a result, the state has collected $930 million in tax revenue so far in 2019, more than twice what it collected by this time last year. The influx of cash erases previous fears about lagging revenues, and keeps the state’s $30 billion budget in the black… for now.
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