Tag: Reaganomics

Twice as many companies to pay zero taxes for 2018 due to Trump’s tax gift to the rich and powerful

You may owe taxes on your salary over the last year, but many Fortune 500 companies won’t pay squat on billions in profits, according to an analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.

The 2018 tax rate for at least 60 profitable Fortune 500 companies will be virtually nothing or even less—which is about double the number of companies reporting that rate on average in an analysis of previous years. Collectively, the 60 companies are skating on some $79 billion in pretax income. “Instead of paying $16.4 billion in taxes, as the new 21 percent corporate tax rate requires, these companies enjoyed a net corporate tax rebate of $4.3 billion,” ITEP wrote. Here’s just a glimpse of the billion-dollar companies that were able to zero out their federal income through the loopholes Donald Trump and the GOP built into their tax giveaway to the rich and powerful.

  • Amazon
  • Chevron
  • Deere
  • Delta Air Lines
  • General Motors
  • Halliburton
  • Honeywell International
  • Molson Coors
  • Prudential Financial

Continue reading “Twice as many companies to pay zero taxes for 2018 due to Trump’s tax gift to the rich and powerful”

Here are 5 really bad surprises buried in your tax return — courtesy of Donald Trump

The first hit you’re going to take is from inaccurate withholding tables, from there it just gets worse.

The weeks leading up to April 15th often are filled with anticipation and one looming question — will I have to stroke a check to the IRS or will I receive a welcomed tax refund? Oftentimes, it’s not until the email or call is received from your CPA that the anxiety produced by tax season begins to subside.

As we near the tax filing “home stretch,” we wanted to suggest that in this first year of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, you may want to brace yourself for some surprises. While many provisions of the Act were designed to reduce overall income taxes, other aspects of the new laws could actually cause that number to go up. If that unwelcome surprise happens to you, here’s a list of possible explanations:

“You’re under-withheld”

Anyone involved in tax preparation faced numerous delays in the rollout and understanding of how the new tax provisions were applied.  These delays impacted the availability of the tax withholdings tables used to guide payroll deductions.

View the complete April 3 article originally posted on Salon on the AlterNet website here.

The government set a record with a $234 billion deficit in February

The U.S. government posted the largest monthly budget deficit in American history in February, hitting a dramatic milestone as tax revenue lags and spending levels continue to skyrocket.

The government spent $234 billion more than it brought in through tax receipts last month, much more than the deficit levels hit during the global financial crisis.

Senior Treasury Department officials said the ballooning deficit was largely due to huge spending increases that the White House and Congress agreed to in the past two years, as defense spending and money for other programs went up sharply. But tax receipts are effectively flat since last year, an unusual phenomenon in a growing economy.

View the complete March 22 article by Damian Paletta and Erica Werner on The Washington Post website here.

Larry Kudlow’s claim that ‘we have virtually paid for’ Trump’s tax cut

Judy Woodruff, PBS: “You are hanging a lot of this on these tax cuts, but we now have a number of experts who are watching those tax receipt numbers that come in regularly, and they are saying that they do not add up to what is anything like the kind of growth that the administration had projected off these tax cuts.”

National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow: “Well, actually, overall revenues are up about 10 percent. So that’s a pretty good number. And let me say, one of the people that are skeptical of us, the Congressional Budget Office, nonetheless, their estimates before taxes and most recently after the taxes, they have argued, they have said, there’s roughly $7 trillion of higher nominal GDP, and from that comes about 1.2 trillion in extra revenues, so that the tax cuts are about 80 percent paid for overall.”

— Exchange on PBS’s “NewsHour,” March 11, 2019

“Even the CBO, with which we generally disagree — I’m not breaking news here on my part — but they just published their new numbers. You know, from the point of pre-tax-cut to now, we have had about $7 trillion unexpected increase, $7 trillion over 10 years in terms of GDP. And that kind of calculates to roughly 1.2, 1.3 trillion in additional revenue. That’s the CBO numbers. These are all 10-year estimates. I apologize for that, but that’s the convention. So, what am I saying here? The tax cut was about 1.5 trillion scored. We have virtually paid for it — I guess 80 percent paid for it — and that’s by the CBO’s own numbers.”

— Kudlow, in an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street,” March 8, 2019

President Trump’s chief economic adviser says new numbers from the Congressional Budget Office show that 80 percent of the administration’s tax cuts will be paid for in a decade. Even when accounting for lost revenue, the tax cuts will “virtually” pay for themselves because of increased economic activity, Kudlow suggests.

He’s not the first Republican to claim tax cuts pay for themselves. But he is the first to twist what the CBO’s nonpartisan number-crunchers said in a Feb. 28 analysis.

CBO Director Keith Hall factored in several big developments in this analysis. One was the estimated effect of the tax cuts Trump signed in December 2017. Another was “changes to federal spending resulting from legislation enacted early in 2018.” The biggest change came from “revised historical data and changes in the economic outlook … before accounting for the effects of the tax act.”

The Pinocchio Test

View the complete March 14 article by Salvador Rizzo on The Washington Post website here.

Dems seek relief for worried taxpayers in tough filing season

Democratic lawmakers and taxpayer rights advocates are stepping up their calls for the IRS and Congress to provide more help for taxpayers during a filing season challenged by President Trump‘s tax law and the recent government shutdown.

Some want Congress and the IRS to extend the filing deadline. And lawmakers and advocates are pushing for additional penalty relief for people who did not pay enough in taxes during the year because of withholding changes.

“Filing season is now in full swing, and I urge the House to act as soon as possible to ensure that these complying taxpayers are not penalized any further,” Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.) said at a hearing Thursday.

View the complete March 9 article by Naomi Jagoda on The Hill website here.

The federal deficit ballooned at start of new fiscal year, up 77 percent from a year before

The Capitol dome in Washington. Credit: Brendan Smialowski, Agence France-Presse via Getty Images

The federal budget deficit ballooned rapidly in the first four months of the fiscal year amid falling tax revenue and higher spending, the Treasury Department said Tuesday, posing a new challenge for the White House and Congress as they prepare for a number of budget battles.

The deficit grew 77 percent in the first four months of fiscal 2019 compared with the same period one year before, Treasury said.

The total deficit for the four-month period was $310 billion, Treasury said, up from $176 billion for the same period one year earlier.

View the complete March 5 article by Damian Paletta on The Washington Post website here.

Thanks To GOP Tax Cut, Bank Profits Rose $28.8 Billion In 2018

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. Credit: Andrew Harrer, Bloomberg

Colorado resident Isadora Bielsky was recently brought to tears when she learned that, rather than getting a refund, she owed $8,000 in taxes this year, thanks to the GOP tax scam.

But while Republicans punish folks like Bielsky, federal data shows U.S. banks ended 2018 with $28.8 billion in extra profit because of the same Republican tax bill.

Banks saw their profits soar by more than $70 billion over 2017 levels, but the $28.8 billion was solely because of goodies and kickbacks Republicans inserted into the tax bill, which passed Congress in late 2017 without a single vote from a Democrat.

View the complete February 23 article by Dan Desai Martin on the National Memo website here.

The Americans paying more taxes

The IRS currently faces the tough task of implementing the most sweeping tax overhaul in decades. (Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call file photo)
Tax season has begun, and upper-middle-income taxpayers earning between $120,000 and $200,000 in states with high local taxes are the most likely to be among the 5 percent who paid more last year because of the 2017 law, says Kyle Pomerleau, director of the Center for Quantitative Analysis at the Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan think tank. Doug Sword, CQ’s tax reporter, explains how congressional Democrats, and those running for president, are attacking the law.

View the February 15 post on The Roll Call website here.

REAL STORIES: Taxpayers Hurt By Trump’s Broken Promise That They’d Take Home More Money

Trump promised taxpayers they would take home more money because of his tax law. Now, millions of Americans across the country are receiving refunds that are less than they expected, and many are even having to pay more.

Here are real stories of American taxpayers who have been hurt by Trump’s broken promise:

“Refunds are less than what they expected, and in some cases, they’ll end up paying more taxes than they did last year.” – North Carolina accountant

“The standard deduction that was implemented to replace that hasn’t offset the loss in those other deductions…I really don’t think people are getting more money. Especially if you’re earning less than let’s say a quarter of a million dollars.” – Pennsylvania accountant Continue reading “REAL STORIES: Taxpayers Hurt By Trump’s Broken Promise That They’d Take Home More Money”