Americans for Tax Reform

Time 2020-09-16 18:03:17

Web Name: Americans for Tax Reform

WebSite: http://www.atr.org

ID:48933

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for,Americans,Reform,

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Presidential candidate Joe Biden has proposed raising the corporate tax rate from 21 percentto 28 percent. This would impose on Americans one of the highest corporate tax rates in the developed world, even higher than Communist China's 25 percent.Biden doesn't want voters to know that the vast majority of corporations are local and regional small and mid-sized businesses vital to communities.According to theCongressional Research Service, "The majority of both corporations and pass-throughs in 2011 had fewer than five employees (55% of C corporations and 64% of pass-throughs). Nearly 99% of both corporations and pass-throughs had fewer than 500 employees, the most common employment-based threshold used by the Small Business Administration (SBA)." For reference, Amazon has one millionemployees and Walmart has 2.2 million employees.The most dire effects of a corporate tax hike would be felt by smaller businesses that Biden has claimed to be a champion for. It would also have severe consequences on workers' wages and the economy as a whole.Kevin A. HassettandAparna Mathur released a study on the corporate tax rate in 2015. The study,"A spatial model of corporate tax incidence," was published inApplied Economics, Taylor Francis Journals. Here are some of their findings on the impact of a corporate tax rate raise: A 1% increase in corporate tax rates leads to a 0.5% decrease in wage rates. Both domestic and neighbor country tax rates are important in explaining the formation of domestic capital-labor ratios. Higher tax rates in neighboring countries have a positive and significant effect on capital formation in the domestic country. When the corporate tax rate is increased, businesses move operations out of the country. All measures of corporate taxation, such as the top national corporate tax rate, the effective average and the effective marginal tax rate negatively affect capital formation. Higher top rates discourage capital formation and capital expenditure. In other words, a Biden corporate tax increase would lead to a decrease in wage rates, businesses moving operations out of the United States, an overall decrease in capital expenditureand capital formation (leading to less investment in thingslikemachines, tools, factories, transport equipment, materials, electricity, etc.), a GDP reduction, and hundreds of thousands of job losses. The effects could be especially severe due to the vulnerable state thepandemic has put the country in.Given the disproportionate amount of corporations thatare relatively small, this could end up hurting key local employers.Americans for Tax Reform has collected several testimonials from small and mid-sized corporations who benefited greatly from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.For example, Conger Construction Group based in Lebanon, Ohio was able to double the amount of employees, offer bigger bonuses, give more paid time off, and provide additional healthcare benefits to workers:“Justin Conger, owner and president of Conger Construction Group in Lebanon, Ohio, a C corporation, attributes the explosion of his business to the TCJA’s flat corporate tax rate of 21 percent, and he thinks his company’s success indicates the health of the overall economy.“Construction is a lagging indicator of the economy,” he told members of the House Committee on Small Business on Wednesday. “If our clients or other businesses are not growing, expanding, or re-investing in their facilities, there is no need for commercial construction services. There is a lot of work to be completed before a project can start; from an owner obtainingfinancing,to architectural drawings being completed, to regulatory approval from local jurisdictions. Businesses all over Ohio are growing and expanding by utilizing the benefits of the TCJA and reinvesting additional generated capital into their businesses. In talking with past, future, and current clients, over 80 percent indicate the reason for their investment in construction services is due to the economy and current tax structure.”“Conger said the number of employees at his company doubled in the last year and a half, and he’s been offering bigger bonuses, more paid time off and better healthcare benefits to workers because business has been so good. Conger said they’re also expanding office space due to the increased number of employees.”It's important to remember that when leftists cite "evil corporations that must be held accountable," they prefer to create the illusion that their policy preferences would only hit large multinational corporations. In reality, they leave out the small and mid-sized businesses that happen to be classified as corporations, the employees of these corporations, and those corporations'consumers--all of which will be expected to foot the bill for leftist policies. Photo Credit: Bill Smith Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has introduced “The Reinvigorating the Economy, Creating Opportunity for Every Vocation, Employer, Retiree, and Youth (RECOVERY) Act,” legislation designed to help the American economy continue recovering from the Coronavirus pandemic.Here are several provisions that will help the economy recover and get Americans safely back to work.Tax credits for employee testing and personal protective equipmentThe RECOVERY Act provides a $150 tax credit to businesses that test their employees for Coronavirus on a biweekly basis for the remainder of 2020. This tax credit provides a direct incentive for employers to implement robust testing programs that keep their employees safe.In addition, the Cruz bill establishes several tax credits designed to foster the conditions for businesses to safely reopen and operate. Employers can claim 50 percent of the cost of qualified expenses as a credit against applicable employment taxes on a quarterly basis.Employers can claim a credit between $500 to $1,000 per employee depending on the size of their business.Qualified expenses include providing personal protective equipment for employees as well as reconfiguring and retrofitting workspaces.Right to Test Act and FDA reciprocityThe RECOVERY Act includes the “Right to Test Act,”legislation that would allow states to approve and distribute Coronavirus tests as long as the state or federal government has declared a public health emergency. This would empower states to bypass FDA approval and drastically ramp up our testing capacity.We already know what happens when Washington bureaucrats are in charge of developing and producing Coronavirus testing. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) took weeks to develop a Coronavirus test after the pandemic reached our borders,only to contaminatethe first round of testing kits and completely botch the rollout.The RECOVERY Act also establishes a reciprocal marketing approval process for COVID-19 drugs, biological products, and medical devices. This bill allows the sale of COVID-19 treatments or cures in the United States that have not yet been approved by the FDA if the product has already been approved in other countries.Product sponsors must meet several criteria in order to sell in the U.S.The FDA is notoriously slow at approving new drugs. On average, it takes90.3 monthsfor pharmaceuticals to go through the development and approval process, imposing immense R D costs on manufacturers. In the middle of a global pandemic, we simply can’t afford to have the government slow things down more than they already do.Liability protection for businessesThe RECOVERY Act establishes a liability shield for businesses operating during the Coronavirus pandemic.This provision prevents businesses and/or individuals from being held liable in any Coronavirus exposure action unless the plaintiff can conclusively prove that: The businesses or individual were not making “reasonable efforts in light of all the circumstances” to comply with all applicable government standards at the time of the alleged exposure. The business or individual engaged in “gross negligence or willful misconduct” that caused the accidental exposure to COVID-19. The accidental exposure caused the plaintiff personal injury. As our economy begins to turn the corner on COVID-19, a liability protection for businesses that have acted in good faith to keep their customers and employees safe is absolutely crucial to getting Americans safely back to work. This provision prevents trial lawyers from cashing in on the crisis with predatory and abusive legislation.Payroll tax holiday for employers and employeesThe RECOVERY Act temporarily suspends the payroll tax for employers and employees from the date of enactment through the end of 2020. This payroll tax holiday will lower the cost to businesses for hiring new employees, accelerating the reopening process and continuing to get Americans safely back to work.This legislation builds on President Trump’s payroll tax executive order which deferred Social Security payroll taxes from September 1 to December 31, 2020. This proposal makes the moratorium permanent so that taxpayers do not have to pay back payroll tax relief next year.Ways and Means Republican Leader Kevin Brady (R-Texas) has introduced similar legislation in the House of Representatives.Indexing capital gains to inflationThe RECOVERY Act ends the taxation of inflationary gains by indexing the calculation of capital gains taxes to inflation. Under current law, the capital gains tax fails to account for gains that are based on inflation. This unfairly exposes taxpayers to additional taxation.For example, an investor makes a capital investment of $1,000 in 2000 and sells that investment for $2,000 in 2017 will be taxed for a $1,000 gain at a top capital gains tax rate of 23.8 percent. After adjusting for inflation, the “true gain” is much lower – just $579. (1,000 in 2000 - $1,421 in 2017).Ending the inflation tax would also benefit millions of middle class households. ATR looked atInternal Revenue Service datafrom 2017 (the most recent available data) to determine what percentage of middle class households had a capital gains filing: 25,494,330 American households had a capital gains filing 13,730,710 (53%) made less than $100k 20,466,770 (80%) made less than $200k The breakdown for all 50 states ishere.Full business expensingThe RECOVERY Act would implement permanent full business expensing for qualified property. This would allow businesses to deduct the cost of new investments (machinery, equipment, etc.) in the year they are made.There are several benefits to this policy. First, it incentivizes new investment, leading to greater economic productivity, job growth and higher wages. Second, it simplifies the tax code by equalizing the tax treatment of new investments with other business expenses such as wages, rent, and healthcare costs.In a post COVID-19 world, full expensing will help businesses make vital investments in the coming months and years as they seek to bring workers back, onshore manufacturing capabilities, and ramp up production.DeregulationThe RECOVERY Act would enact the “REINS Act,” legislation that overhauls the regulatory process and strengthen Congressional oversight of agency rulemaking.The legislation also includes a provision that permanently repeals regulations that have been waived or suspended during the Coronavirus pandemic and creates a regulatory review commission for Congress to reinstate rules if they are truly needed. If for some reason the regulation is truly needed in order for agencies to function properly, Congress can reinstate the rule after recommendation from the commissions.Instead of using the crisis to consolidate more power in the federal government’s hands, President Trump and his administration have made deregulation a central part of the Coronavirus response. State and local governments have followed suit, leading to the suspension of over 800 rules and regulations nationwide.ATR has kept a running list of these waived regulations, which you can viewhere.529 expansionThe RECOVERY Act allows Americans to use 529s for K-12 expenses for students engaged in home learning including students enrolled in public, private, or religious school and students that are homeschooled through the end of 2022.529s are tax advantaged savings accounts that allow parents to save and invest after-tax income for education costs. Any money earned through 529 investment is tax-free, making these plans a popular choice for parents looking to save for future education expenses.Qualified expenses include curriculum materials, books, online educational materials, tutoring costs, fees for standardized testing, and expenses for students with disabilities.The coronavirus pandemic has resulted in additional costs for American families stemming from the need to ensure schools openly safely and the implementation of online and distance learning. These new costs are exacerbated by the financial hardships that Americans are experiencing across the country due to a lost job, or reduction in work hours.Expanding HSAs by enacting the Pandemic Healthcare Access ActThe RECOVERY Act also includes Senator Cruz’s “Pandemic Healthcare Access Act,”legislation that would allow all healthcare plans to use Health Savings Accounts throughout the Coronavirus pandemic.Currently, there is a mandate that any American wanting to open or contribute to an HSA must be on a high-deductible health plan.Senator Cruz’s legislation would pause this mandate in order to help mitigate the pandemic by Americans in Medicare, Affordable Care Act health plans, TRICARE, the VA, Indian Health Service and any employer plan to use HSAs. It will also help individuals pay for their deductible or any increased health care costs, allow HSA funds to pay for direct primary care, and allow telemedicine below the deductible. Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore A misguided tax on financial transactions aimed at data processing facilities in New Jersey has caught the eye of Governor Phil Murphy.That development was followed by the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) stating they would move operations out of New Jersey in response. Now, a broad coalition, including Nasdaq, Citadel Securities and Virtu Financial, has joined NYSE in promising to move operations out of New Jersey if a financial transactions tax is imposed.This is incredibly predictable, given that New Jersey is home to computers that process trades, something that can easily be moved elsewhere. Even New York, which is home to trading floors, risks driving off exchanges if it imposes a similar stock transfer tax.The New Jersey proposal would levy a 0.25 cent tax on a wide variety of financial transactions processed by the exchanges at data centers – like trades of stocks, options, futures.Don’t let the low per transaction number fool you, with data centers processing tens of thousands of transactions each year, the cost will add up to an estimated $10 billion. And that is just the revenue the state expects, by adding burdensome costs and compliance, the value of every American’s investments and retirement will go down.The exchanges will prove their point later in September as they use facilities outside of New Jersey to process transactions for one day, showing how easily they can move.If you thought Bernie Sanders’ or Elizabeth Warren’s tax hike ideas were no longer a threat, think again. This tax, as well as New York’s so-called billionaire asset tax, are straight out of the Sanders and Warren playbook, and absolutely threaten all Americans’ retirement plans.While New Jersey has been hit hard by COVID-19, revenues are coming back faster and higher than expected. The fact is, Governor Murphy pushes for tax hikes every year, because he refuses to address New Jersey’s out-of-control spending problem – especially huge pension liabilities that even moderate Democrats want to reform. More from Americans for Tax Reform 80 free market, conservative, and libertarian organizations and activistsoppose President Trump’s recently signed “most favored nation” (MFN) executive order to impose foreign price controls on the medicines used by American seniors.Trump's executive orderwill tie the prices we pay for medicines in Medicare Part B and Part D to the prices in foreign countries, most of which have government-set prices.Signatories of the coalition letter include representatives from prominent national organizations as well as almost 30 states.President Trump has repeatedly stoodstrongagainst the left’s calls for socialized medicine, even promising in the 2020 State oftheUnion Address that “we will never let socialism destroy American healthcare.”Unfortunately, an MFN policy would adopt these same socialist healthcare policies and threaten American medical innovation. As the letter notes:"Adopting these price controls will slow medical innovation, threaten American jobs, and undermine criticism of single-payer systems. In addition, a United States embrace of price controls will make it immeasurably more difficult to get foreign countries to pay their own way in the development of new medicines."An MFN policy would also threaten our COVID-19 response and exacerbate foreign freeloading off of American innovation. As the letter notes:"The U.S. is the best in the world when it comes to developing innovative, lifesaving and life preserving medicines. Because of this, the U.S. is leading the way when it comes to developing COVID-19 vaccines, with several promising candidates entering the final stages of testing and clinical trials."Rather than adopting price controls, the signatories urge President Trump to continue pushing policies that encourage American innovation like tax cuts and renegotiated trade deals:“As President, you have championed vital changes in tax and regulatory policies that have allowed free market innovation to flourish. We believe a market-based approach like those that your administration has consistently supported in other policy areas will lead to economic growth and promising new treatments but adopting price controls through the MFN plan would undermine rather than build on those successes.”Click here to read the full letter.Signatories of the coalition letter:Grover NorquistPresident, Americans for Tax ReformBrent Wm. GardnerChief Government Affairs Officer, Americans for ProsperityJoel WhitePresident, Council for Affordable Health CoverageGrace Marie-TurnerPresident, Galen Institute (organization listed for affiliation purposes only)Daniel SchneiderExecutive Director, American Conservative UnionLisa B. NelsonCEO, ALECAdam BrandonPresident, FreedomWorksPete SeppPresident, National Taxpayers UnionPhil KerpenPresident, American CommitmentGinevra Joyce-MyersExecutive Director, Center for Innovation and Free EnterprisePeter PittsPresident, Center for Medicine in the Public InterestJohn HinderakerPresident, Center of the American ExperimentLeo KnepperCEO, Citizens Alliance of PennsylvaniaDonald BrysonPresident CEO, Civitas InstituteRegina ThomsonPresident, Colorado Issues CoalitionGregory ConkoSenior Fellow, Competitive Enterprise InstituteJames EdwardsExecutive Director, Conservatives for Property RightsMatthew KandrachPresident, Consumer Action for a Strong EconomyFred RoederHealth Economist/Managing Director, Consumer Choice CenterYaël OssowskiDeputy Director, Consumer Choice CenterKatie McAuliffeExecutive Director, Digital LibertyRobert RoperPresident, Ethan Allen InstituteAnnette MeeksCEO, Freedom Foundation of MinnesotaGeorge LandrithPresident, Frontiers of FreedomRay ChadwickChairman, Granite State TaxpayersNaomi LopezDirector of Healthcare Policy, Goldwater InstituteMario H. LopezPresident, Hispanic Leadership FundCarrie LukasPresident, Independent Women's ForumHeather R. HigginsCEO, Independent Women's VoiceAndrew LangerPresident, Institute for LibertyTom GiovanettiPresident, Institute for Policy InnovationSal NuzzoVice President of Policy, James Madison InstituteAmy Oliver CookeCEO, John Locke FoundationDrew ClinePresident, Josiah Bartlett Center for Public PolicySeton MotleyPresident, Less GovernmentJay FisherImmediate Past Chairman, Lisle Township Republican OrganizationDoug McCulloughDirector, Lone Star Policy InstituteLindsay KillenVice President for Strategic Outreach, Mackinac Center for Public PolicyBrett HealyPresident, The John K. MacIver Institute for Public PolicyMatt GagnonPresident, Maine Policy InstituteCharles SauerPresident, Market InstituteDee HodgesPresident, Maryland Taxpayers Association, IncGene ClemSpokesman, Michigan Tea Party AllianceJameson Taylor, Ph.D.Vice President for Policy, Mississippi Center for Public PolicyTim JonesChair, Missouri Center-Right CoalitionFmr. Speaker, Missouri HouseDavid A. RidenourPresident, National Center for Public Policy ResearchEverett WilkinsonChairman, National Liberty FederationJohn TsarpalasPresident, Nevada Policy Research InstituteScott PullinsFounder, Ohio Taxpayers AssociationDoug KelloggExecutive Director, Ohioans for Tax ReformSally PipesPresident and CEO, Pacific Research InstituteEllen WeaverPresident CEO, Palmetto Promise InstituteDaniel ErspamerChief Executive Officer, Pelican Institute for Public PolicyEd MartinPresident, Phyllis Schlafly EaglesLorenzo MontanariExecutive Director, Property Rights AllianceStone WashingtonMember, Project 21Paul J. GessingPresident, Rio Grande FoundationBette GrandePresident CEO, Roughrider Policy CenterJames L. SetterlundExecutive Director, Shareholder Advocacy ForumPaul E. Vallely, Major General, US Army (ret)Chairman, Stand Up America US FoundationRichard WatsonChair, Tallahassee Center-Right CoalitionSara CroomExecutive Director, Trade Alliance to Promote ProsperityC. Preston Noell IIIPresident, Tradition, Family, Property, Inc.Lynn TaylorPresident, Virginia Institute for Public Policy Photo Credit: Matt Wade In an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper on Thursday, Joe Biden threatened to repeal the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and also vowed to raise the U.S. corporate income tax rate on "Day One" -- giving America a higher tax rate than Communist China.Here's the key exchanges:Jake Tapper: "You vowed to undo President Trump's tax cuts."Joe Biden: "Yes."Tapper asked, "When would you make these changes? The economy is in a bad state right now."Biden replied: "I'd make the changes on the corporate taxes on Day One. And the reason I would make the change in corporate taxes, it could raise $1.3 trillion if they start paying at 28% instead of 21%."Biden's tax hike to 28% would give the United States a higher tax rate than Communist China's 25%.Click here or below to watch the Biden tax hike threat:Even Barack Obama has warned against raising taxes in an economic downturn.If Biden and Harris repeal the tax cuts, as they have saidcountlesstimes, the following will happen: A family of four earning the median income of $73,000 would see a$2,000 tax increase each year. A single parent (with one child) making $41,000 would see a$1,300 tax increase each year. The child tax credit will be cut in half. Millions of low and middle-income households would be stuck paying the Obamacare individual mandate tax of $695 - $2,085. This tax was zeroed out as part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Biden has vowed to re-impose this tax. The USA would have the highest corporate income tax rate in the developed world, higher than China (25 percent), the United Kingdom (19 percent), Canada (26.8 percent), and Ireland (12.5 percent). Small employers will face tax increases due to the increase in marginal income tax rates and the repeal of the TCJA 20% deduction for small business income. The Opportunity Zone program would be abolished. Opportunity Zones were created as part of the TCJA are already helping economically distressed areas across the country. Taxes would rise in every state andevery congressional district. The Death Tax would ensnare more families and businesses. Utility billswould go up in all 50 statesas a direct result of the corporate income tax increase. Millions of households would see their standard deduction cut in half, adding to their tax complexity as they are forced to itemize their deductions and deal with the shoebox full of receipts on top of the refrigerator. Even left-leaning media outlets have acknowledged the fact that the Trump tax cuts have helped middle income households:Americans for Tax Reform has compiled over 1,200 examples of how the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act has helped businesses and households in all 50 states. Today ATR released a video compilation of local news reports highlighting success of the Opportunity Zones enacted by Congressional Republicans and President Trump. New businesses are opening in Opportunity Zones created by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, bringing new jobs and services to economically distressed areas.The Opportunity Zone provision provides capital gains tax relief for long term investments in the local areas, which are designated by state officials nationwide.Click here or below to view the video:Kamala Harris Campaign Headquarters Located in Opportunity Zone Created by Trump Tax Cuts -- Which Biden and Harris Want to Repeal Americans for Tax Reform has released a letter in support of S. 1238, the "End-of-Year Fiscal Responsibility Act," legislation sponsored by Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa). S. 1238caps the amount that federal agencies can spend in the final two months of the fiscal year.If implemented, S. 1238 will save billions of dollars in taxpayer funds per year and bend Washington towards a path of fiscal restraint.ATRcommends Senator Ernst for her leadership on fiscal restraint and urges all Senators to co-sponsor this legislation.Click here to read the full letter or see below:Dear Senator Ernst: I write in support of S. 1238, the “End-of-Year Fiscal Responsibility Act,” legislation that caps the amount that federal agencies can spend in the final two months of the fiscal year. If implemented, S. 1238 will save billions of dollars in taxpayer funds per year and bend Washington towards a path of fiscal responsibility. Americans for Tax Reform commends you for your leadership on fiscal restraint and urges all members to co-sponsor this legislation. Federal spending is completely out of control. Our national debt is $26 trillion and climbing. Congress has spent nearly $2.5 trillion this year in response to the Coronavirus pandemic, and Democrats want to spend trillions more. Now more than ever, policymakers and bureaucrats alike have a duty to be responsible stewards of federal resources. Currently, federal agencies are required to return any unused funding to the Treasury Department by the end of the fiscal year. While this seems like fiscally responsible policy, this system creates a perverse “use-it-or-lose-it” situation where agencies spend billions of dollars in the final two months of the fiscal year. This is not a hypothetical scenario –during the final seven days of FY 2018, federal agencies spent a whopping $53 billion of taxpayer money on frivolous purchases unrelated to agency function. These purchases include $4.6 million on lobster tail and crab, $2.1 million on games and toys, $1.2 million on playgrounds, and $308,994 on alcohol. To remedy this, S. 1238 limits an agency’s spending in the final two months of the fiscal year to the average amount the agency spent over the preceding ten months. This simple step will prevent bureaucrats from going on end-of-year spending binges to avoid sending money back to the Treasury. Ultimately, the End-Of-Year Fiscal Responsibility Act is a commonsense piece of legislation that will save taxpayers billions of dollars in spending every year. Onward, Grover NorquistPresident, Americans for Tax Reform Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore ATR President Grover Norquist released the below statement in opposition to President Trump signing a "most favored nation" drug pricing policy:"Imposing a 'most favored nation' drug pricing proposal into Medicare part B and Part D will adopt the same foreign price controls that President Trump has repeatedly opposed and that Democrats are campaigning on with their Medicare for All plan.As recently as his 2020 State of the Union Address, the President promised 'We will never let socialism destroy American health care.'An MFN would adopt these socialist policies, slowing medical innovation and threatening American jobs at a time that the economy is recovering and medical innovators are making unprecedented progress toward developing a COVID-19 vaccine."There is strong conservative opposition to a MFN price control proposal. Last month, 80 free market, conservative, and libertarian groups and activists released a coalition letter urging President Trump to withdraw this proposal.The letter instead urges President Trump to apply the same successful, deregulatory, market-based approach that he has championed in other policy areas to health care:"As President, you have championed vital changes in tax and regulatory policies that have allowed free market innovation to flourish. We believe a market-based approach like those that your administration has consistently supported in other policy areas will lead to economic growth and promising new treatments, but adopting price controls through the MFN plan would undermine rather than build on those successes." Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore ATR president Grover Norquist recently joinedJosiah Neeley and Doug McCulloughon The Urbane Cowboys Podcastto discuss Joe Biden's tax plan and what changes in tax policywe could look forward to under a second term of President Trump.When asked about Biden's tax plan, Norquist said:"He has said repeatedly that, on day one, he will repeal the entire Trump, Republican tax cut… That means that the corporate rate, that was 35% under Biden and Obama--the highest in the world,Communist China beingat 25%-- would be repealed. People were exporting capital from the United States. People in other countries were investing in other countries because we hadhigher business taxes than Communist China and Germany. All of these countries that we think of as not terribly attractive to investment were more attractive on their tax policy than the United Stateswas. He wants to take the 21% rate that the Republicans passed and move it back to 35%. Sometimes his staff says 28%, but he is on record 10 times saying "repeal the whole thing…"The median income, family of four, would get a $2,000 tax increase, simply by repealing the Republican tax. So if you want to pay $2,000 more in taxes, vote for Biden. If you're a single parent, median income… it's a $1,300 tax increase.""On the individual level, the Republicans doubled the per-child tax credit from $1,000 to $2,000. Biden says he'll get rid of that… You add to that, he wants to go back to Obamacare and bring back some of the tax increases in Obamacare that Republicans, over the years, have gotten rid of. The most obvious, painful, destructive one is the five million American households that, every year that Obama was president, paid a tax of $695 per person in the household if they refused to buy Obamacare. The $695 did not get you Obamacare: this is not, "pay a tax and get some benefit." This is the penalty, the tax penalty, for refusing the wonderful opportunity of Obamacare which you don't want, which you couldn'tafford. Obamacare is pretty expensive… Three-quarters of the people who were hit with that tax each year earned less than $50,000 a year."“He wants to double the capital gains tax… Now we’re getting out of the zone of just taking away the tax cuts that the Republicans put forward... On top of that is the energy tax/the gasoline tax/the carbon tax, he also wants to double the capital gains rate to 40%. If you remember the earlier lie that no one who earned less than $400,000 a year would ever see their taxes raised, he’s very specific when he gleefully says, “Everybody will pay a 40% capital gains tax.” Which, by the way, would be twice what Communist China has. When people say, “Oh, Biden. He’s a moderate, right? Because he’s not as crazy as Bernie.” Well, he’s to the left of Communist China...” When he says it, he says, “Every single American will pay a 40% capital gains tax."”When asked about what the Trump administration could do in a second term, Norquist explained:"Well, we can go with things that the President and his allies talk about. Regarding anumber of tax cuts in the last 10 years, on the individual level--theirgoal is to make them all permanent… The goal is to make sure the doubling of the per-child tax credit is permanent, not just for ten years, and the lower individual rates are made permanent. Because businesses have to plan many decades in the future, all of the corporate changes were made permanent, with offsetting revenue, but the individual rates were not made permanent. The Republican goal is to make that permanent, or at least kick it out another ten years... The President has also talked about indexing capital gains for inflation, so that if you buy a stock, and then 50 years later you sell it when you retire, you don't pay capital gains on the inflation that accumulated over 50 years… On average, 40% of the gain when you buy and sell stocks is inflation. So basically, it is a huge capital gains tax cut, but it just makes it clear: if you hold onto something for a long time, you shouldn't be taxed on the inflation gain, only the real gain. The President has talked about doing this through executive order, which he has the power to do."Listen the the podcast here. Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore This week saw the introduction of a bill in the U.S. Senate to remove an unnecessary presumption that people accused of many nonviolent drug offenses be detained pre-trial.Removing this line gives judges more discretion, and means those accused of nonviolent offenses who pose little-to-no-risk to public safety or flight risk can be released, while others will still be jailed. There is also potential to save taxpayer dollars.The “Smarter Pretrial Detention for Drug Charges Act of 2020” removes a statutory presumption that judges must use to hold persons accused of nonviolent drug offenses in detention while awaiting their trial.When a person is arrested and accused of a crime, it is the job of the judge to determine whether or not they should be detained or be released while waiting the date of their trial.The current bail statute lists a series of factors that the judge must take into consideration when making this decision, such as whether or not they are a flight risk, or pose a danger to a person or the community.The bail law however also lists offenses that require the judge to presume the defendant ought to be detained while awaiting trial. Among the crimes in this list are many nonviolent drug offenses.Of all persons accused of non-immigration federal crimes, 42% of those are related to nonviolent drug offenses. This prejudice in favor detaining defendants before trial is hard to overcome. 60% of persons accused of nonviolent drug offenses end up being detained while awaiting their trial. Worse yet, being held in pre-trial detention greatly increases the chances of receiving a longer sentence if convicted for the crime they are accused.The Bill introduced by Senators Lee and Durbin is a simple and effective solution that deserves broad support. Photo Credit: Eric Haynes More from Americans for Tax Reform We will not share your email address with any outside group. Read our privacy policy

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