Excess COVID-19 Tax Credits and Global Tax Rules
IRS can now treat excess COVID-19 tax credit payments as underpayments of taxes. The IRS issued regulations this week stating it will treat excess funds of -19 pandemic credits paid to employers as underpayments of taxes. These include paid sick leave, paid family leave, and employee retention tax credits. TaxNotes reports (paywall) this means the IRS can apply assessment and collection procedures to those excess funds.
Report: Countries could lose $4.7 trillion in revenue from global tax evasion. The Tax Justice Network shared the finding in its new State of Tax Justice report. The international tax fairness advocacy group calls for reforms to global tax rules to reduce legal tax avoidance strategies and clamp down on illegal tax evasion schemes.
An assessment of Ed Kleinbard’s proposal for business tax reform. TPC’s Eric Toder, in his paper assessing Kleinbard’s proposed Business Enterprise Income Tax (BEIT), finds the BEIT would eliminate many distortions in the US taxation of investment income. Eric notes the BEIT reflects Kleinbard’s overall view that average citizens would benefit from a larger government funded by moderately progressive taxes. But he concludes that the BEIT, like other proposed reforms, is “less effective in taxing economic rents earned by the wealthiest individuals.”
Land value taxation might be tested in Detroit. TPC’s Lillian Hunter, Sadie Bograd, and Aravind Boddupalli review the proposal offered by Detroit’s Democratic Mayor Mike Duggan. He calls for an increase in the city’s tax on vacant or undeveloped land and a 30 percent reduction in taxes on buildings. Lillian, Sadie, and Aravind conclude that a land value tax can help “improve access to affordable housing, encourage development, and deter blight, but caution that the empirical evidence on the effectiveness of such taxes is mixed.
Correction: The second news item in the July 25 edition of the Daily Deduction (Fight over SALT could derail House GOP tax bill—but to what end?) mistakenly referred to the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act as the “Tax Acura and Jobs Act.” We regret the error and will investigate what auto-correct has against Honda’s luxury brand.
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