Tax cuts and Ohio take-home pay

image credit: walorski.house.gov

The Daily Signal website has a report on the real dollars-and-cents impact of the Trump tax cuts. It also has an interactive map, so you can select Ohio and find how much the tax cuts benefit taxpayers in your district.

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act has been one of the strongest and boldest reforms of President Donald Trump’s first term in office. According to analysis from The Heritage Foundation, the tax law will give hardworking Americans tax breaks in every congressional district and in every state.

Across the nation at large, the average American will take home on average $1,400 more of their paycheck in 2018. For married couples with two children, that figure doubles to just under $3,000.

>>> You can find the average tax cut in your district here [interactive map].

While higher-taxed districts will see more in dollar savings as a result of the tax cuts, they are certainly not the only winners from the Trump tax cuts. In fact, lower-income districts will feel more relief in their tax burden, as they will see a higher percentage of their taxes cut than Americans in higher-income areas.

Taxpayers in the 11^th District (represented by Marcia Fudge) saw approx. $898 more in annual take-home pay.

# # #

Internet Sales Tax: a proposed solution

image credit: blog.dawog.net

Yesterday Scott French and Elizabeth Slattery at The Daily Signal reported further on the horrible SCOTUS decision to permit sales tax on Internet transactions across state lines. They also suggested a solution. Unfortunately, they identify Congress as the branch of government that can legislate that solution. Here’s the gist of it:

Unfortunately, small businesses will suffer the most from the ruling. [Chief Justice John] Roberts explained:

One vitalizing effect of the Internet has been connecting small, even ‘micro’ businesses to potential buyers across the nation. People starting a business selling their embroidered pillowcases or carved decoys can offer their wares throughout the country—but probably not if they have to figure out the tax due on every sale.

Most small businesses are not equipped to handle being subject to every taxing authority in every location where they have a customer. There are more than 10,000 state and local taxing jurisdictions in the country. And these jurisdictions have different tax rates, rules governing tax exemptions, product category definitions, and standards for determining whether an out-of-state seller is subject to sales tax in the first place.

Roberts pointed to a few examples of how confusing state taxes can be:

New Jersey knitters pay sales tax on yarn purchased for art projects, but not on yarn earmarked for sweaters … Texas taxes sales of plain deodorant at 6.25 percent but imposes no tax on deodorant with antiperspirant … Illinois categorizes Twix and Snickers bars—chocolate-and-caramel confections usually displayed side-by-side in the candy aisle—as food and candy, respectively (Twix have flour; Snickers don’t), and taxes them differently.

Further, the cost of compliance is beyond the means of most small businesses. Implementation and integration of software to calculate taxes in all these jurisdictions alone is estimated to cost up to $250,000.

The good news is that, under its authority to regulate interstate commerce, Congress has the power to fix this problem. Congress is the branch of government best able to consider the competing interests at stake, not unelected federal judges.

Congress should codify the physical presence rule to protect small businesses from being subject to mandates from states where they have no physical connection and whose policymakers face no accountability for the tax and regulatory costs that they impose on out-of-state businesses.

If state borders truly do matter, Congress must limit states’ ability to reach beyond their borders to place regulatory burdens on out-of-state businesses.

Sounds feasible on paper. But perhaps so many small businesses will suspend sales that Congress will have to respond to their constituents – for once. We’ll see. (The full report is here.) 

# # #

More on DACA & Dreamers Amnesty

image credit: wwwwakeupamericans-spree.blogspot.com

Last week, Cleveland Tea Party blogged on the DACA / Dreamers’ Amnesty bill, urging Ohio AG Mike DeWine (now running for Governor) to stay away from the coalition of state Attorneys General suing the Trump administration and instead support the existing rule of law. That blog included phone numbers for an Action Alert.

Hans von Spakovsky at The Daily Signal outlines the pitfalls and downsides of DACA (useful analysis if you are making any calls now or later this week and needing information to counter the usual liberal talking points).

DACA had no requirement of English fluency either. In fact, the original application requested applicants to answer whether the form had been “read” to the alien by a translator “in a language in which [the applicant is] fluent.”

The Center for Immigration Studies estimates that “perhaps 24 percent of the DACA-eligible population fall into the functionally illiterate category and another 46 percent have only ‘basic’ English ability.”

This is a far cry from the image of DACA beneficiaries as all children who don’t speak the language of—and know nothing about the culture of—their native countries.

In fact, it seems rather that a significant percentage of DACA beneficiaries may have serious limitations in their education, experience, and English fluency that negatively affected their ability to function in American society.

Providing amnesty to low-skilled, low-educated aliens with marginal English language ability would impose large fiscal costs on American taxpayers resulting from increased government payouts and benefits, and would be unfair to legal immigrants who obeyed the law to come here.

. . .

Providing amnesty would simply attract even more illegal immigration and would not solve the myriad of enforcement problems we have along our borders and in the interior of the country. Congress should concentrate on giving the federal government (with the assistance and help of state and local governments) the resources to enforce existing immigration laws to reduce the illegal alien population in the U.S. and stem entry into the country.

Until those goals are accomplished, it is premature to even consider any DACA-type bill.

Read more here.

# # #