tax news

For more on corporate taxes, see the recent study by economist Kyle Pomerleau "U.S. Multinationals Paid More Than $100 Billion in Foreign Income Taxes."

One of the most used resources on our website is historical tax rate information. For federal taxes, we go all the way back to the beginning: the federal income tax (1861-1872, 1913-present), the corporate income tax (1909-present), the gasoline tax (1932-present), and so forth. At the state level we have historical income taxes, sales taxes, corporate taxes, and excise taxes for each state, but they mostly only go back to 2000. We have some records of pre-2000 information but it needs to be verified and filled out. Additionally, the way we present the data needs to be improved.

I'm pleased to announce the first phase of a project to do just that: provide state tax rate data all the way back to the beginning. We are frequently asked for this information by researchers and taxpayers, and we believe making it available will be of great value to studying the effect of tax rate changes over time. This will likely be a long effort (and we currently have funding support only for the first of multiple phases) but I'm excited to be starting any aspect of it!

As a first step, last week I reached out to all state revenue departments, asking for any records they have on historical tax rate information. Not everyone will have this at their fingertips, certainly, but those that do will make this project easier! I'm pleased to thank the Nebraska and New Hampshire revenue departments for being the first to respond in full with all of the needed information! They took less than half a week, making them superstars. Other states I'm sure will be reporting soon, and I'll highlight them on the blog.

Georgia has also responded, to notify us that we must file an open records request to obtain historical tax rate information, paying them an hourly search rate plus 10 cents per page. We've declined, for now.

I hope you'll consider supporting this important project!

By John Whitesides WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Senate panel will try on Tuesday to pry more details out of current and former officials of the Internal Revenue Service about the agency's targeting of conservative groups for extra scrutiny when they sought tax-exempt status. Lawmakers are also expected to demand answers about why officials did not earlier share with lawmakers evidence that IRS workers in Cincinnati, Ohio, had inappropriately focused on search criteria that included "Tea Party" and "patriots. ...

By Kim Dixon and Roberta Rampton WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two senior aides to President Barack Obama knew weeks ago about a watchdog report on the U.S. Internal Revenue Service targeting of conservative groups, a spokesman said on Monday, shifting the focus to the White House in a fast-moving controversy. White House Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler was told on April 24 about an upcoming report by the Treasury's Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) on the IRS practice, for which an IRS official apologized on May 10, triggering the controversy. ...

This week's map looks at state excise tax rates on wine.

Click on the map to enlarge it.

View previous maps here.

BANGALORE (Reuters) - Infosys Ltd, India's No. 2 software services exporter, said on Monday it would challenge a 5.77 billion rupees ($105.3 million) income tax demand raised by Indian authorities earlier this month. The demand relates to certain tax benefits on income from software development done overseas at the clients' location and revenue from special economic zones in India, Infosys said in a statement. It said the latest tax demand disregards a clarification by the government in January. ...