Reggie Oldak, Senior Counsel

Reggie Oldak is Senior Counsel for Family Economic Security, with particular focus on taxes and the federal budget. Before joining NWLC, she worked for the IRS and then in private practice on issues affecting the taxation of nonprofit organizations. She is past president of the Montgomery County (Md.) Commission for Women and has worked extensively with local and state government representatives and community leaders in Maryland to advocate for issues central to the concerns of women and families. A graduate of Smith College and the Georgetown University Law Center, Ms. Oldak has been active in politics and in 2006 won the endorsement of The Washington Post when she ran for (and almost won!) a seat in the Maryland House of Delegates.

Expert in: Federal Budget, Federal Tax Policy, Poverty & the Safety Net, Tax & Budget
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My Take

House Passes Giveaway to Millionaires, Cuts Help for Poor and Middle Class Families

Posted by
Katherine Gallagher Robbins, Senior Policy Analyst
Reggie Oldak, Senior Counsel
| Posted on: April 19, 2012 at 05:04 pm

Millionaires have had a very good week. Women and their families have had a very bad week.

It started Monday, when 45 Senators voted to block the "Paying a Fair Share Act" (S. 2230), which would have implemented the Buffett Rule by requiring households with incomes above $1 million to pay at least a 30 percent income tax rate. Tax revenues support programs vital to women and their families at every stage of their lives, and women pay the price when millionaires and billionaires avoid paying their fair share of taxes.

Today, the House passed "The Small Business Tax Cut Act" (H.R. 9). The bill provides a 20 percent tax deduction in 2012 for businesses with fewer than 500 employees — not exactly your mom-and-pop store!

H.R. 9 would have more aptly been named the Giveaway to Millionaires Act. The Tax Policy Center estimates that taxpayers making over $1 million a year would receive nearly half of the windfall. Exactly how big is this tax break? The average millionaire would get a new tax break of $44,635 next year. The average benefit for low-income tax payers in the bottom fifth of the income distribution? Just $2. All while adding $46 billion dollars to the deficit over the next ten years.

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Tags: Buffett Rule, Paying a Fair Share Act of 2012, Taxes, Federal Tax Policy, Tax & Budget | 4 comments

Check This Out: The IRS is Trying to Distribute $153.3 Million in Undelivered Tax Refunds

Posted by Reggie Oldak, Senior Counsel | Posted on: December 02, 2011 at 02:48 pm

In an annual reminder to taxpayers, the Internal Revenue Service has announced that tax refund checks for more than 99,000 taxpayers can’t be delivered because of mailing address errors. The checks average $1,547 this year.

If you haven’t received the refund you were expecting, check out the “Where’s My Refund?” tool on www.IRS.gov to find out the status of your refund and, in some cases, instructions on how to resolve delivery problems. You can access a telephone version of “Where’s My Refund?” by calling 1-800-829-1954.

To avoid problems with refunds in the future, the IRS recommends that you electronically file your tax return and elect to receive your refund through direct deposit to your bank account. 

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Tags: IRS, Tax Refunds, Taxes, Tax & Budget | Add new comment

Executive Excess, Corporate Greed at the Expense of Women and Families

Posted by Reggie Oldak, Senior Counsel | Posted on: September 01, 2011 at 02:06 pm

A new report by the Institute for Policy Studies reveals that of last year’s 100 highest-paid corporate CEOs, 25 took home more than their company paid in 2010 federal income taxes. The report found that these corporate chief executives – CEOs of International Paper Company, Prudential, General Electric, Verizon, Boeing, and eBay, among others -- averaged $16.7 million in pay. At the same time, a combination of tax shelters and loopholes allowed those companies to avoid an average of more than $400 million each in federal taxes.   

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Tags: Deficit, Super-Committee, Taxes, Unemployment, Federal Tax Policy, Poverty & the Safety Net, Unemployment, Tax & Budget | 1 comment

More Evidence that the House GOP Isn’t Interested in Decreasing the Deficit

Posted by Reggie Oldak, Senior Counsel | Posted on: June 14, 2011 at 09:28 am

In addition to insisting that millionaires and corporations can’t be asked to contribute one penny to deficit reduction, and passing a budget that calls for spending trillions of dollars to give additional tax breaks to millionaires and corporations, the Hou

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Tags: Federal Budget, Federal Tax Policy, Tax Gap & Loopholes, Tax Reform | Add new comment

The Signing of the Bush Tax Cuts Isn't an Anniversary for Women to Celebrate

Posted by Reggie Oldak, Senior Counsel | Posted on: June 06, 2011 at 03:10 pm

Ten years ago this week, on June 7, 2001, President George W. Bush signed into law the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001, the first of several tax cuts that turned budget surpluses into deficits and exacerbated the trend of widening income inequality. In December 2010, Congress extended the tax cuts through the end of 2012.

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Tags: Federal Budget, Tax Credits Outreach, Federal Tax Policy, Tax Reform, Tax & Budget | Add new comment