Taxes

Tired of fighting cuts to programs that women and their families depend on in the name of deficit reduction — while millionaires and billionaires haven't been asked to contribute an extra penny? Think it's time for millionaires and billionaires who pay lower tax rates than many middle-class Americans to start paying their fair share?

Take Action: Tell your Senators to support the Paying a Fair Share Act of 2012!

On April 16, we expect the Senate to vote on an important piece of legislation, the Paying a Fair Share Act of 2012 (S. 2230). The bill would ensure that those with incomes over $1 million annually pay at least 30 percent of their income in federal taxes. The legislation, introduced by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, was inspired by billionaire investor Warren Buffett, who highlighted the unfairness of a tax system that permits him to pay a lower tax rate than his secretary.

It's time for this absurdity to stop. Read more »

Usually YouTube is not the procrastinators' friend, but as we approach the April 17 tax filing deadline, last-minute filers may want to check out the IRS' YouTube videos to assist them in their tax preparation. For last-minute tax tips, information about extensions of time or tax payment options, and tracking your refund, visit the IRS YouTube Channels in English, Spanish and American Sign Language. Read more »

Welcome to NWLC’s first weekly roundup for April. April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, so I thought I’d kick things off by sharing a few ideas of how you can support victim of sexual assault and help raise awareness during the month. Also this week: our latest infographic, some lady athletes making history, and more.

All throughout April, the National Sexual Violence Resource Center will be providing resources and ways to get involved with Sexual Assault Awareness Month, or SAAM for short. The 2012 SAAM Day of Action passed us already (it was this past Tuesday, April 3), but you can see what other current campaigns are in the works here, including Tweet About It! Tuesdays every Tuesday in April at 2pm ET. SAAM activists from around the country will be using the hashtag #Tweetaboutit for these weekly chats, in addition to #SAAM and #SAAM2012.

You can also check out Take Back The Night’s calendar to see if there will be a TBTN event in your community in the coming weeks.

Yesterday we published a new infographic detailing what tax breaks for millionaires cost. The

 average tax cut per millionaire in 2012 – $143,000 – could help support a number of programs, like Head Start or Pell Grants. Want to learn more? Check out the graphic – it opens in full size if you click on it.

Read more »

It’s April and springtime, which means that it’s the final countdown to Tax Day on April 17. For those who haven’t yet filed their 2011 taxes, I offer one more item for your consideration prior to the April 17 deadline. And even those families who have already filed their tax returns for the last tax year (and hopefully claimed tax credits for which they were eligible) shouldn’t stop reading here.

April 17 isn’t just the deadline for filing your 2011 tax return without an extension. It’s the deadline for filing past tax returns – specifically, for the nearly one million individuals and families who failed to file a 2008 tax return. Why bother after three years? Well, the IRS estimates that nearly $1 billion in refunds has been just sitting in the vaults, so to speak, and that over half of those who failed to file a 2008 return may be entitled to a refund of over $600. Read more »

You've heard of slash and burn, but how about slash and burden?

On Thursday, the House is expected to vote on a budget for Fiscal Year 2013 introduced by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI). The Ryan budget would devastate vital services for women and their families while giving trillions in new tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans and large corporations — on top of extending provisions of the Bush-era tax cuts that benefit only the very wealthy.

Let's make it clear that we will not stand for a budget that slashes programs for women and families and puts the burden of paying for tax breaks for millionaires and corporations on middle- and low-income Americans.

Tell your Representative to oppose the Ryan Budget. As your Members of Congress start budget negotiations, they need to know that their constituents expect them to protect programs for women and families — and to require the wealthy and corporations to pay their fair share of taxes.

What's wrong with Rep. Paul Ryan's Budget? For starters, it would:

• Repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Insurance companies could continue to charge women higher premiums than men, deny coverage to women due to preexisting condition, and refuse to cover maternity care.

While Washington begins debate on an FY 2013 budget proposal that would slash federal safety net programs (and everything else), some states facing projected budget shortfalls in FY 2013 have already proposed draconian cuts of their own. Alabama is one of those states, and as Greg Kaufman recently reported in The Nation, the steps Alabama’s legislature takes over the next few months to close its FY 2013 budget gap could be disastrous for struggling women and their families.

For example, at a hearing late last month, a state legislator with a lead role in budget drafting suggested that a 25 percent cut to general fund revenues flowing to the state’s Department of Human Resources (DHR) is likely next year. That’s a huge cut – so huge that the Commissioner of DHR, Nancy Buckner, testified that she would be forced to entirely eliminate the state’s Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and child support enforcement programs.

Shutting down these programs would be devastating for vulnerable families in Alabama. Read more »

Last week, the President released a framework for business tax reform. The framework aims to simplify the tax code, eliminate dozens of tax loopholes and subsidies, and promote job creation in the U.S. The framework also includes a minimum tax for multinational companies so they can no longer avoid paying taxes by shifting jobs and profits overseas.  These are all important goals that have the potential to help our slowly-recovering economy, where millions of women and men are still struggling to get back on their feet. The framework also lowers the corporate rate from 35 to 28 percent, makes the research and experimentation credit permanent, and provides additional incentives for advanced manufacturing.

Although the President doesn’t specify the details of the necessary offsets, the framework is meant to be revenue-neutral, meaning that the tax reform would pay for itself. It wouldn’t reduce the funds flowing to the federal government — but it also wouldn’t raise any new revenue. At a time when Congress is obsessed with trying to balance our books, revenue-neutral isn’t enough. Budget deals have already scheduled $2 trillion in cuts over the next decade that will affect federal programs important to everyday Americans. Vital programs that women and their families depend on to protect their health, get quality child care, attend college, and meet their basic needs during difficult times and as they age need to be protected. Read more »

If you’re married, you’re probably planning to file your taxes jointly; most couples do. You should know that spouses filing a joint return are generally each liable for all of the tax owed on that return—but the law provides equitable relief when one of the spouses has no control over, or perhaps no knowledge of, how the household’s financial situation is reported. This “innocent spouse” relief is especially important for women: 90 percent of those who request relief from joint liability are women, 65 percent of those who request relief make less than $30,000 a year, and some are survivors of domestic violence.  

Section 6015(f) of the Internal Revenue Code provides that equitable relief is available for innocent spouses, but the determination rests on a “facts and circumstances” test.  

The Department of the Treasury recently proposed updating, clarifying, and expanding IRS guidelines for granting equitable relief. The proposed guidelines are beneficial to low-income women in general and to survivors of domestic violence in particular. Read more »

You may have already received your W-2 in the mail from your employer, which means (drum roll please!) the 2012 tax filing season is officially underway. In the spirit of the season, so to speak, the IRS is kicking things off with EITC Awareness Day. In case you aren’t familiar with the EITC, aka the Earned Income Tax Credit, it is a refundable federal tax credit for working families that can be worth up to $5,751 for tax year 2011 (the year for which you’ll be filing your taxes now, in 2012). Along with the federal Child Tax Credit (a refundable credit worth up to $1,000 per child) and the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit (a nonrefundable credit that helps families with child and dependent care costs incurred in order to work or look for work), as well as analogous state tax credits, the EITC can provide working families a significant financial boost.  And in these tough economic times, families need all the help they can get. Read more »

Neither the approaching holidays nor data showing a bleak jobs picture seems to have mellowed House Republican leaders. The payroll tax-unemployment insurance-“doc fix” bill (H.R. 3630), introduced by Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI), which the House is expected to vote on today, has already drawn a veto threat from President Obama because of a provision on the Keystone oil pipeline. But there are many other reasons to be deeply concerned about this bill. Read more »