Register to Vote: Rock the Vote, powered by Credo Mobile

HOME

ABOUT US

OUR ISSUES

Information & Access

Nonprofit Advocacy

Regulatory Policy


PRESS ROOM

ACTION CENTER

PUBLICATIONS

THE WATCHER

OUR BLOGS


SIGN UP

Receive news, updates, and alerts!

DONATE

Help support our work


OTHER SITES

FedSpending.org

RTK NET

NPAction

Working Group on Community Right-to-Know

Citizens for Sensible Safeguards

Open the Government

OMB Watch Logo

Demanding a federal budget that is fair, responsible, and meets our nation's priorities

Home :  Federal Budget & Tax : 
Federal Budget & Tax:      News     Blog     Background    



Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Giving Equal Treatment to Work and Wealth

The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday ($) on a plan in Congress to require private brokerage and financial companies to report the "basis" amount of securities that were sold in a given year. This plan was released last week by the Senate Finance committee and it is estimated that it will bring in $11 billion in unpaid capital gains taxes each year - a small, but substantial portion of the overall tax gap related to non-wage income.

This is a straight-forward commons sense idea that would help to equalize the treatment of work and wealth in the U.S., at least within the IRS. Currently, payroll taxes (and to a large extent income taxes) are easily calculated directly by the IRS because employers are required to report the amount of income they pay their employees to the IRS. Because of this system, it is very difficult to cheat or make a mistake on your payroll or income taxes and easy for the IRS to catch you if you do (unless you are self-employed, in which case you are reporting your own income to the IRS).

But there is no similar requirement for reporting of capital gains taxes (or loses). When individuals report their capital gains or losses, say, from selling shares of stock in a company, they need to calculate the difference between what they paid for the stock, and what they sold it for. The amount they paid for the stock is called the basis. It is much more difficult for the IRS to verify the individual has calculated their tax liability correctly because it does not receive confirmation of the basis for sales of stock and other securities. This plan would help prevent individuals from intentionally cheating or making a mistake in their capital gains and loses by providing the IRS with a way to check individual returns. It would require reporting requirements for income made from wealth to match the reporting requirements for income made from work.

While the $11 billion per year brought into the government is actually a small amount compared to the overall tax gap, this proposal would collect sufficient revenues to pay for the entire SCHIP reauthoization bill being debated this year. There are no details on how soon the plan would be introduced as legislation, but with both Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus (D-MT) and Ranking Member Charles Grassley (R-IA) supporting the plan, it is likely it will be broadly supported in the Senate.





Posted by Adam Hughes, 11:45:38 AM



Wednesday, May 23, 2007

More Bad News for Head of GSA

This has not been a good week so far for the leader of the General Services Administration. Additional information on problems at GSA have catapulted Administrator Lurita Doan back into the headlines - and the news isn't good.

First up, Federal Times reported yesterday that the Office of Special Counsel has concluded in a forthcoming report that Doan violated the Hatch Act - a federal law that prohibits federal employees from partisan political activities while on the job. Apparently Doan participated in a January 26 lunch meeting with other political appointees where Scott Jennings, the White House deputy director of political affairs, gave a PowerPoint presentation that included slides listing Democratic and Republican seats the White House viewed as vulnerable in 2008, a map of contested Senate seats and other information on 2008 election strategy. Doan made statements at that meeting about trying to use GSA resources to help "our candidates." Doan has until June 1 to respond to the report before it is made public, after which the report will be sent on to the president with recommendations that could include suspension or termination.

As if this wasn't bad enough for Doan, the Washington Post published a superb article on problems with contracting policies at the GSA that are costing the Federal government hundreds of millions of dollars every year. The key passage from the article:

"This has been a scandal of great proportions," said David E. Cooper, until recently the director of acquisition and sourcing management at the Government Accountability Office, the investigative branch of Congress. "Our work and the work by the Defense Department inspector general and the GSA inspector general all show hundreds of millions, if not billions, that has been wasted."

While this issue may be larger than Doan, it surfaced because of reports that Doan used her influence last summer as GSA Administrator to renew a contract with Sun Microsystems despite the fact that many within the GSA had evidence that the company was significantly over charging the government. Despite ample evidence that Sun had not only over charged the government in the past, but would continue to over charge if the contract was renewed, Doan pushed to finalize the new contract. In fact, senior GSA officials went through three different contracting officers (Herman S. Caldwell Jr., then Mike Butterfield, and finally Shana Budd) before negotiations on the contract could be finalized. It is unclear if Doan had any direct involvement with those personnel changes, but it is clear that the first two officers had serious reservations about moving forward with the contract that Doan seems to have ignored.

Like any good Bush Administration appointee, Doan is unapologetic and claims no responsibility for inappropriate, unethical or illeagal behavior. She testified in March of this year that the agency made a good decision on behalf of taxpayers by renewing the contract with Sun Microsystems.



Posted by Adam Hughes, 03:55:35 PM



Tuesday, May 22, 2007

New Report: War Funding and the Feed and Forage Act

OMB Watch has just put out a report on a little-known law -the Feed and Forage Act- that seems to give the President broad powers to fund war efforts- even without an enacted appropriations bill.

So even if the negotiations over the war funding supplemental drag on, the President could meet the needs of the soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Read the whole thing if you have the chance.



Posted by Matt Lewis, 10:31:30 AM



Monday, May 21, 2007

House Reform Members Might Get Slammed by "Revolving Door"

Late last week, the House leadership agreed to remove the "revolving door" provision from the lobbying and ethics bill. The bill is scheduled to reach the House floor for a vote this Thursday, right before Congress leaves for Memorial Day.

The revolving door provision in the Senate version of the bill calls for a two-year "cooling off period" after members retire from Congress before they are allowed to lobby their former colleagues.

The unexpected and preciptous removal of this provision from the bill comes as a shock to close observers. It's liable to attract critical media attention. Remember "the cleanest House in history" promised by Pelosi? This sudden revolving door retreat could mean political peril for the dozens of newly-elected House members who rode into Washington last November on a strong reform platform.

The vote on the lobbying and ethics bill is in just a few days. So there is still time for members who are vulnerable to attacks that they've already forgotten their mandate and their districts protect themselves -- by getting on the record -- the media record, if not the legislative record -- against this surprising step backward on the revolving door provision, before it turns around and hits them.



Posted by Dana Chasin, 05:14:07 PM



Friday, May 11, 2007

New Report on Abusive and Wasteful Contracting Practices

In a new report to be released next Monday, the Center for American Progress details the horrendous state of the federal contracting process. The report examines what is presently known about the potential size and scope of wasteful and corrupt contracting within the federal government, provides the new Congress with useful guidance for developing a broader understanding of the problem, and outlines some steps that might be taken to restore greater transparency and accountability to the use of public funds in the procurement process.

The Washington Post reported this morning on the steep rise in non-competed, or no-bid contracts over the last 6 years - something we've noted using data from FedSpending.org. In fact, between FY 2000 and FY 2005, contracts that were not competed have increased over 110 percent, and contracts that had open competition but received only one bid have increased over 119 percent.

What's more, The Hill newspaper reported today that Henry Waxman, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman, is widening his investigations into contracting abuse at the Pentagon. Seems like the Center for American Progress report is coming out at just the right time.



Posted by Adam Hughes, 01:43:28 PM



Friday, May 04, 2007

BudgetBlog - Now in RSS!

If you use a newsreader, you can subscribe the BudgetBlog. You can find the feed here.

RSS? What's that?



Posted by Craig Jennings, 12:37:05 PM



Tuesday, May 01, 2007

Preview of House Hearing on USDA Security Breaches

As we reported last Friuday, the House Agriculture Committee is holding a hearing tomorrow on security breaches at the Department of Agriculture. This hearing is a follow-up to reports earlier in April of personally identifiable information being contained within USDA data that is widely available on the internet. This security issue was discovered on April 13 by a user of our FedSpending.org website.

Also last Friday, Sens. Barack Obama (D-IL) and Tom Coburn (R-OK) sent a letter to USDA Secretary Mike Johanns stating that the disclosure of personally identifiable information was "improper and unacceptable." Obama and Coburn also called on USDA to provide three things by May 18:

  • An assessment of the harm caused by disclosing Social Security numbers and a report on utilization of the credit monitoring service;
  • A report on what is being done to ensure that data security problems are fixed; and
  • A detailed plan and timeline for adopting a new unique identifier without disclosing personally identifiable information.

OMB Watch also requested the third item on the above list from USDA on April 16, and I'm guessing there will be a few Representatives at the House hearing tomorrow who have some questions that will need to be answered as well. Here's hoping for USDA's sake that they have some answers ready to go.



Posted by Adam Hughes, 02:52:09 PM




Latest Entries by Theme

All Themes

Appropriations & Spending

Federal Tax Policy

Income/Wealth Inequality

Budget Projections

Government Performance

Estate Tax

State Fiscal Policy

Watcher

Entitlements

Budget Process

Debt & Deficit

Oversight & Enforcement

Transparency

Privatization

Contact Us

Most Recent Entries for Federal Budget & Tax

It's Official: Another Deficit Record Set

House Democrats to Begin Crafting Stimulus Package

CBO Projects Largest Deficit in History

The Cost of TARP, Dollars and Opportunity

House Approves, Bush Signs Bailout Bill

Timely CTJ Report Pushes for Reagan Tax Proposal

FedSpending.org Will Blow Your Mind

Senate Approves Bailout; Cost "Impossible" to Predict

Interesting Perspectives on the Bailout

Senate Attempts to Sweeten Bailout Bill

Archived Entries for Transparency

October

September

August

July

June

May

April

March

February

January

December, 2007

November, 2007

October, 2007

September, 2007

August, 2007

July, 2007

June, 2007

May, 2007

April, 2007

March, 2007

February, 2007

January, 2007

December, 2006

November, 2006

October, 2006

September, 2006

August, 2006

July, 2006

June, 2006

May, 2006

March, 2006

February, 2006

January, 2006