April, 13 2009, 02:14pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167
The Great Tax Burden Shift: From the Rich to the Rest?
WASHINGTON
The Institute for Policy Studies has just released a report titled "Reversing the Great Tax Shift: Seven Steps to Finance Our Economic Recovery Fairly."
Among the authors of the report available for interviews are:
CHUCK COLLINS
Collins, senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies, said today: "Now is the time to reverse three decades of tax cuts for America's ultra-wealthy. In 1955, when April 15 became 'tax day,' America's top 400 taxpayers paid three times more of their income in taxes than the top 400 of 2006."
JOHN CAVANAGH, via Emily Schwartz Greco
Cavanagh is IPS director. The new report outlines specific proposals that IPS states "would raise $450 billion of revenue to support economic recovery." These include:
* "Introducing a modest financial transaction tax that will chill speculation and generate $100 billion a year.
* "Implementing an estate tax reform that taxes inheritances over $2 million at progressive rates.
* "Setting an emergency tax rate on extremely high incomes that would generate over $60 billion a year.
* "Eliminating the tax preference on capital gains and dividend income, generating $80 billion.
* "Closing overseas tax havens for individuals and corporations, generating $100 billion.
* "Scrapping $18 billion in tax breaks that subsidize excessive CEO compensation."
A nationwide consortium, the Institute for Public Accuracy (IPA) represents an unprecedented effort to bring other voices to the mass-media table often dominated by a few major think tanks. IPA works to broaden public discourse in mainstream media, while building communication with alternative media outlets and grassroots activists.
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