On Tuesday, the European High Court gave a green light to tax laws that discriminate against big business. In Europe, that will have a disproportionate impact on the foreign Tech businesses, many of them American, which dominate the continent. Bloomberg Tax reports: Opponents of European digital services taxes may have lost one avenue of attack after Europe’s highest court ruled that progressive revenue taxes aren’t discriminatory. The Court of Justice of the European Union ruled Tuesday in two cases—involving Hungarian subsidiaries of Vodafone Group Plc and Tesco Plc—that … [Read more...]

Amazon sellers are being hit with tax bills for merchandise they may have sold over a decade ago. Tripp Baltz reports for Bloomberg: Steve Jenson of Logan, Utah, thought he had a good business selling books through Amazon.com Inc.—then he got hit with a $200,000 tax bill from the state of Washington, alleging he had failed to collect and remit sales taxes from customers dating back to 2011. It was a rude awakening for Jenson, who, like many other Amazon sellers, says he wasn’t even aware that he was supposed to collect the tax in the first place. He is now paying off the bill at a rate of … [Read more...]

In every income category surveyed recently by the New York Times collaborating with the Tax Policy Center, a majority of Americans thought they had not received a tax cut from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. The reality is, the majority of Americans in nearly every category received a tax cut. Bill Bischoff at MarketWatch explains why so many Americans haven't noticed their tax cuts. He writes: An online survey conducted for The New York Times and published in April of 2019 (after most returns for the 2018 tax year had been filed) found that only 40% of Americans believed they had received … [Read more...]

The biggest problem wealth taxes proposed by candidates like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders may face is the constitution itself. Direct taxes like wealth taxes are specifically banned by the constitution. So was the income tax until the 16th amendment allowed it in 1913. Now, progressives are looking for ways to slip a wealth tax by the Supreme Court. Laura Davison and Ben Steverman report for Bloomberg: Democratic presidential candidates Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders want to enact a wealth tax to pay for their large government programs. The biggest barrier may not be Congress, but … [Read more...]

On The New York Times' Upshot blog, Neil Irwin explains that Democrats' tax plans wouldn't affect just the uber-wealthy, but also many of the high-income professionals who populate the very states Democrats represent. He writes: Much of the Democratic primary race has focused on taxes aimed at the billionaire class — policies devised to reduce inequality and fund progressive goals on health care and education. But there’s also a less discussed tax increase in leading Democratic policy proposals that would affect not just a tiny sliver of the ultra-wealthy, but also millions of high-income … [Read more...]