Recently, oil companies have been raking in record profits off the
price of crude oil and gasoline. These profits are coming at the expense of
consumers, whose wallets have been increasingly pinched at the gas pump. In an effort to recover a portion of this obscene largess, legislators at
the state and federal levels have been considering the imposition of a windfall
profit tax (WPT).
Economic development subsidy decisions are often made
in secret by political and corporate powerbrokers. Rarely is there
public input into subsidy deals - or even knowledge of basic
information like costs and benefits. And yet, such deals total $50 billion per year in taxpayer expenditures.
October 2, 2007
While all states with sales taxes tax goods (i.e., furniture, computers, cars, etc),
only a few impose the sales tax on services - of which there are over 100
potentially-taxable categories (i.e., car repairs, exterminators, architecture, etc.).
Expanding the sales tax to services would not only raise substantial new revenue,
but would make state tax systems more fair, more stable, easier to administer and more
economically neutral.
Members of the Tax Fairness Organizing Collaborative with interests in particular topics participate in affinity groups. Every couple months, UFE hosts a conference call on one of these topics and invites an expert(s) to be on the call as a resource. It's an opportunity to learn, ask questions, and strategize. To date, UFE has hosted conference calls on the following topics: October 2, 2007
UFE brings together various state groups working on fair taxation in
the Tax Fairness Organizing Collaborative (TFOC). TFOC meets regularly
via teleconference and face-to-face, to discuss common issues and share
solutions. More...
UFE's flagship issue is the campaign to preserve the federal estate tax, begun in 1995. The estate tax provides a concrete issue in which our members and constituencies can easily become involved. Working on the estate tax helps educate people about the value of progressive taxation, existing economic inequality, and the role of wealth.
Tax fairness is the key to a fair economy, where the cost of maintaining a common government is shared on the basis of one's ability to pay.
