Tax Break

Welcome to the top tax and accounting headlines from Reuters and other sources.

 * Romney pledges to keep tax deductions for mortgages. Trip Gabriel and Helene Cooper – The New York Times. Continuing to embrace a more moderate political persona, Mitt Romney offered assurances on Tuesday that he would protect tax deductions for the middle class on home mortgages and charitable donations. Link  

* Reagan tax model obsolete in fiscal cliff talks-Schumer. Kim Dixon – Reuters. A top Senate Democrat on Tuesday said new tax revenues should go to reducing the federal deficit, not cutting tax rates, dismissing as “obsolete” a Reagan-era model of tax reform. Senator Charles Schumer, hardening his party’s negotiating position ahead of talks on the so-called “fiscal cliff,” declared President Ronald Reagan’s 1986 tax reform an unaffordable model for overhauling the tax laws. Link  

* N.Y. ranked last on taxes. Jacob Gershman – The Wall Street Journal. New York imposes a more onerous tax burden on businesses than any other state, according to a new study. The Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan research group in Washington, D.C., ranked New York last among the 50 states in its annual “business climate” analysis of local tax regimes. The group reviewed individual and corporate income-tax structures, as well as sales, property and unemployment insurance taxes on the state and local levels. Link  

* U.S. muni bond tax exemption gets new D.C. defender. Hilary Russ – Reuters. The national trade group representing U.S. bond dealers announced on Wednesday the formation of a coalition to defend the tax-exempt status of municipal bonds, a key trait of the $3.7 trillion market. Organized by the Bond Dealers of America, the coalition comprises about 25 muni bond dealers from middle-market securities firms. Link  

* India should scrap retrospective asset tax-govt panel. Reuters. India should scrap a law that taxes asset transfers retrospectively, a government panel recommended in a draft report that could save Britain’s Vodafone $2 billion. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh set up the panel to look at a series of tax measures introduced this year that were criticized by global business groups and dampened investor sentiment in India. Link

* Eleven euro states back financial transaction tax. John O’Donnell and Harry Papachristou – Reuters. Eleven euro zone countries agreed on Tuesday to press ahead with a disputed tax on financial transactions aimed at making traders share the cost of fixing a crisis that has rocked the single currency area. The initiative, pushed hard by Germany and France but strongly opposed by Britain, Sweden and other proponents of free markets, gained critical mass at a European Union finance ministers’ meeting in Luxembourg, when more than the required nine states agreed to use a treaty provision to launch the tax. Link

* Misdirection is no substitute for basic math on taxes. Jonathan Bernstein – The Washington Post opinion. The math is the math. There just aren’t enough tax expenditures that the wealthy use to allow Romney to cut tax rates by 20 percent without either reducing revenue or by making it up with tax increases on everyone else, at least not if he also retains the other specific provisions he supports. Link