A Burger King boycott? Senator takes a stand against corporate inversions.

Congress is in recess until Monday, September 8. The Daily Deduction will resume its regular schedule when Congress returns.

“There will be credits.” Alaskans like the way oil industry profits are taxed–barely. The state grants a corporate income tax credit for qualified oil and gas service-industry expenditures. Ballot Measure No. 1 would have repealed the credit available under the state’s Oil and Gas Production Tax, but the referendum was rejected by a narrow margin after absentee votes were tallied. Oil companies spent millions of dollars opposing  the measure.

“Movin’ on up” to the… next floor? An Atlanta-based firm, First Data, leases space on the 39th floor of a Jersey City, N.J. office building. When First Data raised the possibility of relocating back to Georgia, budget-crunched New Jersey awarded the firm $5,920,000 in state tax credits over the next 20 years if it agreed to stay. Now, the firm will move upstairs instead of down south, taking over the 40th floor of the Jersey City building. The move promises to bring new jobs to the city: a total of 74.

“Let them eat Wendy’s or White Castle!” After Burger King announced its plans to buy Canada’s Tim Hortons and move north, Ohio’s Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown calls for a BK boycott. He wants folks to dine at Ohio-based burger chains instead. If Burger King’s plan succeeds, it would become the world’s third-largest fast food restaurant company with global sales of $22 billion. It could also save a bundle on taxes.Senator Brown thinks inversions like this could be avoided with a country-by-country global minimum tax rate.

Or, US multinationals’ taxable profits could be based on worldwide sales. Under “single sales factor apportionment,” a multinational would report income for all its worldwide entities and be taxed on a share of its total worldwide profits. In other words, if half of Burger King’s global sales occurred in the US, half of its global profits would be taxed at the US corporate tax rate, no matter where it is legally incorporated. TPC’sHoward Gleckman delves deeper into this tax method in his review of a new paper by Michael Udell and Adithi Vashist.

How does the income tax system affect economic growth? Could tax reform boost the economy? TPC’s Bill Gale and the Andrew Samwick of Dartmouth’s Nelson A. Rockefeller Center will share findings from their new paper on the issue on Tuesday, September 9, at a special TPC presentation and panel discussion. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities’ Chye-Ching Huang and the Tax Foundation’s William McBride will comment on the paper. You can register here or tune in to the live webcast.

After Citizens United, what is the correct tax treatment of political activity? Catholic University’s RogerColinvaux considers the question, and recommends ways Congress could prevent the laundering of political dollars through tax-exempt nonprofit organizations.

“Schoolhouse Rock!” for the federal debt? You might not be able to sing along, but this new three-minute animated short tells you everything you need to know about the federal debt. It’s from the new Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy at the Brookings Institution and distills research from TPC’s Bill Gale and the University of California at Berkeley’s Alan Auerbach.

Now that you know, you’re prepared for the next fiscal fight on the Hill. TPC’s Howard Gleckman reviews the Congressional Budget Office’s latest spending projections and deficit forecast. “If Republicans win control of the Senate and retain dominance in the House, don’t be surprised to see a fundamental battle over spending beginning next spring. Remember, for many in Congress, the deficit isn’t the issue. It is the size of government.”

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The post On Credits, Boycotts, and the Economy appeared first on TaxVox.