2010 October Budget & Tax News

The October issue of Budget & Tax News leads with news that Indianapolis taxpayers are being forced to bail out the city’s NBA Pacers. The city’s Capital Improvement Board voted in July to provide $30 million over three years to the team.

Also in this issue:

• On New Year’s Day 2011, virtually every American will be facing the possibility of higher taxes. So much for President Barack Obama’s pledge that middle-income earners would experience no tax increases.

• Michigan’s attorney general has filed an “attempted false pretense” fraud charge against a principal in the Grand Rapids-area Hangar42 movie studio. The project had been in line to receive a $10 million tax credit from the state’s film subsidy program.

• Claims that the oil and gas industry receives especially expensive tax incentives from the federal government are a myth.

• The federal government is diverting $10 billion a year away from necessary building and maintenance of highways, instead spending it on projects with no national benefits, a new study finds.

• The U.S. private equity industry is in a free-fall, yet Congress is moving to impose new, punitive taxes on the industry.