News
Tasting rooms don’t deserve public subsidy
Besides the Opportunity Zone bill, there is another tax issue that needs your immediate attention. Legislators, many of them Democrats, believe the state needs to subsidize distillers by giving them virtually all the liquor tax collected on their products. Currently when a distiller sells bottles of their own Oregon-made whiskey, bourbon or other [...]
The message is simple: stop giving money to rich people
On February 6th, the House Revenue Committee held a hearing on HB4010, our bill that would disconnect Oregon from federal Opportunity Zone tax provisions. The hearing flushed out the opposition unseen till now: investors and their proxies – economic development folks, real estate developers, lawyers and accountants. City economic development [...]
Opinion: Why a surtax on multimillionaires’ income is a good first step
There’s lots of talk about taxing the rich. Candidates are full of ideas. The problem is, most of the ideas would take years to implement. But we need to start now reversing wealth inequality. From our friend, Chuck Collins with the Institute for Policy Studies, came this: “Opinion: Why a [...]
My property tax bill came, I’m shaking my head
One of the members of the TFO Steering Committee, Bennett Minton, authored this OpEd that appeared in the Oregonian last week. Don’t read the comments unless you have a strong stomach for bile.
What’s TFO up to in 2020?
We’re now getting ready for the 2020 short session when we will screen only 250 bills, rather than the over 4000 bills of the long 2019 session. We’re studying, strategizing, and meeting with legislators and coalition partners. We expect three issues to be our primary focus. Of course, we’ll be [...]