Wednesday was a difficult day for The American Independent News Network, which is the larger entity that operates The Iowa Independent. Our chief executive and founder announced two of our sister sites would close and their content would be moved to The American Independent.
A recently introduced bill could have far-reaching impact on the U.S. sugar industry, including American Crystal Sugar, a farmer-owned cooperative that locked out 1,300 Midwest workers on Aug. 1.
The chairman for Herman Cain’s Iowa effort says the campaign “relied more on the word of farmers than Washington regulators” in deciding to run an ad containing claims the Environmental Protection Agency says are false.
The Iowa Senate will remain under the control of a slim 26-25 Democratic majority when it reconvenes in January 2012.
A national taxpayer advocacy group has release a poll they say shows Iowans overwhelmingly favor keeping federal deductibility, which allows state residents to write off their federal taxes on state returns.
The National Taxpayers Union Foundation has released a survey of Iowa voters that says 77.2 percent want federal deductibility to remain part of the Iowa tax code. The poll, conducted by Iowa-based Victory Enterprises Inc., has a margin of error of 3.42 percent.
The poll stands in stark contrast to another survey conducted last month by Selzer and Associates which found 63 percent of those polled favored changes to Iowa’s tax code that included ending federal deductibility.
Democrats proposed a tax plan last year that would have done just that in addition to lowering the overall tax rate for every citizen. But those making more than $125,000 a year would have begun paying slightly more under the new system, up to $1,400 a year for Iowans making $250,000 or more a year.
Republicans vehemently opposed the changes, with conservative group Iowans for Tax Relief calling the legislation a “tax on a tax.”
Ultimately, the proposal was abandoned, and Democrats have made no mention of rekindling the idea this year.
One of Iowa’s top economists has characterized federal deductibility as “an archaic holdover from a long ago time that nobody really knows why it exists anymore.” Iowa is one of only three state’s that allow residents to write off their federal taxes on state returns.
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