The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "tax rates" ...
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Green Energy Going Red
In this series of original and exclusive investigations, CBS documented the fate of $90 billion dollars in green energy stimulus tax spending and dug in to find out why it did not produced the promised results: a boom in green energy technology and products accompanied by a burst in employment. In Solar Scorching, we identified eleven green energy companies besides Solyndra that together got billions of tax dollars, only to declare bankruptcy or suffer other serious financial issues. Since our initial report, the number of failures has risen dramatically. CBS exposed the fact that the government secretly knew what a poor investment some of these companies were, even before it committed taxpayer billions. We obtained exclusive documents showing one project had confidentially been rated as a “junk bond,” but the government committed $43 million tax dollars anyway. It went bankrupt.
Tags: Taxes; green energy; Solyndra; taxpayers
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D.C. Tax Office Scandal
The District of Columbia struck an unprecedented number of deals behind closed doors this year with prominent commercial property owners who had appealed their tax assessments, reducing the city's tax base by $2.6 billion. The settlements were kept from the public for months until The Washington Post started mining public records and filing FOIAs, which the city routinely denied until the newspaper's lawyers got involved. The Post also learned that city leaders had kept critical internal audits about the tax office in "draft" format to prevent their release under FOIA. Through sources, The Post obtained the undisclosed reports -- along with a dozen other audits that had been kept from public view -- and published the findings for the first time. The series prompted the City Council to change the law to require the tax office to immediately make public all of its reports -- bringing a new level of transparency to a once secretive agency. The Securities and Exchange Commission also launched a probe to see if the city had kept critical findings from audits used to determine bond ratings. The inquiry is ongoing.
Tags: tax fraud; taxes; taxpayers; tax office
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Taxing Baltimore
Baltimore City' s high property tax rate is often cited as a major drag on its ability to keep and and attract both residents and businesses. Our reporting showed, for the first time, how a decades-old tax credit for homeowners has made it nearly impossible for the city to cut its rate, while also causing massive disparities in tax bills even when houses have the same value.
Tags: homeowners; property taxes; tax credit
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Breaking Point: Personal tales of New Jersey's tax crush
This investigation into New Jersey's highest-in-the-nation property tax system found that it is forcing people out of their homes, fueling the big business of tax lien sales, forcing homeowners to pay billions in extra taxes because of the faulty assessment system. Loopholes in the law allow billionaires and land developers to get a 98 percent tax break.
Tags: tax liens; property tax; tax loopholes; tax breaks; tax rates; assessments
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Hidden Havens
The reporter investigates how U.S. multinational companies use hidden strategies and offshore havens to avoid paying the full corporate tax rate.
Tags: foreign tax haven; offshore; tax rate; tax avoidance; tax loophole
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Risky Business
The investigation revealed “how a school district’s use of risky “swaps” - derivatives that are bets on interest rate swings - caused huge losses and higher taxes for the district”. These “swaps”, given by financial advisors and investment banks, brought in millions of fees for them and left the school district in debt. Further, the school and adviser failed to terminate two swaps, which cost taxpayers millions more.
Tags: Bethlehem Area School District; education; tax system; finances; board; administration; Stanley J Majewski; Joseph Lewis
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Ghost Schools
Charter high schools operated by for-profit corporations are experiencing the nation's worst rates of rampant absenteeism with many campuses reporting daily truancy rates of more than 50 percent of student enrollment. The investigation found that some school officials have learned it's a profitable business model to be paid millions of tax dollars not to teach kids who don't show up. The trend is worst in Ohio.
Tags: education; charter school; absenteeism; student; enrollment; school funding
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Documentary stamp tax loophole
"Buyers and sellers of pricey properties structure sales as corporate entity transfers rather than as real estate transfers. This lets them legally avoid the Florida documentar stamp tax, collected at a rate of 70 cents per $100 of property value. My first stroy identified three sales totaling $600 million that avoided $4.2 million in taxes. My second story identified additional sales and also cited properties sold using land trusts, another structure that avoids documentary stamp taxes."
Tags: tax; stamp tax; real estate; commercial; documentary; porperty value
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The High Cost of Being Poor
This series shows how businesses and merchants in the Buffalo area prey upon people living near poverty level. Examples include corner grocery stories that illegally cash checks and charge super-high fees, predatory loans for housing and cars, and the high cost of using rent-to-own appliances.
Tags: poverty; economics; local business; tax law; interest rates
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Clout's Sick List
"A Chicago Sun-Times computer-assisted analysis found that patronage workers in Chicago city government filed workplace injury claims at a rate that if true, would make being a political patronage worker in Chicago the most dangerous occupation in America. The series found that patronage workers filed worker's compensation claims against the city at a rate experts deemed implausible and city officials acknowledged was problematic. By doing so, these workers were able to stay home- or, in some cases the newspaper found, work other jobs- while collecting 75 percent of their city pay, tax-free. Many of these workers have claimed repeated workplace injuries. And many have been off work for years."
Tags: workplace; injuries; political patrongage; workplace-injury claims