With just 10 days to go before the deadline for the congressional “super committee” to make a deal, members remain hung up on tax and entitlement reform even as automatic across-the-board cuts loom.

At the moment, Republicans and Democrats are divided by their respective plans, with each offering a mixture of spending cuts and tax revenue increases. Republicans have offered a $1.2 trillion deficit-reduction package with roughly $750 billion in spending cuts over the next decade and a $300 billion tax proposal mostly comprised of deduction eliminations. Democrats have offered to trim $2 trillion, with their proposal calling for an almost equal mix of spending cuts and tax increases. The committee was assigned to come up with $1.2 trillion in deficit savings.

Attention now has turned to other courses of action available to the committee to try and avoid the “trigger mechanism,” a fail-safe that would result in deep military and across-the-board cuts if the deal isn’t made.

Texas Rep. Jeb Hensarling, the panel’s Republican co-chair, told CNN’s “State of the Union” that super committee may punt some of the decisions about deficit reduction to individual committees — “a two-step process,” as he described it. In that scenario, the super committee would set the amount of increased tax revenue to be met, and individual congressional committees would then draft legislation to meet it.

The chairmen of the relevant committees—the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee—have said that they would accept that arrangement, according to reporting this morning from the New York Times.

But even if no deal is agreed to and the “trigger” is pulled, there’s still reason to believe the heavy cuts it calls for will be avoided.

The trigger’s cuts do not go into effect until January, 2013, so Congress would have a year to legislate their reversal. That would likely “launch a heavy lobbying effort on K Street, where defense firms in particular would be eager to prevent automatic cuts,” according to The Hill. Senator Pat Toomey (R-Penn.) addressed the possibility on “Fox News Sunday,” saying, “In the very, very unfortunate event that we don’t [make a deal] I think it’s very likely that Congress would reconsider the configuration.”

President Obama has told the committee that it needs to “bite the bullet,” and has floated the possibility that he may block any attempt to create a workaround from next week’s Thanksgiving deadline.

Photo: The Truth About..., Flickr

Wells Fargo & Co. tops the list of companies receiving the largest tax breaks since 2008, according to a joint study from Citizens for Tax Justice and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.

Wells Fargo is one of 30 companies that paid less than nothing in federal corporate income taxes since 2008, according to the report. The company posted over $49 billion in profits in that period but had an effective tax rate of -1.4 percent, meaning it made more after taxes than before.

The report found that amounts to $18 billion in tax subsidies over the last three years, with the company paying -$681 million in taxes.

Wells Fargo, which was formerly based in Minneapolis and still maintains a large presence in the state, is now based out of Sa Francisco and has its main office in Sioux Falls, S.D.

The study looked at federal income taxes paid by 280 of America’s largest and most profitable corporations in 2008, 2009 and 2010. All of the companies are on Fortune Magazine’s annual list of America’s 500 largest corporations.

It found the companies reported profits of $1.4 trillion over that period, and should have paid $473 billion in income taxes, based on the 35 percent corporate tax rate. But tax subsidies over that time totaled $222.7 billion.

Of the 280 companies, 71 paid a tax rate near 35 percent; 67 paid rates less than 10 percent; and 30 paid rates less than 0 percent, in some cases actually receiving checks from the government.

A report issued last week found Wells Fargo & Co. is one of the top 10 transparent and accountable companies in the S&P 100 when it comes to political spending. It and other companies were ranked based on 29 different indicators to gauge disclosure, policies, compliance and oversight.

U.S. Reps. Betty McCollum and Keith Ellison urged the IRS Friday to provide guidance to same-sex couples when filing their federal taxes, which McCollum said should have been provided by the agency years ago.

McCollum, along with 74 members of Congress, signed a letter that says the agency has a responsibility to provide information for same-sex couples, who encounter complicated tax statuses because of inconsistencies in tax law between the states and federal government.

Same-sex couples who have legal relationships in at least 15 states through marriage, civil unions and domestic partnerships aren’t recognized by the federal government because of the Defense of Marriage Act. That makes filing taxes much more complicated for those couples.

In fact, in some states, the IRS is inaccurately penalizing same-sex couples. In Nevada, Washington and California, which have community property deduction laws, the IRS has improperly assessed fines against couples who claim that deduction, because the IRS systems don’t recognize what would otherwise be a legal deduction.

“The LGBT community still faces discrimination in this country and that is unacceptable. In this case, it’s even more disturbing when this discrimination comes from our federal government,” McCollum said in a statement Friday. “The IRS has the ability to provide federal tax guidance to same-sex couples, and it should have done so years ago. The LGBT community deserves to be treated fairly and equally by the U.S. government not only for federal tax purposes but in any other situation.”

The letter presses the IRS to come up with a set of guidelines to aid same-sex couples in filing their taxes.

“The IRS has the ability to provide specific guidance to ease the complexity and uncertainty surrounding these couples,” the letter states. “While full equality cannot be achieved without repealing DOMA, this guidance will provide significant relief to hundreds of thousands of taxpayers, and save critical resources by avoiding unnecessary audits and inappropriate enforcement actions.”

McCollum Ellison letter on LGBT taxes –

Rep. Keith Ellison told ThinkProgress on Friday that former Gov. Tim Pawlenty is interested in making sure the David Kochs of the world have their way and that Pawlenty has no connections to his blue collar upbringing. Earlier in the week, ThinkProgress asked Pawlenty about corporations such as Back of America that use tax loopholes to attain a zero tax liability. Pawlenty said that corporate taxes are still too high.

To that, Ellison said, “In other words, he’s saying, we need to pay them because that’s the only way we can do better for them, right? Tim Pawlenty is one of these right-wing ideologues who has a vision of America that is completely inconsistent with the interests of the middle class.”

Ellison added, “He is out there to make sure that the David Kochs of the world, you know, have it their way, right. And their vision has nothing to do with if you get a Pell grant, and their vision has nothing to do with, you know, they can get water purifiers at their private estates. They don’t need the EPA.”

“He is operating on their behalf and he has drank the Kool Aid,” Ellison said.

Ellison also asserted that Pawlenty has lost his blue collar cred. Pawlenty often touts his working class background in his stump speeches around the country.

“And he’s going to get up there on the course of this presidential campaign and tell you all about how his father was a truck driver in south St. Paul,” he said. “Well you know what, that was a long time ago. And he has no connection to that any more.”

Here’s video of the exchange:

Senate Republicans sent a letter to Gov. Mark Dayton Thursday stating that all 37 members of the GOP caucus have taken a “no-tax pledge” in response to the governor’s proposed budget which would increases taxes for the wealthiest Minnesotans. Senate Minority Leader Tom Bakk responded with a letter of his own questioning the pledge and its implications, while Dayton told the GOP to stop “the game-playing” and come up with a budget of their own.

“We write to make perfectly clear… that we all are opposed to raising taxes to balance the 2012-2013 $6.2 billion deficit,” the 37 GOP senators wrote. “We are all opposed to your budget that increases state spending by 22 percent.”

They added, “We do not have a revenue problem. We have a spending problem.”

Bakk, in a letter to Majority Leader Amy Koch “questioned the wisdom of staking out a narrowly-focused position this early in the budget process” and asked the GOP for specifics on their no-tax pledge.

Do all 37 members of your caucus commit to opposing cuts to Local Government Aid , which the Department of Revenue has stated will increase property taxes on Minnesotans?

Do all 37 members of your caucus agree with Rep. Davids, the House Tax Chair, that ending specific tax breaks would represent a tax increase?

Does your pledge prohibit your caucus from exploring any sort of tax reform that involves broadening a tax’s base to lower its overall rate?

Do all 37 members of your caucus oppose any effort to create or extend local option sales tax in Minnesota communities, such as the proposals introduced by Sen. Hoffman, Sen. Miller, Sen. Dahms and Sen. Newman?

In a conference call with reporters, Dayton took a shot at Republicans who have not developed a budget.

“They continue to be in denial over the direct impact of decisions made in St. Paul on property tax increases,” said Dayton. “The time for this rhetorical game playing is over. I’ve submitted by budget, and now it’s their responsibility to develop their budget. Where is their budget?”

The GOP’s letter and Bakk’s letter are below:

49500970-GovDaytonLetter02242011

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Gov. Mark Dayton’s budget proposal, unveiled Tuesday, includes a tax hike for the wealthy, cuts to health care for 7,200 low-income adults, an increase in spending for K-12 education, a 6 percent decrease in the state workforce,and steady funding for local governments. “I have always said that a budget is about values and priorities, as well as dollars and cents,” Dayton said. “My budget represents my values and priorities, one of which is to keep my promises that I made to the people of Minnesota last fall.”

Dayton’s budget would cap state subsidized health insurance at 200 percent of the poverty level, a 75 percent reduction, and would result in 7,200 adults losing state health care services. The Department of Human Services would see a 2.8 percent decrease. There would also be a reduction to nursing homes and home health care services.

“I respect those who would prefer that I make no cuts,” Dayton said at a press conference. “To the critics I say, ‘Where would they come up with a better alternative?’”

He said, “I’m not willing to make barbaric cuts in essential services.”

Local government aid will be held steady which Dayton said will hold the line on property taxes.

Minneapolis Mayor RT Rybak praised the budget and the funding for local governments.

“In my nine years as mayor, this is the first time that a governor has delivered a budget that helps hold the line on property taxes,” he said in a statement. “Governor Dayton inherited a fiscal mess that was made far worse for the middle class by years of the State’s passing the buck onto local businesses and homeowners. In proposing no more crippling cuts to Local Government Aid, Governor Dayton has drawn the line.”

St. Paul mayor Chris Coleman said the funding for local governments would help the core cities continue to be the economic drivers for the state.

“Saint Paul and other core cities are the economic engines of Minnesota,” he said in a statement. “With Governor Dayton’s bold leadership, Saint Paul will continue to be a prime location for job creation and economic development.”

Dayton also proposed an increase funding for K-12 education, and much of that increase would go to statewide all-day early education. The shift in aid payments to schools that was implemented by former Gov. Tim Pawlenty would continue, but would be repaid at 10 percent per year starting in 2014.

Higher education funding, particularly for state college and universities, will see a 6 percent reduction. Public safety will be maintained at current levels.

The proposal will also contain a 6 percent reduction in the state workforce. “There are gong to be layoffs,” Dayton said, though he predicted many of the estimated 800 jobs lost would come through early retirements and not filling positions once vacated.

The proposal increases taxes for the “4th tier” of taxpayers, the most wealthy Minnesotans. That rate will increase to 10.95 percent for joint tax-filers who make over $150,000 and head of household filers making over $130,000. Dayton is also proposing a 3-year temporary 3 percent tax on people whose taxable income is $500,000.

And the proposal would close loopholes on “snowbirds” who file taxes in other states but live in Minnesota five months and 29 days a year.

“I believe this budget proves that I am a man of my word,” Dayton said of the tax increase pledge he made during his campaign in 2010.

Dayton said that the top tax rate has gone down in Minnesota over the last two decades from 12.5 percent to 9.8 percent.

He hopes that he and Republicans can come to an agreement on the budget in the next few months. “I expect to have to give up some of this proposal as a way of finding common ground with the legislature,” he said, adding, “We will both be unhappy with different aspects, and that’s the process.”

Republicans blasted the budget proposal. Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch said, “This is the highest income tax in the country.”

House Speaker Kurt Zellers said, “This is a feeble and pathetic attempt to go back in time. It will not work. It’s not what governors across the country are doing.”

He added, “Don’t worry, we are not going to let Mark Dayton tax our jobs out of our state.”

Koch said, “We will work to find common ground, but the tax increases are not going to be accepted by the House and Senate.”

Sen. Geoff Michel added, “What he chose was to put together his campaign platform and that’s fine; I’ll give the governor credit for being consistent, however, I don’t want to say it’s dead on arrival but I don’t think its got much of a heartbeat.”

During his State of the State address on Wednesday, Gov. Mark Dayton renewed his call for higher taxes on wealthy Minnesotans, a central position of his successful campaign for governor in 2010. He quoted the Bible in urging the rich to support his proposal for more progressive taxation.

“Some will criticize me for proposing next week to ask those successful businessmen and women and other wealthy Minnesotans to pay higher taxes,” Dayton said. “I ask them for their forbearance during this fiscal crisis, which I did not create, but inherited, and now, with you in the Legislature, must solve. I ask Minnesota’s business leaders and other most successful citizens to give us two years to turn this Ship of State around.”

He continued, “Not by savaging essential public services, upon which you and your employees also depend, but rather by transforming the ways in which government operates here in Minnesota. And, with your help, to reduce the need for those services by putting people back to work throughout our state.”

He cited scripture to that call for the wealthy to help fix the state’s budget deficit.

“My father’s favorite quote was from the Bible. ‘To whomsoever much has been given, of him shall much be required.’ You have achieved so much. I ask you, please, to help your state, your children and grandchildren, your friends and neighbors, to regain what you and I have enjoyed so much and benefited from so greatly during our lives here in Minnesota. Please — help us restore Minnesota to greatness.”

Dayton faces a tough battle with Republicans in the Legislature, most of whom have made campaign promises to fix the budget deficit with cuts only and no increases in taxes.

In Dayton’s address he also called for an increase in spending on education and said that he would work with the Legislature to avoid a government shutdown.

Mark Dayton was sworn in Monday as Minnesota’s 40th governor; he’s the first Democrat to hold the post since the 1980s. Dayton said he’s committed to progressive taxation in Minnesota and carrying through on his campaign promise to deal with the state’s budget problems in part by increasing taxes on wealthy Minnesotans, a group he says isn’t paying its fair share.

“I believe we all share the same aspirations for a better Minnesota,” Dayton said in his inauguration speech. “We may disagree on the details, but we never forget that our honest disagreements and our freedom to express them are the essential rights and great strengths of our democracy.”

He said, “My proposed budget solution will be reasonable, balanced and painful, because I see no easy alternative.”

Part of that pain would likely come in the form of a tax increase on Minnesota’s wealthiest, a group that, according to Dayton and state economists, pays a smaller percentage of their income on taxes. He said, “I will make Minnesota’s tax burden more progressive not more regressive.”

“Almost everyone would like to pay less,” he said, adding that it’s “essential that everyone paying taxes knows that everyone is paying their fair share.”

He challenged Republicans to present him a bill that balances the state budget without new taxes and without damage to schools and public safety.

He also urged Minnesota’s to do their part for the good of the state by making a commitment to volunteerism. “I invite you to get involved in the betterment of your communities throughout the state. I ask every adult Minnesotan, who is physically able, to volunteer a part of one day, every month.”

Dayton also asked every Minnesota business “to adopt a school and contribute to its improvement.”

You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International, Inc. (YCR), the Annandale-based hard rock ministry run by Bradlee Dean and Jake McMillian, set up trusts with help from a ministry in Oregon which has been a target of the IRS investigations for setting up tax avoidance schemes all over the country, Karl Bremer at Ripple in Stillwater reports. Dean and YCR dismantled the work done by Glen Stoll and the Embassy of Heaven for their ministry and even took their case against Stoll to district court in 2008, but the arrangement raises questions about whether Dean and his ministry were trying to avoid paying their rightful share of taxes.

Documents filed in Minnesota’s 10th District Court outline the arrangement set up by YCR with the help of Stoll. Bradlee Dean, whose real name is Bradley Dean Smith, and Jake McMillian, whose real name is Jake MacAuley, took classes from Stoll and paid him $6,500 to set up “established, exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable and assignable ministerial trusts” that would allow them to operate as a “‘free church’ that would be invulnerable to state regulation and control.”

As part of the deal, Smith was given an identification card from Stoll’s Embassy of Heaven that affirmed that, “On file is a signed statement by Bradley Smith renouncing allegiance to the world and declaring citizenship in the Kingdom of Heaven.”

Stoll also told his clients not to pay income taxes or employment taxes and to not file tax returns. And the ministry seemed to take that advice. According to the group’s 990 forms, it stopped reporting its activities to the IRS in 2003, the same year Smith signed his citizenship card with the Embassy of Heaven. It would resume filing its tax returns in 2008.

Smith created a series of organizations, including Old Paths Church which appears to have been modeled after a Texas church by the same name (and completely unknown to that church), to create the tax-free trusts with Stoll.

By 2005, Stoll and his clients were under investigation for tax fraud by the Department of Justice. As Bremer notes, Stoll has already been fined $50,000, is in violation of an injunction, and his arrest has been sought.

“People who buy into tax-fraud schemes are buying nothing but trouble — past due tax bills with interest and penalties and the possibility of criminal prosecution,” said Eileen J. O’Connor, Assistant Attorney General for the Tax Division. “The Justice Department and the Internal Revenue Service are committed to stopping the promotion of tax fraud.”

By 2008, Smith and MacAuley began to unravel the complicated tax-free trust that was being administered by Stoll. As Bremer reports:

According to court documents, Smith’s and MacAulay’s attorney advised them to sever all ties with Stoll, demand his resignation from their trusts and return all property from the trusts. Stoll refused, and on December 9, 2008, a summons and petition was attempted to be served on Stoll’s address, where a person there “refused to accept the documents” and “slammed the door.”

In affidavits filed with the court, Smith and MacAulay’s attorney stated that “The trusts that (Stoll) creates for their customers are shams, devoid of economic substance.” Stoll’s “false and fraudulent schemes” induced at least 30 customers to participate in their “illegal schemes” through at least 89 corporations sole and 47 ministerial trusts.

On March 27, 2009, District Court Judge Stephen Halsey granted Old Paths Church, Inc. and YCR, Inc. their motion for a summary judgment against Stoll that terminated Stoll’s trusts, removed Stoll as trustee, transferred assets from the trusts back to the two original entities, and awarded attorneys fees plus the $6,500 they paid Stoll to create the sham ministerial trusts.

The Minnesota Independent examined some of Smith’s financial dealings in 2009 when new IRS 990 forms showed that he and his band mates were taking a ministerial housing allowance despite his organization being a religious non-profit as opposed to a church. Those housing allowances are meant only for “duly ordained” members of the clergy. Smith has refused to answer questions related to his ordination or which church his organization belongs to.

In 2008, Smith and his sidekick MacAuley, greatly increased their compensation and housing allowance. According to the group’s most recent 990 filing, Smith was paid $51,303 salary and $45,887 for the housing allowance, raking in $97,190. MacAuley’s compensation was a bit less coming in at $66,897 in 2008.

Dean has not responded to repeated request for information about his ministry or a weekend request for comment on his association with Stoll.

Dean and his ministry have close ties to the Republican Party and GOP officials and candidates including gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer, Gov. Tim Pawlenty, former Secretary of State and current state Rep. Mary Kiffmeyer, and state Rep. Dan Severson. Rep. Michele Bachmann has fundraised for the group extensively in recent years as well.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty handed over artifacts from his time as governor on Monday including an over-sized “Veto Pen.” In a press release from the governor’s office, Pawlenty boasted that he broke the record for most vetoes in one year and that he used the veto or line-item veto 299 times in his 8 years in office.

The statement from his office read, “Today, (Monday, December, 27, 2010) Governor Tim Pawlenty turned over documents and artifacts from his eight years as Governor to the Minnesota Historical Society, including an oversized ‘Veto Pen’ and the actual veto stamps he used. During his time in office, Governor Pawlenty issued 299 complete bill and line-item vetoes, including vetoing $7.5 billion in tax increases. In 2008, Pawlenty set a record for the most bill vetoes issued in one year by a Minnesota governor.”

Among those 299 bills that Pawlenty vetoed in recent years: a bill to legalize marijuana for terminally ill patients, a bill to allow the surviving member of a same-sex couple to make decisions for their dead partner, a voter fraud prevention bill that would alert felons that their voting rights had been revoked, a bill to standardize anti-bullying procedures in schools, a bill to streamline absentee voting, a bill that decriminalized bong water, state funding for stem cell research, a bill that would regulate toxins in children’s toys, and a $1 billion tax bill,