TaxVox: Recent Episodes
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Former President Trump’s proposal to repeal the $10,000 cap on the state and local tax (SALT) deduction would cut 2025 taxes by an average of...
The bipartisan “no taxes on tips” proposal is the most prominent example of a politically attractive soundbite bumping aside sound policy.
Campaigns and political party platforms provide limited policy details. That’s by design: especially in a campaign, politicians tend to accentuate what they will do for...
The fate of a government agency’s funding is always precarious—and especially so for the Internal Revenue Service, one of the most unpopular federal agencies in...
Donald Trump would exempt overtime pay from tax. Kamala Harris and Trump both agree that tips should be exempt. There are lots of tax exclusions in the tax code, but this form of tax subsidy is especially costly, regressive, and prone to abuse.
Only a handful of all employees and fewer than 60 percent of tipped workers would benefit from proposals to exempt gratuities from federal income tax,...
Trillions of dollars of unrealized capital gains permanently escape taxation, disproportionately benefitting the richest Americans. Congress could close this loophole.
One of the most common tax complaints I hear from small business owners is about filing their taxes. Paying isn’t their biggest objection, though they...
Both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are promoting a troubling idea: Hyper-targeting tax subsidies to narrowly favored activities or occupations. While Trump and Harris are...
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump recently proposed cutting the current 21 percent corporate tax rate to 15 percent for companies that do not outsource, offshore, or replace American workers. The Trump campaign has not yet indicated how this rate would be structured or enforced, but, drawing on past experience and research evidence, TPC staff below suggest some issues to consider.
A worldwide 10 percent tariff and a 60 percent tariff on Chinese goods proposed by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump would lower average after-tax incomes...
Researchers have shown how the tax system can reinforce disparities between households of different races or ethnicities, even though the Internal Revenue Code does not...
President Bill Clinton famously declared in his 1996 State of the Union address, “ The era of big government is over .” He didn’t get...
With Vice President Kamala Harris officially the presumptive Democratic nominee for President, the party can turn to a policy framework as it prepares for its...
While the Kaine-Britt proposal seeks to encourage and reward businesses to provide onsite child care, increasing the supply of child care might need solutions beyond the tax code.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Vice President Kamala Harris’s new running mate, has a tax policy record that could elevate the tax debate on the 2024...
The United States faces a long-term fiscal problem: Spending threatens to outrun revenues by such a large margin that the ratio of public debt to...
If Vice President Kamala Harris's past record is any indication, a President Harris would be a strong proponent for using the tax code to achieve her policy goals.
Former president Donald Trump’s plan to repeal the tax on Social Security benefits would lower taxes for US households by an average of $550, according...
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (full disclosure: I am on its board) and the American Hospital Association recently debated whether nonprofit hospitals provided...
Tax policy isn't just for economists, lawyers, or policymakers. It's for you, and me, and everybody in between. The Tax Hound starts conversations about what government taxes, and why.
With Vice President Kamala Harris now the presumptive Democratic nominee, the political world has moved to one of its favorite parlor games: running mate speculation...
Ask seven public policy think tanks how to get the federal budget on a “strong, more sustainable fiscal path” and you’ll inevitably get seven different...
Should Vice President Kamala Harris ascend to the top of the Democratic ticket, her legislative record as a senator may shed light on her future approach to tax policy.
Nearly half the benefits of extending the TCJA would go to those making $450,000 or more.
Households making about $450,000 or more would receive more than 45 percent of the benefits of extending key provisions of 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs...
State revenue forecasting has always been a complex task. Given these challenges, state forecasters tend to underestimate rather than overestimate revenues to avoid potentially severe...
If we care about who pays—or doesn’t pay—taxes and why, should becoming a tax-exempt organization be easy? Or should it be a bigger deal?
If the Court determines that “realization” is a Constitutional requirement, the decision would, at worst, threaten to gut the taxation of capital income. At best, it would require the Court to join Congress and the US Treasury Department in the endless game of whack-a-mole on tax shelters.
What The Supreme Court’s New Curbs On Regulatory Power Could Mean For Tax Law In a landmark ruling , the Supreme Court has given federal...
The dependent exemption, the earned income tax credit (EITC), and the child tax credit (CTC), supported at times by Republicans and Democrats alike, help bolster...
The Congressional Budget Office’s latest fiscal update is filled with terrifying numbers: The projected deficit for this fiscal year will hit 7 percent of Gross...
The Supreme Court upheld Congress’s taxing authority, at least for taxing undistributed corporate profits. But what about Congress’s authority to tax other unreceived profits, like unrealized capital gains or other capital income?
Former President Trump’s proposal to exempt all tips from federal tax would benefit few tipped workers and hurt many. Tax-free tips might help a relatively...
In a surprise move, New York’s Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul indefinitely delayed New York City’s first-in-the-nation congestion pricing plan on Wednesday. Lawmakers created the Central...
This spring the IRS received more than 139 million individual income tax returns. Those returns give filers the option to direct a few of their tax dollars to the Presidential Election Campaign Fund (PECF). Eligible presidential candidates can use the money to help cover qualified expenses of their political campaigns in both the primary and general elections. But many of us decline the option. Do we not need or want it anymore?
This year’s New York art auctions disappointed. The $1.4 billion in spring sales were 22 percent lower than 2023, and off 36 percent from 2022,...
Slowing climate change has been a signature issue for President Biden. But Biden also has been an ardent booster of American manufacturing. Recently, he imposed...
In a recent New York Times column (paywall), Berkeley economist Gabriel Zucman calculated that the highest-income Americans pay only about 23 percentof their income in...
Mistakes happen during tax filing season, so Congress has given the IRS “math error authority”...
Cities, counties, and other local governments have traditionally relied on property taxes as a substantial and stable revenue stream. But with remote work taking hold...
President Biden set off a kerfuffle when he posted on “X,” formerly Twitter, “Donald Trump was very proud of his $2 trillion tax cut that...
How did you file your tax return this year? Paid a preparer? Bought software? Did you, like me, use the fillable forms on the Internal...
Do you think about the world as “zero-sum,” where resources are limited and my gain is your loss? Or do you believe that resources are...
Perhaps the two most influential economics thinkers of the past half-century were not economists at all. Psychologists Amos Tversky, who died young in 1996, and...
Foreign investors, retirement accounts, and other tax-exempt entities now dominate US stock ownership. This shift has important implications for understanding who wins and who loses...
In a new report , we find that the US tax code’s home mortgage interest deduction (HMID) favors White families relative to Black and Hispanic...
How The Anti-Tax Movement Changed Politics and Government In his new book, law professor Michael Graetz makes a provocative argument: The modern anti-tax movement is...
In a March 17 campaign speech, former president Trump vowe d “We're going to put a 100 percent tariff on every single car that comes...
A tax credit for first-time homebuyers could be an important step towards restructuring the way the US subsidizes home ownership. But the version President Biden...
Taxes feature prominently in the Biden administration’s fiscal year 2025 budget. They will continue to be a point of contention in the presidential election, with...
Tax filing may well be America’s least favorite indoor sport. Each year, new forms and rules can overwhelm even seasoned tax experts. It does not...
In 2021, the American Rescue Plan (ARP) temporarily but significantly expanded the federal child tax credit (CTC), and child poverty fell from 9.7 percent to...
It’s been two years since the expiration of the expanded child tax credit (CTC), a temporary provision of the American Rescue Plan that effectively provided...
As House Republicans engage in a nasty internal battle over whether to raise the $10,000 cap on the state and local tax (SALT) deduction, a...
In a famous conversation, the author F. Scott Fitzgerald is credited with saying that “the rich are very different than you and me,” to which...
As states navigate an uncertain fiscal future , a lot of budget commentators will justifiably note that nearly every state cut taxes during the last few revenue boom years. But most states also stocked a lot of money into their savings accounts over the past three years – and this may help them weather forthcoming budget storms.
In some European cities, streets were made for walking, not driving--thanks in part to taxes.
Following the first Republican presidential primary debate, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy seems to be having a moment. That makes it a good time to explore his...
At the beginning of “Rounders,” a movie about poker, the lead character describes an important rule of gambling: “If you can’t spot the sucker in...
More than three years after the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the shift to remote work for many office workers has put the future of...
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-MO) and Oversight Subcommittee Chairman David Schweikert (R-AZ) announced they are looking into political abuses by non-profit...
The growing war between the IRS and the commercial tax preparation industry over the agency’s efforts to create a free, in-house tax filing system got...
New jobs data show while private employment fully recovered over a year ago, state and local public employment remains below its pre-pandemic peak. Overall, total...
With more fiscal data coming in, the long-term health of state budgets looks murky. After a run up in 2022 , preliminary data show a...
In the United States’ voluntary tax system, taxpayers are responsible for correctly reporting their incomes to the IRS, rather than having the government determine their...
When your commute to work takes place within the confines of your home, where should you pay income taxes? The answer is complicated.
Taxing digital assets poses many tax policy puzzles. So many, in fact, that the Senate Finance Committee recently asked for advice on how to do...
Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan (D) recently proposed raising the city’s tax on vacant or undeveloped land while reducing taxes on buildings by 30 percent. The...
From the start of calendar year 2021 to today, 48 states and the District of Columbia have cut taxes. The only holdouts are Alaska and...
No Labels Fiscal Policy Reads More Like No Details The bipartisan group No Labels is getting a lot of attention these days because it says...
It appears that the green energy tax breaks included in last year’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) are more popular among businesses than Congress imagined when...
Charles and Kathleen Moore of Washington State view "income" differently. If we care about sustaining an efficient, fair tax code, we should all try to understand why.
The US Supreme Court recently agreed to review the case of Moore v. United States . The question presented sounds dry and technical: “Whether the...
Huge tax and other subsidies for sports facilities are almost never good ideas. But two new, and especially egregious, examples of how public funds can...
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and President Biden recently agreed to cut back on some of the increased IRS funding enacted through last year’s Inflation...
About one year ago, the US Supreme Court struck down the constitutional right to abortion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization . Since then,...
The recent compromise between Republicans and Democrats on extending the federal debt limit was hailed for avoiding the disaster of a default, demonstrating that both...
In recent years, businesses have been able to fully deduct expenses related to research and development (R&D) in the year the investment was made (often...
House Republican plans to temporarily raise the standard deduction and restore more generous business tax deductions would result in modest tax cuts for most households...
Ohio’s House and Senate are debating the details of a tax cut, but both houses support plans to cut individual income tax rates and reduce...
Preliminary IRS data on the 2023 tax filing season illustrates that the agency has recovered from pandemic disruptions, with a calmer tax season thanks to...
Representatives Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY) and Michelle Steel (R-CA) have introduced the Working Families Tax Cut Act to increase the standard deduction – which would increase...
A major property tax cut proposal for seniors has New Jersey’s legislative leaders at odds with the governor as the state tries to wrap up...
Now that Congress has passed the Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA) of 2023 , it isn’t too soon to start thinking about the mess lawmakers have...
We still have some time before an artificial intelligence (AI) tool like ChatGPT can prepare our taxes, as my TPC colleague Robert Weinberger reminds us...
What policymakers give, policymakers can take away. Nine months after Congress enacted President Biden’s proposal to boost the Internal Revenue Service’s 10-year budget by $80...
The “Chicken Tax” is a 25 percent tariff on imported light-trucks that was first imposed in 1964, in response to tariffs levied by some European...
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and President Joe Biden reached an agreement over the weekend to limit spending for a small fraction of the federal...
In case you’ve somehow missed the flurry of articles describing the dramatic advance of artificial intelligence, we appear to be at the dawn of a...
Republican leaders in Congress have refused to raise the federal debt limit unless the Biden Administration agrees to major spending reductions to reduce the national...
If the country avoids breaching the debt limit in the next few months , you may not have Wall Street volatility to thank. Or even...
House Republicans on April 26 passed legislation on a party-line vote a bill that would rescind many Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) clean energy tax incentives in exchange...
Whether the goal is to provide broad access to e-bikes or to reduce carbon emissions and road congestion, a federal tax credit rewarding an individual’s e-bike purchase is not the best policy tool.
House Republicans have, at least temporarily, redefined what they mean by a tax increase. By doing so, they have turned their backs on their decades-old...
You can see where this is going. As the US gets ever closer to hitting its borrowing limit sometime this summer, Congress is stumbling towards...
The veil has lifted (at least partway) on the administration’s two-year-old pledge that the IRS would not use its $80 billion budget boost to increase...
Benefits from safety net programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly food stamps) and tax programs such as the Earned Income Tax...
As usual, the politicians are missing the point: Success or failure of the IRS’s ambitious plan to spend $80 billion in new money won’t be...
The Internal Revenue Service has taken a major step forward with its release of a plan detailing how the agency will invest the ten-year $80...
Without better outreach and communication from the IRS, the new $600 reporting threshold might drive more otherwise law-abiding taxpayers to work around the reporting rule.
Like all presidential budgets, President Biden’s fiscal year 2024 proposals reflect the priorities he would set for the nation. As in prior years, Biden would...
President Biden’s fiscal year 2024 budget would revive 2021’s enhanced child tax credit (CTC) with some new twists that seek to make the credit work...
As expected, President Biden’s 2024 proposed budget included several changes to the tax treatment of foreign income. Although prior attempts to rewrite these tax rules...
$4 Trillion In US Wealth Is Stashed Overseas, Much Of It In Tax Havens A handful of extremely wealthy US taxpayers holds trillions of dollars...
The revenue provisions of President Biden’s fiscal year 2024 budget would lower after-tax incomes by an average of about $2,300 next year, according to a...
States saw robust tax revenue growth in fiscal years 2021 and 2022, largely caused by federal and state policy actions. But forecasts now look much...
As the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) celebrated its two-year anniversary on March 11, some applauded a law that sped an economic recovery while others...
Companies now spend more than a $1 trillion annually to repurchase their stock, in lieu of paying higher dividends to their shareholders, or investing more...
A First Look At The Revenue Provisions Of Biden’s 2024 Budget President Biden’s 2024 budget would raise taxes by more than $4.5 trillion over the...
People may disagree about whether to raise taxes or limit the growth of benefits to extend the solvency of the Social Security trust funds. But...
President Biden may propose allocating revenue from the 2010 Affordable Care Act’s Net Investment Income Tax (NIIT) to maintain solvency of Medicare’s Part A Hospital...
In a deal that secured Kevin McCarthy the speakership, House Republicans plan to vote on the FairTax Act of 2023 (H.R. 25), which would...
Depending on their use, college scholarships may have tax consequences. But should they, given the many subsidies for college costs built into the tax code?
In a year when child poverty has risen substantially following the expiration of temporary tax benefits, Washington intransigence over raising the debt ceiling could put...
Yes, I’ve known for months that my taxes are due by April 18. But I’m changing tax preparers. And I’m really busy at work. And...
Inflation last year reached its highest level in the United States since 1981. As a result, the IRS announced the largest inflation adjustment for individual...
The Congressional Budget Office estimates the national debt will increase by $19 trillion over the next decade under current law, $3 trillion more than it...
Valentine’s Day might not be too festive for Danny Werfel this year. He’s got what will probably be the most difficult test of his professional...
Most years, the Tax Policy Center celebrates Valentine Day with a whimsical analysis of the costs and benefits—tax-wise—of marriage. What’s new this year is that...
The Internal Revenue Service does not ask tax filers about their race and ethnicity . But the US tax code can still widen racial income...
While Congress talks about the federal debt, it’s still hesitating to deal with one major source of rising deficits—Medicare—that it can’t avoid much longer. Medicare’s...
The past two years were a great time to make state tax policy. Booming revenue collections combined with hundreds of billions of dollars from Congress...
How could new tax revenues ease Medicare’s substantial financial pressures? And how would those tax hikes affect federal revenues and the distribution of tax burdens...
Tax breaks for struggling local newspapers might sound reasonable, even righteous. But legislative efforts nationally and at the state level have yet to succeed. Why?
New mothers , families with low incomes , and immigrant parents often miss out on tax benefits by failing to file returns. But with tax...
The news is filled with stories about conflicts between taxpayers and tax collectors. Just a few weeks ago a New York jury convicted the Trump...
As of 2021, about 16 percent of Americans had earned money through an online gig work platform . While contract labor is not new, the...
The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act’s $10,000 cap on the state and local tax (SALT) deduction managed to survive attempts to reform or scrap...
House Republicans say they want to balance the federal budget in 10 years by cutting spending only, and seem to have received a promise from...
The idea of replacing all major federal taxes with a national sales tax – and using the opportunity to “abolish” the IRS – has been...
Third-party payment platforms such as Airbnb, eBay, and PayPal found a surprise gift from the Biden Administration in their Christmas stockings last month—one that likely...
It is easy to write off as mere symbolism the House vote to rescind nearly all the $80 billion IRS funding increase Congress approved last...
Once they finally pick a Speaker, the very first legislative vote House Republicans will take will be aimed at making it harder for the IRS...
The two new reports on the IRS’s handling of former President Donald Trump’s tax returns raise more questions than they answer. And the most important...
Although Congress managed to reach a year-end topline spending agreement, it left many tax questions unanswered heading into 2023. One is considering whether to allow...
Welcome to the Tax Policy Center’s annual Lump of Coal Awards for the worst tax ideas of 2022. It was an election year...
The spending bill congressional leaders agreed to early this morning creates significant new incentives for retirement savings and broadly eases rules for withdrawing funds. Like...
Talks on the expansion of the Child Tax Credit appear to have stalled, with a key sticking point being opposition of some lawmakers to making...
Congress should eliminate the debt ceiling this year. It serves no useful purpose. It doesn’t contribute to fiscal discipline, and breaching it entails large, potentially,...
Congress is considering legislation that may help some low-income workers save. But it may miss a chance to do a little more good by ending a tax benefit that allows the very wealthy to accumulate savings tax-free.
The Family Security Act 2.0 (FSA 2.0) framework introduced this past June by Senators Mitt Romney (R-UT), Steve Daines (R-MT), and Richard Burr (R-NC) emerged...
How will we know whether the Inflation Reduction Act’s $80 billion ten-year investment in the Internal Revenue Service is successful? Unfortunately, measuring performance isn’t easy,...
The Tax Policy Center has revised its estimates of the revenue cost and distributional effects of the business tax cuts included in its analysis of...
This blog has been revised, reflecting TPC’s recalculated analysis of proposals to reduce business taxes that are under discussion in Congress. TPC’s initial analysis over-estimated...
The lame duck Congress will spend the next several weeks arguing over the fate of several key provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs...
A key subtext to the debate over whether to restore the expanded 2021 version of the Child Tax Credit (CTC) is this: Does the credit...
During the recent congressional election campaign, House Republicans said one of their top priorities would be to make permanent the individual tax changes in the...
During the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021, Congress substantially increased benefits for children, including big boosts in the Child Tax Credit...
The multi-billion-dollar collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX has raised important questions about the framework government is relying on to collect taxes from crypto investors ...
The ongoing COP-27 climate conference will take stock of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and encourage member countries to accelerate their efforts to reach climate...
With Democrats retaining narrow control of the Senate and Republicans on the cusp of winning the barest of majorities in the House, it will be...
Americans voted on dozens of ballot initiatives this year, including tax hikes, tax cuts, cannabis taxes, sports betting, and even the future of ballot measures...
Last week, the US Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case over how much in penalties the US government can impose on citizens who...
In response to the recent burst of inflation, the IRS is raising contribution limits for the full range of retirement savings accounts. That’s great news...
Is a marshmallow tax-exempt food, or is it taxable candy? This question keeps national and state governments and their lawyers quite busy.
After dramatically rising during the worst of the pandemic, the number of households who pay no federal income tax has fallen sharply. It will remain...
Suddenly, Social Security reform is back in the news. For all the wrong reasons, perhaps. But at least politicians are talking about it. And that’s...
Arkansas, Maryland, Missouri, North Dakota, and South Dakota will vote on legalizing recreational marijuana this November. And cannabis initiatives are already on the 2023 or...
The Internal Revenue Service announced its inflation adjustment for tax year 2023: It will be a bit more than 7 percent, the largest increase in...
Policy experts and governments around the world are deeply dissatisfied with the way multinational corporations are taxed, especially big tech companies. The Organisation for Economic...
As the year winds down, Congress will need to decide what to do on several tax fronts, including whether to extend more favorable treatment of...
Although last year’s temporary expansion of the child tax credit (CTC) dramatically reduced child poverty across the US, government outreach efforts struggled to connect immigrant families with their tax benefits.
The ink on the Inflation Reduction Act is barely dry, but already there are reasons to think Congress may take up more tax issues once...
Earmarking tax dollars comes with a price, giving today’s voters the power to decide how tomorrow’s state tax dollars will be spent. Is that power worth it?
Starting in 2018, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA) dramatically raised the standard deduction, reducing the number of filers who reported their...
President Biden’s plan to raise taxes on very high-income households died in Congress. But the idea of lives on. Initiatives on November ballots in California...
After years of growth, some states saw cannabis tax collections decline for the first time in fiscal year 2022. But, while politicians occasionally promote marijuana...
In 2021, Congress enacted sweeping legislation that temporarily cut child poverty nearly in half . A key feature was the expanded child tax credit (CTC),...
Thanks to surging tax revenues and an unprecedented infusion of federal aid, many states cut taxes over the past two years by lowering individual income tax rates, expanding tax credits, or sending one-time checks to residents. But there is another way states can use these funds: reduce or eliminate some local criminal legal fines and fees.
In just 13 years, Social Security trust funds will be unable to pay full promised benefits. Unfortunately, a House bill with broad bipartisan support could...
When the Senate added a new corporate minimum tax to the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), it almost added a clarification that private equity is a...
The Biden administration’s plan for broad-based student loan forgiveness of up to $20,000 per individual won’t affect borrowers’ federal tax bills, but it could have...
Industrial policy is trending. At a time when few policy ideas win bipartisan support, government subsidies for favored industries are feeling the love from Democrats...
It’s always tempting to exaggerate the importance of the latest big fight in Congress. The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA) made some major policy...
Since 2002, teachers have been able to claim a modest educator expense deduction on their federal income tax returns. But is this tax benefit worth keeping?
Understanding how the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) will affect the Internal Revenue Service’s operations requires wading through a swamp of misinformation, disinformation, and no information...
The New York Times reported that Chicago businessman Barre Seid donated his entire business, tax free, to the Marble Freedom Trust, a tax-exempt advocacy organization...
Immigrant parents were less likely to have heard about the 2021 expanded child tax credit (CTC) than parents who were born in the United States,...
President Biden announced plans to forgive $10,000 in student debt for all borrowers with below $125,000 in annual income ($250,000 for couples), while Pell Grant...