In a tax code with no shortage of ironies, the alternative minimum tax (AMT) stands out. Created by Congress in 1969, it was aimed at millionaires, but relatively few millionaires pay it. It is billed as a low-rate levy, but most of its victims face higher taxes because of it. It undermines two...
In this Washington Post commentary, senior fellow Len Burman explains why the capital gains tax break does more harm than good and why Congress should close the loophole once and for all.
The AMT threatens to grow from a footnote in the tax code to a major scourge affecting tens of millions of taxpayers every year. The practice in recent years has been to patch the AMT every year or two on a temporary basis so that not too many people are affected. The latest patch expired at the...
This paper proposes to expand Medicare to cover comprehensive long-term care services, including home care and custodial nursing home care. These services would be financed by a surcharge on federal income taxes. Unlike the regressive payroll tax that finances Medicares hospitalization coverage...
The paper describes the basic features of the President's plan and evaluates the extent to which it would meet its stated goals of expanding health insurance coverage and restraining healthcare spending. The basic approach would improve the market for health insurance, but inadequate attention...
The individual alternative minimum tax (AMT) was originally designed to limit the amount of tax sheltering and to assure that high-income filers paid at least some tax. The current AMT, however, has strayed from those original goals and under current law the tax will affect over 23 million...
In this commentary for public radio's Marketplace program, Len Burman, director of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, explains why automatically adjusting the minimum wage for inflation benefits more than just low-wage workers.
In this Marketplace commentary, Len Burman, director of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, says that extending temporary tax measures enables Congress to avoid serious tax reform and hide deep problems.
The testimony discusses the usefulness of dynamic analysis and dynamic scoring for the policymaking process. Burman concludes that dynamic scoring is not feasible because of lack of knowledge about how deficits will be offset, uncertainty about key parameters in economic models, and inherent...
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...
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,...
On April 1, 2002, a press release announced, “The Tax Policy Center, a new joint venture between the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution” was...
Senators Mike Crapo (R-ID) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) recently asked for an investigation into the Internal Revenue Service’s research activities, including its use of contractors...
Partisan congressional squabbling over the nation’s debt limit once again threatens to shut down the federal government and perhaps trigger a worldwide financial crisis. The...
President Biden has proposed to tax capital gains earned by high-income households more like other income. This is a significant reform that would close loopholes...
Capitalism produces a dizzying array of products and, in the process, generates an enormous amount of wealth. But capitalism creates a problem in that the...
In 1970, Philadelphia’s Franklin Institute got a Moog synthesizer —a giant, unwieldy computer that created music. The sound was weird and quite evidently electronic. My...
Congress is about to pass a massive economic stimulus package that will, among other things, send cash to most American households. The so-called rebates amount...
On Friday, Elizabeth Warren released her financing plan for Medicare for All . It is predictably wonky and politically courageous—new spending is way more popular...
In Open: The Progressive Case for Free Trade, Immigration, and Global Capital , Kimberly Clausing has written a comprehensive and accessible analysis of three of...
The Treasury Department and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) recently agreed that OMB would review many tax regulations before they are released, a...
Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Ro Khanna (D-CA) just introduced the ‘‘ Stop Bad Employers by Zeroing Out Subsidies Act ’’ (or Stop-BEZOS) that would punish...
During primary season in 2000, I came upon my boss—a longtime Democratic insider—reading John McCain's tax plan. “It’s really good,” he said, and a lot...