Tax Policy Center

Experts

Testimony

Investing in children and supporting the wages of working people—which have been stagnant for the past half century—are critical components in equitable and sustainable economic growth. Two options to achieve this are a fully refundable child tax credit, as implemented temporarily in 2021, and a...

December 27, 2023
Leonard E. Burman
Working paper

The literature on data privacy often ignores the value of penalties in strengthening data protection while allowing data to safely be shared for research purposes. This note explains why significant penalties and effective enforcement for unauthorized disclosures of confidential data should be...

October 19, 2022
Leonard E. Burman
Research report

The universal earned income tax credit is a worker subsidy designed to offset wage stagnation. The base proposal would replace existing subsidies for working families with a refundable 100 percent tax credit on individual wages up to $10,000 and a larger, refundable child tax credit. The maximum...

January 21, 2021
Leonard E. Burman
Research report

The Statistics of Income division of the Internal Revenue Service releases an annual public-use file of individual income tax returns that is invaluable to tax analysts in government agencies, nonprofit research organizations, and the private sector. However, the Statistics of Income division...

November 11, 2020
Claire BowenVictoria L. BryantLeonard E. BurmanSurachai KhitatrakunGraham MacDonaldRobert McClellandPhilip StallworthKyle UeyamaAaron R. WilliamsNoah Zwiefel
Brief

This policy brief summarizes the impact of traditional individual retirement accounts and Roth individual retirement accounts on personal choices and on government finances. Although the accounts are equivalent under certain circumstances, in practice they often differ in important ways for both...

September 5, 2019
Leonard E. BurmanWilliam G. GaleAaron Krupkin
Research report

In this report, we examine the different ways that Roth individual retirement accounts (IRAs) and traditional IRAs affect their investors and the government. People who want to shelter more income per dollar deposited in the account, provide larger bequests, or eliminate uncertainty about how...

September 5, 2019
Leonard E. BurmanWilliam G. GaleAaron Krupkin
Research report

This report analyzes a straightforward mechanism to mitigate middle-class wage stagnation: a wage tax credit of 100 percent of earnings up to a maximum credit of $10,000, called a universal earned income tax credit. The child tax credit would increase from $2,000 to $2,500 and be made fully...

May 20, 2019
Leonard E. Burman
Research report

Administrative tax data contain a wealth of information that is potentially valuable for research and analysis. However, the legal and ethical imperative to protect taxpayer privacy has restricted their access to a small number of government analysts and select researchers. We propose to develop...

October 25, 2018
Leonard E. BurmanAlex EnglerSurachai KhitatrakunJames R. NunnsSarah ArmstrongJohn IselinGraham MacDonald
Research report

Despite its relatively small role in the federal taxation system—accounting for less than 1 percent of revenues—the estate and gift tax is controversial. This paper surveys evidence on the effect of estate and inheritance taxes on entrepreneurship and presents some new evidence. We use the...

March 5, 2018
Leonard E. BurmanRobert McClellandChenxi Lu

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