The Economic Growth and Taxpayer Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 (EGTRRA) phased out the state death tax credit from 2002 to 2004, eliminating it completely for 2005. Prior to EGTRRA, almost all states collected a "pick-up" tax that was equivalent to the federal credit. In 2000, estate and...
In this commentary, Len Burman offers a radical proposal: use the tax system to bring in tax revenues and spending programs to provide the social safety net.
The Tax Increase Prevention and Reconciliation Act of 2005 will extend the low tax rates on capital gains and dividends through 2010, grant temporary relief from the individual alternative minimum tax through 2006, and extend several expiring business tax breaks. To prevent Senators from raising...
The largest individual AMT preference items in 2002 were state and local taxes (51 percent of all AMT preference items), personal exemptions (22 percent), and miscellaneous itemized deductions, including employee expenses and legal fees (20 percent).
The White House says lowering taxes on capital gains and dividends will create jobs and opportunity. Tax analyst and commentator Len Burman thinks not.
This report summarizes the two options for reforming the tax system proposed by the President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform, offers a preliminary evaluation of the proposals, and discusses the overall effect on revenue, distribution, and growth.
Claims that increasing capital gains tax rates will adversely impact stock markets and economic growth are not strongly supported by empirical data. Over the last half-century, the correlation between the maximum capital gains tax rate and the ratio of the S&P index to GDP has been about -0....
For nearly a decade, federal higher education subsidies have increasingly been delivered through the tax code rather than through direct spending programs such as grants, loan subsidies, and work study. This paper reviews the results of using new modules in the TRIM and Tax Policy Center...
Leonard Burman's testimony, submitted to the U.S. Senate Finance Subcommittee on Taxation and IRS Oversight, focuses on both the original minimum tax and its successor, the individual alternative minimum tax (AMT). Both the minimum tax and the AMT have applied in the past to a small minority of...
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...
