Newsletter Archive

January 24, 2006

See below for the latest from the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center:

• New TPC Estimates
  Tax Policy Center
  January 24, 2006
• An Analysis of the Roth 401(k)
  William G. Gale, J. Mark Iwry, and Gordon McDonald
  January 9, 2006
• Transcript to Taxing Capital Income Conference
  January 10, 2006
• The Tax Reform Proposals: Some Good Ideas, but Show Me the Money
  Leonard E. Burman and William G. Gale
  December 13, 2005

New TPC Estimates
Tax Policy Center
January 24, 2006

The Tax Policy Center has generated new distributional analyses of the federal estate tax for 2006 under both current law and pre-EGTRRA law, and four options that would expand the refundable child tax credit. The latter show the revenue and distributional impact of the options as well as the effect on the number of children covered by the credit.

Link to estate tax estimates

Link to child credit estimates

An Analysis of the Roth 401(k)
William G. Gale, J. Mark Iwry and Gordon McDonald
January 9, 2006

This report describes the Roth 401(k) and discusses its potential effects. We find that the Roth 401(k) option will add complexity for employees and employers with little collateral social gain. The Roth 401(k) is unlikely to induce significant new private saving; almost all of the benefits are likely to accrue to high-income and wealthy taxpayers who are able to shift existing taxable assets into tax-favored savings plans. Moreover, the Roth 401(k) will increase the amount of resources that taxpayers can shelter and thus will likely have a negative effect on long-term federal budget revenue.

Transcript to Taxing Capital Income Conference
January 10, 2006

The transcript to the Tax Policy Center's September 2005 conference "Taxing Capital Income: Do we? Should we? Can we? Can we not?" is now available. Transcripts to TPC events are posted as they become available.

Link to Taxing Capital Income transcript

Link to all event transcripts

The Tax Reform Proposals: Some Good Ideas, but Show Me the Money
Leonard E. Burman and William G. Gale
December 13, 2005

The tax reform plans put forth by the President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform have the potential to inform the public debate and lay the groundwork for future reform discussion. However, the plans are compared to a tax system that is not based on current law, but rather that starts with current law and then assumes that massive, regressive tax cuts take place. Relative to this artificial baseline, the Panel claims its proposals would be revenue-neutral, distributionally-neutral, and growth-enhancing, but the actual effects likely are far less auspicious.

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