TPC Citations & Sources

2008 |2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002

TPC research and analysis appears in hundreds of news articles each year. Below is a partial list, including the sources used in selected articles. Please note, article links cited below were verified on the day of publication and may change.

January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October | November | December

December

• Editorial: Un-'FairTax', Washington Post (December 31, 2007).
  

  "The Presidents' Advisory Panel on Tax Reform -- that's President Bush's tax panel -- calculated that the rate would have to be at least 34 percent, not 30 percent, "and likely higher over time if the base erodes, creating incentives for significant tax evasion." Brookings Institution economist William Gale puts the rate at 44 percent -- and his calculation doesn't take into account cheating, for which there would be ample incentive."

• Renaissance projects rise; so does price tag -- by $1 billion-plus, The Press-Enterprise (December 29, 2007) by Duane W. Gang.
  

  "Kim Reuben, a public finance economist with the Washington, D.C.-based Urban Institute, a nonpartisan public-policy think tank, said having a specific source of revenue to pay back the debt should prevent the city from being forced into cutting back services to make the annual payments."

• Is Art an Industry or a Luxury?, Wall Street Journal (December 29, 2007) by Daniel Grant. (subscription required)
  

  "Mr. Burman opposes changes to the law on fractional gifts for the same reason: "Letting wealthy collectors retain things they supposedly donated and allowing them to take larger deductions for the gifts year after year is a step in the wrong direction," he said."

• Criticism Aside, 'FairTax' Boosts Huckabee Campaign, Washington Post (December 28, 2007) by Jonathan Weisman.
  

  "To compensate, the sales tax rate would have to rise to more than 40 percent for the government to take in as much as it does now, said William G. Gale, a tax economist at the Brookings Institution. State and local governments, facing a new burden on purchases, would have to increase taxes to maintain current levels, as well."

• Republican Health Tax Breaks May Fall Short on Costs, Coverage, Bloomberg News (December 26, 2007) by Aliza Marcus.
  

  "As laid out, the candidates' proposals don't fully address the problems of affordability, access to coverage and cost," Roberton Williams, principal research associate at the Washington-based Tax Policy Center, a joint venture of the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution, said in a Dec. 24 interview."

• Is A "Fair Tax" Feasible? - Len Burman Interview, KPCC radio (December 25, 2007) by Patt Morrison.
• Those who paid AMT last year will have to pay it again, San Francisco Chronicle (December 23, 2007) by Kathleen Pender.
  

  ""About two-thirds of the cause of the AMT comes from state and local taxes," says Roberton Williams, a principal research associate with the Tax Policy Center."

• Editorial: Richer and richer, St. Louis Post-Dispatch (December 23, 2007). (Other Appearances: The Baltimore Sun)
  

  "We could, and perhaps should, let the Bush administration's tax cuts expire. Those tax cuts saved an average of $118,000 per year for people with more than $1 million in income. A middle-income taxpayer saved just $740, according to the Tax Policy Center in Washington."

• Smith, Congress Pass AMT Patch, Southwest Nebraska News (December 20, 2007) by George Yaksick Jr.
  

  "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Ways and Means Chair Charles B. Rangel, D-N.Y., would like to abide by the PAYGO rules but the Senate has forced on Congress that they will not pay for an AMT patch," Roberton Williams, a principal research associate with the Tax Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. told CCH."

• Taxpayers Wait For 11th-Hour AMT Patch And Other Relief, Commerce Clearing House newsletter, Federal Tax Weekly (December 20, 2007) by George Yaksick Jr.
  

  "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Ways and Means Chair Charles B. Rangel, D-N.Y., would like to abide by the PAYGO rules but the Senate has forced on Congress that they will not pay for an AMT patch," Roberton Williams, a principal research associate with the Tax Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. told CCH."

• AMT Escape!, Forbes.com (December 19, 2007) by Brian Wingfield.
  

  "Last year, 3.5 million people paid the AMT. If Congress hadn't acted, it would have affected 23.4 million Americans, according to the Tax Policy Center."

• Patching Up the AMT - In Time to Rev Up the IRS, Roll Call (December 19, 2007) by Emily Pierce and Jay Heflin, Roll Call Staff and CongressNow Staff.
  

  "According to Burman, AMT legislation being discussed in Congress will change three numbers: the exemption level for a married couple filing a joint return, other unmarried individuals and married couples who file separate returns."

• Interview: Leonard Burman, Ph.D., Bankrate.com (December 17, 2007) by Cheryl Allebrand.
  

  "Len Burman is a bona fide tax wonk. He has labored for more than 20 years to shape and study the effects of tax policy, stepping into professional life with public policy expertise earned during his doctoral studies, where his dissertation work examined the effects of tax policies."

• Could you have to pay AMT?, Kane County Chronicle (December 16, 2007) by Liz Wolgemuth.
  

  "AMT added, on average, $6,782 to tax bills in 2006, according to the Tax Policy Center. But as more middle-income Americans start paying it, the average is expected to drop by more than a third this year."

• Island tax havens factor into Romney's business success, Los Angeles Times (December 17, 2007) by Bob Drogin.
  

  "Eugene Steuerle, co-director of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center at the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan Washington-based think tank, said he was troubled by the growing use of offshore jurisdictions, even for legitimate purposes."

• Huckabee’s Plan: No more IRS, Pioneer Press (December 15, 2007) by Kevin G. Hall.
  

  "It's unfair and it's unworkable," said Len Burman, the director of the influential Tax Policy Center, a Washington research group run jointly by the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, two center-left think tanks. Although the FairTax proposal exempts the poorest Americans from federal taxes, it disproportionately lets wealthier Americans off the hook, said Burman and other critics."

• Tax troubles: Many may pay more unless Congress acts, Athens Banner-Herald (December 15, 2007) by Don Nelson
  

  "Those taxpayers could be paying an average of $2,000 more in taxes. Thirty-six percent of married filers with incomes between $75,000 and $100,000 could be hit by the AMT, according to estimates from Washington-based Tax Policy Center."

• The Republicans’ Expensive Tax Promise, New York Times (December 14, 2007) by Tom Redburn.
  

  "But the Tax Policy Center report found that any improvements to the economy from lower tax rates would be modest. As a result, the Treasury would recover no more than about $1 trillion over the decade, resulting in an overall revenue loss of $5 trillion to $6 trillion. The tax cuts would fall far short of paying for themselves."

• Calls renewed to dump income tax in favor of a sales tax, Hartford Business Journal (December 14, 2007) by Brian Tumulty.
  

  "Practically everything, including food, health care and home purchases. For example, sales taxes would be imposed on the cost of a visit to the doctor. "There is no state sales tax anywhere that does any of that and politically you can understand why," said Bill Gale, co-director of the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. He predicts there would be immense political pressure on Congress to provide exemptions. But if an exemption was provided for health care, for example, the sales tax rate would have to rise even higher."

• Huckabee Whips Up Debate with 'Fair Tax' Plan, NPR, All Things Considered (December 13, 2007) by Anthony Brooks.
  

  "Gale says the way the proposal is presented is misleading. To replace the revenue lost by abolishing other taxes, Gale says, the sales tax would have to be 30 cents on the dollar, not 23 cents."

• Mike Huckabee's Fair Tax Fallacies, Mother Jones (December 13, 2007) by Niko Karvounis.
  

  "A 2005 President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform study concluded that it would take a 34 percent tax-exclusive rate, not the fair tax's 30 percent, to keep the fiscal status quo. Brookings Institution economist William Gale has pegged the magic number at 39.3 percent."

• FACTBOX-U.S. candidates stake out tax positions, Reuters (December 12, 2007).
  

  "Here is a brief summary of where the presidential candidates stand on taxes based on information provided by the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center."

• US Tax Code Needs Revamping: Analysts, CNBC.com (December 11, 2007).
  

  "The AMT adds another layer of complexity to U.S. tax laws, which creates a sense of unfairness among many taxpayers, said Leonard Burman, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute and director of the Tax Policy Center."

• Give tax relief to middle class, The Journal Gazette (December 11, 2007).
  

  "The non-partisan Tax Policy Center has calculated that extending these and some other "middle-income" provisions would be worth $700 billion over 10 years to taxpayers. About two-thirds of this money would go to those with incomes less than $100,000. That would be money in the pockets of the voting American working family."

• In Congress, Complicated Fight to Ease AMT Fears, NPR, Morning Edition (December 11, 2007) by Debbie Elliott.
  

  "According to estimates from the Tax Policy Center, a Washington, D.C., think tank, if Congress doesn't change the law, 36 percent of married filers with incomes between $75,000 and $100,000 will be hit by the AMT."

• Huckabee's rise attracts attention to his embrace of controversial tax plan, The News & Observer (December 10, 2007) by Kevin G. Hall. (Appeared in San Luis Obispo Tribune, Miami Herald, Macon Telegraph, The News Tribune, Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, Fort Worth Star Telegram, Centre Daily Times, Kansas City Star, Charlotte Observer)
  

  "It's unfair and it's unworkable," said Len Burman, the director of the influential Tax Policy Center, a Washington research group run jointly by The Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, two center-left think tanks. Although the FairTax proposal exempts the poorest Americans from federal taxes, it disproportionately lets wealthier Americans off the hook, said Burman and other critics."

• Many may see tax bill in place of IRS refund, The Journal Gazette (December 9, 2007) by Sylvia A. Smith.
  

  "According to the Tax Policy Center, a joint program of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, nearly half of all taxpayers with incomes less than $100,000 will have to pay the millionaires’ tax next year unless Congress changes the law. This year, fewer than 1 percent of those taxpayers were subject to the alternative minimum tax."

• Alternative tax will sock middle class unless Congress acts soon, The Buffalo News (December 9, 2007) by David Robinson.
  

  "The AMT also hits married taxpayers much harder than it does single filers. Married couples last year were five times more likely to be subject to the AMT than single filers - a gap that could widen to 15 times if a temporary patch isn’t approved, according to research by Leonard E. Burman, the Tax Policy Center’s director."

• Tax for rich traps others, Los Angeles Daily News (December 9, 2007) by Lisa Friedman.
  

  "Basically, lawmakers' answer to the problem, joked the nonprofit Tax Policy Center's Director Len Berman, was to tell rich Americans, "Don't take advantage of tax shelters that Congress put into law so much that Congress is embarrassed." But Berman and other economists agree that the AMT was terribly designed from the start. And one of the major problems causing it to hit a growing number of families today is that it was never indexed for inflation."

• Editorial: Mr. Thompson on Taxes, Washington Post (December 9, 2007).
  

  "In addition, Mr. Thompson would permanently extend the Bush tax cuts, eliminate the estate tax, abolish the alternative minimum tax and cut the top corporate tax rate from 35 to 27 percent. The Tax Policy Center puts the cost of all of this at close to $7 trillion over the next 10 years, not including the corporate cut; this is a breathtaking chunk of the $35 trillion in tax revenue that the Congressional Budget Office estimates would be raised in that period if current law remains unchanged and the Bush tax cuts are permitted to expire."

• Several popular tax breaks to expire for businesses, The Central New York Business Journal (December 8, 2007) by Kevin Tampone.
  

  "Absent a move to fix the problem by Congress, the AMT will go from affecting 1 million taxpayers in 1999 to more than 33 million by 2010, according to the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center."

• AMT: The $50 billion fight, CNNMoney.com (December 8, 2007) by Jeanne Sahadi.
  

  "Rangel is still, however, expected to propose a tax increase on offshore funds. But Tax Vox, a blog by various writers at the Tax Policy Center, reported that "some senior House Democratic leaders are hinting that they will give up the fight for any offsets."

• Editorial: A Bad Patch, Washington Post (December 8, 2007).
  

  "The measure ensures that millions of reasonably well-off taxpayers -- as Len Burman of the Tax Policy Center points out, 85 percent of the benefit goes to those earning $100,000 or more -- will avoid a tax hike. Their grandchildren will have to pick up the tab."

• Senate blocks tax increase; Alternative minimum tax faces uncertain fate in House, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (December 6, 2007).
• Tax Stalemate Threatens Chaos as Filing Nears, The New York Times (December 6, 2007) by Carl Hulse and Suevon Lee.
  

  ""It's unfair and it's unworkable," said Len Burman, the director of the influential Tax Policy Center, a Washington research group run jointly by The Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, two center-left think tanks. Although the FairTax proposal exempts the poorest Americans from federal taxes, it disproportionately lets wealthier Americans off the hook, said Burman and other critics."

• Robbing the rich or the poor?, Economist.com (December 6, 2007).
  

  "Dr Burman, on the US tax system:Right now, we have a system in the US that has about the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world, and we collect relatively little revenue because there's so many loopholes.  The current tax system is really an embarrassment. It's more complicated than any income tax I know anywhere in the Western world, and it's not really up to the challenges that will be facing us in the decades to come."

• Something to celebrate: Repeal of Prohibition , Marin Independent Journal (December 6, 2007) by Jeff Burkhart.
  

  "According to the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution, more than $5 billion was collected in local and state alcohol revenue in 2005 with more than $2 billion coming from the southeastern states. This figure doesn't include sales tax (7.75 percent in many places) or payroll taxes that could easily raise that amount by another half a billion dollars."

• No action on tax law puts IRS in a bind, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (December 5, 2007) by Alex Daniels.
  

  "Unless changes are made, 23 million will pay the alternative tax this year, according to Leonard Burman, director of the Tax Policy Center, a Washington research organization run jointly by the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution."

• Employment forum asked, "Will they still hire you when you are 64?", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (December 5, 2007) by Ann Belser.
  

  "Eric Toder, a fellow at the Urban Institute and Tax Policy Center, said the working poor would find it necessary to keep on the job as they age. People who earn more during their working years save more and tend to have pensions that can help shield them from rising health-care costs."

• 1986 all over again?, The Politico (December 4, 2007) by Lisa Lerer.
  

  "In the 1980s, they were willing to do some horse-trading," says Roberton Williams, the principal research associate at the Tax Policy Center, a joint think tank of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution. "Those compromises made it possible to come up with a large, broad-based reform that seems harder to do in the current political climate."

• Dealing With the AMT Quandry, The Wall Street Journal (December 2, 2007) by Andrea Coombes. (subscription required)
  

  "If Congress doesn't pass the patch, more than 23 million taxpayers will owe the AMT for 2007, compared with four million taxpayers in 2006, according to the Tax Policy Center, a joint venture of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution."

• Start Your Planning Now, Newsweek (December 1, 2007) by Jane Bryant Quinn.
  

  "Unchanged, the 2007 AMT could hit more than two thirds of taxpayers with cash incomes between $100,000 and $200,000 this year, and more than one third of those with incomes of $75,000 to $100,000, according to the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center."

November

• Simp and Simpler, The Washington Post (November 30, 2007) by Michael Kinsley.
  

  "The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center figures that Thompson's plan would fall a mere $2.5 trillion short of revenue over the next decade, compared with the current system."

• Montgomery may raise property tax to resolve $401 million budget deficit, The Washington Examiner (November 29, 2007) by Kathleen Miller.
  

  "This is something that we may see more of in Maryland as we go forward," said Kim Rueben, public finance economist with the Urban Institute. "The housing market slowdown could make this a question for many county and local governments to figure out: How [will they] raise the money they need, or will they rethink how they look at revenue versus spending?"

• Critics: Clinton plans a sham, The Modesto Bee (November 27, 2007) by Matt Stearns. (Appeared in: Miami Herald, Star-Telegram)
  

  "Allowing Bush's tax cuts to expire to pay for health care doesn't do anything to restore fiscal responsibility because it's spending money that otherwise would flow into federal coffers to reduce the deficit, said Len Burman, the director of the Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the center-left Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute."

• Corporate taxes: a hot hot button, Financial Week (November 26, 2007) by Nicholas Rummell.
  

  "On the Democratic side, candidates have largely avoided discussing the overall corporate tax rate, but instead have criticized the plethora of tax loopholes, deductions and exemptions for corporations. "It’s not a great populist line to call for lower corporate rates," said Eric Toder, a senior fellow at the liberal Urban Institute. Tax havens and avoidance, such as transfer pricing, may be more of an issue for Democratic candidates, he said."

• Thompson Unveils Plan For Voluntary Flat Tax, The Wall Street Journal (November 26, 2007) by Amy Schatz.
  

  "Just one element of his plan -- eliminating the alternative-minimum tax for all Americans -- would cost more than $1 trillion over 10 years, according to projections by the Tax Policy Center, a joint venture of the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution."

• Budget sparks a noisy fight; It's not as bad as it sounds, some say, The News & Observer (November 21, 2007) by David Lightman.
  

  "How can you efficiently plan when you don't know what your budget is going to be?" asked Rudolph G. Penner, a former head of the Congressional Budget Office and a senior fellow at Washington's centrist Urban Institute."

• Candidates mum on issue of 'tax time bomb', The Standard Times (November 20, 2007) by Todd J Gillman.
• Presidential Candidates’ Tax Proposal, Dallas Morning News (November 20, 2007) by Todd J Gillman.
• Practitioners Brace for Challenging Filing Season, CCH NEWS-FEDERAL, 2007TAXDAY (November 19, 2007) by George L. Yaksick, Jr.
  

  "The AMT continues to march down the income scale, Williams noted. Without the patch, approximately 36 percent of households with incomes between $75,000 and $100,000 will be liable for AMT. The patch would insulate these taxpayers the most from the AMT. Less than one percent of them would be liable for the AMT with a patch."

• Tax Cutting Away the Middle Class, Salem-News.com (November 19, 2007) by Juan Carlos Ordóñez.
  

  "According to the Tax Policy Center, the tax cuts represented only 2.5 percent of income for middle-income taxpayers but amounted to 5.4 percent of income for the top 1 percent of income earners. In other words, those at the top got more than twice as large a tax cut in percentage terms as those in the middle."

• Giuliani, Romney Spell Out Tax Cuts, Sidestep Spending Curbs, Bloomberg News (November 16, 2007) by Catherine Dodge and Matthew Benjamin.
  

  "Without significant spending cuts, it's impossible to balance the budget and honor campaign pledges as long as the costs of both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars continue and expenses rise for entitlement programs, said Leonard Burman, director of the Tax Policy Center, an independent Washington- based research group."

• Tax Tips: How You Can Avoid the AMT's Nasty Bite , TheStreet.com (November 15, 2007) by Michaela Cavallaro.
  

  "This year, if Congress doesn't take action, the Tax Policy Center estimates that about 90% of taxpayers with income between $200,000 and $500,000 will pay AMT. In addition, 60% of those with income between $500,000 and $1 million will be subject to AMT, as will 70% of those with income between $100,000 and $200,000."

• Policy center does not lobby , The Washington Times (November 15, 2007).
  

  "Alan Reynolds erred when he said the nonpartisan Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center "lobbied zealously" for Rep. Charles B. Rangel's tax bill."

• Buffett: Tax my kin, please , CNNMoney.com (November 13, 2007) by Jeanne Sahadi.
  

  "It's estimated that the estate tax will raise roughly $355 billion over the next 10 years under current law, according to the Tax Policy Center."

• Editorial: Rein in bad tax policy , Wisconsin State Journal (November 12, 2007).
  

  "The AMT is -- as the Tax Policy Center in Washington, D.C., has noted -- the perfect storm of bad tax policy. It is complex beyond understanding and unfair, especially to married couples with children."

• Alternative Tax Survives With Help From Congress , Bloomberg News (November 12, 2007) by John F. Wasik.
  

  "According to the Tax Policy Center, a Washington-based non-partisan research group, if the Bush tax cuts are extended beyond their 2011 expiration date, then 53 million -- almost half of all taxpayers -- will be hit by the levy."

• Editorial: Cousin to a Tax Reform, Washington Post (November 12, 2007).
  

  "According to the Tax Policy Center, about 86 million households -- 57 percent of taxpayers -- would receive a tax cut in 2008 and 3.6 million -- 2.4 percent -- would pay higher taxes."

• Montgomery officials look to Congress for tax help, The Washington Examiner (November 11, 2007) by Kathleen Miller.
  

  "Roberton Williams, principal research associate at the Tax Policy Center said that 4 million people were subject to the AMT in 2006, and 25 million people could potentially be subject to it in the current tax year, if Congress fails to adjust it."

• Guess Who Really Pays the Taxes, The American (November/December 2007) by Stephen Moore.
  

  "The Tax Policy Center, run by the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, recently studied payroll and income taxes paid by each income group. The richest 1 percent pay 27.5 percent of the combined burden, the top 20 percent pay 72 percent, and the bottom 20 percent pay just 0.4 percent."

• Keep the tax cuts, Scripps Howard News Service (November 8, 2007) by Jay Ambrose.
  

  "They should listen to Eugene Steuerle, a former Treasury official now at the Urban Institute, who has written that rescinding those cuts would produce no more than $50 billion a year, which wouldn't come close to meeting the Social Security shortfall or rescuing us from the growing, unsustainable costs of Medicare. The deficit? It would take care of about one-third of what's projected for this year, he has said."

• Ron Paul faces $1.1 trillion budget shortfall, The Washington Post (November 8, 2007) by Michael Dobbs.
  

  "The $1.1 trillion in receipts from individual income tax represents the entire discretionary spending of the federal government, according to Roberton Williams, a budget analyst at the Urban Institute. That does not include social security and Medicare spending, which is mandatory, but it does include the entire defense budget, federal education spending, agriculture subsidies, and so on."

• The AMT: A Taxing Mission, Forbes (November 8, 2007) by Brian Wingfield.
  

  "According to the Tax Policy Center, a Washington think tank, nearly 4 million people paid the AMT last year, for a total of $24 billion. Unless Congress "patches" the tax, it could hit 24 million people in 2007, an average of about $3,000 per affected taxpayer, the Center says."

• Prognosis for AMT: Minimal Change Ahead, Knowledge@W.P. Carey (November 7, 2007) by Jay Ambrose.
  

  "While the periodic temporary increases in the AMT exemption have blunted the tax's impact on the middle class, they also lead to great uncertainty about individual income tax liability and can undermine fiscal discipline," Burman told Congress."

• Clock running on tax 'patch', The News & Observer (November 7, 2007) by Kevin G. Hall
  

  "I would bet it's going to happen because nobody wants to go home at the end of the year and have that many people fall under the clutches of the AMT," said Roberton Williams, a tax expert at the center-left Tax Policy Center in Washington."

• Editorial: The Upside of Rangel , The New York Sun (November 5, 2007).
  

  "The second element of the Rangel tax plan that caught our eye was that he would give the largest tax cuts - an average of $3,582 for each filer, according to an analysis by the Tax Policy Center of the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute - to households earning between $200,000 and $500,000 a year. "

• Taxpayers Prep for Capital Gains Changes , Associated Press (November 5, 2007). (Appeared in Washington Post, The New York Times, Forbes, BusinessWeek, ABC News, Marketplace, Daily Press, Centre Daily Times, Carlisle Sentinel, Wyoming News, Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, Worcester Telegram, Charlotte Observer, Beaufort Gazette, Myrtle Beach Sun News, Hilton Head Island Packet, Times Daily (subscription), Conde Nast Portfolio, Newsday, Long Island Business News, Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, News & Observer, Macon Telegraph, Contra Costa Times, North County Times, San Luis Obispo Tribune, Houston Chronicle, Herald Zeitung, Fort Worth Star Telegram, San Jose Mercury News, Orlando Sentinel, The Ledger, Miami Herald, The Olympian, Seattle Post Intelligencer, The Wichita Eagle, WTOP, MSNMoney.com)
  

  "The new kiddie tax rules were put in place to keep parents from using their kids as a capital gains tax shelter," said Len Burman, director of the Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution."

• Editorial: The Rangel plan , Washington Times (November 2, 2007).
  

  "However, because Mr. Rangel's plan, according to Leonard Burman of the Tax Policy Center, "is not nearly as sweeping" as Mr. Reagan's, calling it "The Mother of All Tax Reform" seems somewhat hyperbolic."

• Massive tax reform: Who'd pay, who'd save; What AMT repeal and a surtax on high-income filers would mean for everyone's tax bill , CNNMoney.com (November 2, 2007) by Jeanne Sahadi.
  

  "The Tax Policy Center estimates that 57 percent of tax filers (86 million households) would get a tax cut under Rangel's bill in 2008, while 2.4 percent of filers (3.6 million households) would pay higher taxes."

October

• Plain Truth About Taxes and Cuts , New York Times (October 31, 2007) by David Leonhardt.
  

  "This country really does have a high corporate tax rate, but it also has so many loopholes that companies can often avoid paying the tax. A much smarter policy, economists say, would include a lower rate with fewer loopholes. "Both the incentive and the ability to avoid the tax would then be smaller," says Leonard Burman, director of the Tax Policy Center in Washington."

• Study Shows Tax Rise Under Rangel Plan , The Wall Street Journal, Washington Wire blog (October 29, 2007) by Sarah Lueck.
  

  "The Tax Policy Center, a venture of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, says that, assuming a "patch" for the AMT as a basis for comparison, the Rangel plan would result in an average $279 increase in individual income taxes in 2008 and give tax cuts to 47.6% of taxpayers."

• R&D credit flirts with permanence; Proposal to make R&D tax credit permanent meets with mixed response from business, while some economists question how much of an incentive the credit actually provides, Financial Week (October 29, 2007) by Nicholas Rummell.
  

  "Economists are split on whether the R&D credit actually spurs innovation. Len Berman, co-director of the Urban Institute’s Tax Policy Center, said that if the credit didn’t exist, businesses would still be motivated to conduct research because they would be able to expense it after the fact. The tax credit only "shifts around the timing of the research," he said, because it induces companies to perform research after they know the credit has been approved by Congress."

• In brief: Tax plans of presidential candidates, The Kansas City Star (October 27, 2007).
  

  "The Tax Policy Center has posted a handy online summary of tax plans by presidential candidates at www.taxpolicycenter.org. The guide also includes links to the original sources. The Tax Policy Center is a joint venture of the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute."

• Millions face tax increase if Congress doesn't adjust rate, The Clarion-Ledger (October 27, 2007) by Brian Tumulty.
  

  "Without action, "a lot of households one would think of as solidly middle class making about $60,000, $80,000 would be hit," said Bill Gale, co-director of the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center."

• Secondary Sources: Fed, Recession, Dollar, Tax Plan , The Wall Street Journal, Real Time Economics blog (October 26, 2007).
  

  "The Tax Policy Center breaks down the new tax plan presented by Rep. Charles Rangel, the chairman of the Way and Means Committee, aimed at providing a revenue-neutral repeal of the individual alternative minimum tax."

• Tax-Code Overhaul: Good or Bad Economics? , The Wall Street Journal, Real Time Economics blog (October 26, 2007).
  

  "William Gale, director of the economic studies program, Brookings Institution: I think generally it is [a gain for efficiency]. The removal of the AMT, the reduction in the corporate rate are good things for the efficiency of the economy."

• GOP, Silicon Valley oppose plan to overhaul alternative minimum tax, San Francisco Chronicle (October 26, 2007) by Carolyn Lochhead.
  

  "For this year, Rangel promised a temporary AMT fix. Otherwise, Californians earning more than $100,000 would probably be hit by the tax, depending on their deductions, said Kim Rueben, an analyst with the Tax Policy Center, a think tank sponsored by the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution."

• Rewriting the code, The Economist (October 26, 2007) by William Neikirk.
  

  "After a new president takes office in 2009, though, the picture changes. Len Burman of the Urban Institute, a think-tank, says it may be "the baby of all tax reforms", which could grow into an adult. A Democrat would probably support many of the ideas. Even Republicans agree that a change is needed. The AMT will not fix itself and, for all its ills, it is forcing America’s politicians to think about a long overdue revamp of the tax system."

• Democrat unveils tax proposal, Chicago Tribune (October 26, 2007) by William Neikirk.
  

  "Rudy Penner, former head of the Congressional Budget Office and now at the Urban Institute, a think tank, said the package seemed complex and predicted it would have a tough time passing. "Now, very rich people are giving to Democrats," Penner said. "Now there is a question whether they will tolerate a very large tax increase."

• Giant tax overhaul to be unveiled Thursday, CNNMoney.com (October 25, 2007) by Jeanne Sahadi.
  

  "Combined with a lower corporate tax rate, the streamlining of deductions promises "to make companies more efficient economically," Burman said. Too often, he explained companies will make economic decisions based on tax rules rather than simply the conditions of the market. Elimination of certain tax loopholes "makes the system more fair," he said."

• Repealing The Alternative Minimum Tax Packs Maximum Struggles, PBS, Nightly Business Report (October 25, 2007).
  

  "Urban Institute economist Leonard Burman says it's time for Congress to stop playing the game of kick the can with the AMT and move for a permanent fix. He says the challenge with tax reform now is that government spending on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid is about to dramatically increase."

• Long-Term Care (Gleckman interview), NPR, The Diane Rehm Show (October 23, 2007).
• How tax code will be adjusted for inflation next year, San Francisco Chronicle (October 23, 2007) by Kathleen Pender.
  

  "The Tax Policy Center has compiled a spreadsheet based on their public comments on major issues such as capital gains and the Alternative Minimum tax. There are a lot of holes right now but the center promises to update it as more candidates announce their positions."

• Money and Politics (Burman interview), Bloomberg TV (October 22, 2007).
• More may get hit with tax for 'rich', Omaha World-Herald (October 21, 2007) by Jake Thompson.
  

  "Leonard Burman, head of the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center in Washington, recently testified about AMT on Capitol Hill. 'It is hideously complex. It actually raises marginal tax rates on most of its victims, undermining economic efficiency,' Burman said. 'And it is unfair, hammering married couples, especially those with children, and disallowing legitimate deductions.'"

• Senators float permanent R&D tax idea but opposition could be stiff, Financial Week (October 19, 2007) by Nicholas Rummell.
• Kudlow and Co. (Burman interview), CNBC (October 19, 2007).
  

  "Economists are split on whether the R&D credit actually spurs innovation. Len Berman, co-director of the Urban Institute’s Tax Policy Center, said that if the credit didn’t exist, businesses would still be motivated to conduct research because they would be able to expense it after the fact. The tax credit only 'shifts around the timing of the research,' he said, because it induces companies to perform research after they know the credit has been approved by Congress"

• Looming Tax-Rate Change Spurs Stock Sales, Wall Street Journal (October 18, 2007) by Arden Dale. (subscription required)
  

  "Prior tax increases have led to a surge in capital gains being realized ahead of time. After Congress passed the Tax Reform Act of 1986 and the top rate on gains rose to 28%, there was a 'surge of recognition of capital gains' in the last months of the year, says Len Burman, director of the Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution. 'People sold a lot of assets to avoid the increase.'"

• Taxes in Developed Nations Reach 36% of Gross Domestic Product, New York Times (October 18, 2007) by David Cay Johnston.
  

  "C. Eugene Steuerle, an Urban Institute tax economist who served as a policy adviser in the Reagan administration, said that the rise in tax receipts as a share of economic activity was not likely to last if tax rates remained unchanged. 'Growing inequality of income has added to tax collection,' Dr. Steuerle said, 'but it is unclear how much of that will continue, because it can't.'"

• Mill Valley man on state's new list of tax cheats, Marin Independent Journal (October 17, 2007) by Mark Schwanhausser.
  

  "Citizens failing to pay their taxes is an age-old problem. And, in a way, the state's deadbeat list is akin to what some cities do to combat the world's oldest profession by publicizing the names of "johns" caught hiring prostitutes, said William Gale, a tax policy expert with the Brookings Institution."

• 2 candidates in 5th District say they favor Bush tax cuts, The Toledo Blade (October 17, 2007) by Joshua Boak.
  

  "Had the AMT been adjusted for inflation and the 2001 Bush cuts never enacted, only 300,000 Americans would face it on their tax forms, according to the Washington-based Tax Policy Center."

• Why Taxpayers Are Leaving Billions on the Table, Wall Street Journal (October 17, 2007) by Tom Herman. (subscription required)
  

  "The Tax Policy Center (www.taxpolicycenter.org), a joint venture of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution in Washington, has posted a handy summary of tax plans by the candidates. To come up with the guide, Julianna Koch, a Tax Policy Center researcher, sifted through the candidates' Web sites and speeches to figure out what each has said -- and hasn't yet said -- about tax policy. Len Burman, director of the center, adds that this guide "will be updated as more information becomes available."

• Your turn: Bachmann is on wrong track, St. Cloud Times (October 15, 2007) by Mike Sullivan.
  

  "The Tax Policy Center shows that in 2006, the 20 percent of taxpayers with incomes of more than $84,000 (about 30 million separate filers) receive 68.8 percent of the total tax relief under the Bush II plan, while 90 million filers with incomes less than $46,000 received just 15 percent of the tax relief."

• Dems Mull Surcharge On Rich, But Another AMT Patch Likely, Investor’s Business Daily (October 12, 2007) by Jed Graham.
  

  "If Rangel adopts the surtax approach, his proposal might resemble one crafted by Len Burman, director of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. Burman's fix would slap a 4% surtax on adjusted gross income above $100,000 for singles and $200,000 for couples. Unlike a straightforward income tax, it would also apply the surtax on capital gains."

• Rangel, Clinton To Clash Over Capital Cash, New York Sun (October 12, 2007) by Russell Berman.
  

  "There certainly is a trade-off," the director of the Tax Policy Center, Leonard Burman, said. "If you use a revenue raiser for one program, you can't simultaneously use it for a second."

• Md. and Va. near top of per capita federal funding list ,The Washington Examiner (October 10, 2007) by Dena Levitz.
  

  "The presence of the government and military bases, plus a lot of federal workers live in Maryland and Virginia ... the combo means a lot of money is spent in this area," said Roberton Williams, a researcher at the Tax Policy Center, a joint effort between the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution. 'It’s truly a function of where the government is located.'"

• Plan to repeal minimum tax law won't replace lost funds; Removal is part of Ryan's simplified income tax ,Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (October 10, 2007) by Craig Gilbert.
  

  "In testimony before Congress last month, Leonard Burman of the Tax Policy Center in Washington called the AMT "the perfect storm of bad tax policy," saying it is "hideously complex," economically inefficient because of the way it raises marginal tax rates, and unfair in the way it heavily penalizes married couples with children."

• The trillion dollar tax fight,The Politico (October 9, 2007) by Lisa Lerer.
  

  "Robin Hoods expect Rangel to swap the AMT for a new tax targeted exclusively at the highest-income payers. One often-mentioned idea, proposed by Leonard Burman, director of the Urban Institute’s Tax Policy Center, would impose a 4 percent surcharge on unmarried taxpayers making more than $100,000 a year and couples making more than $200,000."

• Obama talks taxes,The Journal Record (October 1, 2007) by Jon Forman.
  

  "Speaking at a Sept. 18 forum provided by the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center in Washington, D.C., Obama criticized the Bush administration’s tax cuts as fiscally irresponsible and as disproportionately benefiting the wealthiest Americans. Obama also criticized the tax code for its complexity and for its 'corporate carve-outs that serve no national purpose'."

• '08 Tax Plans Claim Gain Without Pain,Associated Press (October 1, 2007) by Calvin Woodward. (Appeared in: The Washington Post, Boston Globe, Philadelphia Inquirer, San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Times, Seattle Post Intelligencer, Forbes, The Examiner, Newsday, Journal and Courier, Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, Fort Worth Star Telegram, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Prescott Herald, The Kindred Times, New Hope Courier, Herald News Daily, Jackson News-Tribune, The Benton Crier, Centre Daily Times, Meadow Free Press, Olberlin Times, Chandler News-Dispatch, Pioneer Times-Journal, Dunton Springs Evening Post, San Luis Obispo Tribune, Charlotte Observer, News & Observer, Macon Telegraph, The News Tribune, Insurance News Net, Hinesberg Journal, Jordan Falls News, Westfall Weekly News, Ottawa Recorder, Pierceland Herald)
  

  "The government isn't counting on that money even now," said Len Burman, a deputy assistant treasury secretary in the Clinton administration. All the talk about saving money by letting tax cuts expire "represents some sleight of hands."

September

• Tax Panel Shows AMT Reaches States Blue And Red...,CongressDailyPM (September 28, 2007) by Martin Vaughan.
  

  "Eleven of the top 20 AMT-vulnerable districts, according to staff projections, are held by Republicans -- challenging a long-held assumption that the AMT is mostly paid by Democrats in high-tax states like New York and Massachusetts. "It's a nice way to illustrate the point that this isn't just a blue-state tax anymore," said Leonard Burman, director of the Tax Policy Center, who has testified on the growing reach of the AMT."

• Showdown ahead over kids' health coverage,USA Today (September 28, 2007). (Appeared in: The Daily Times)
  

  "The tobacco tax is regressive - just as it was in 1997, when it was used to help create the original children's health insurance program. A pack-a-day smoker would pay $223 a year more in taxes - about 1% of income for a family earning $20,000, according to Len Burman of the Tax Policy Center."

• Alan Greenspan sees risks of '70s-style inflation rising ,Miami Herald (September 27, 2007) by Kevin G. Hall and Robert A. Rankin. (Appeared in: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
  

  "An annual inflation rate of 4.5 percent would reduce the purchasing power of $10,000 to $6,439 in one decade, according to the Tax Policy Center, run by the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution."

• A Tax Credit For Every Problem ,Forbes (September 26, 2007).
  

  "Republicans buy into it because they like tax cuts, and Democrats buy into it because they want new programs. But it has the same effect as direct spending, and it's more wasteful,'' argues Len Burman, director of the Tax Policy Center, a joint venture of the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution."

• The Two Obamas,Washington Post (September 26, 2007) by Ruth Marcus.
  

  "The spellbinding candidate had disappeared in favor of a guy in a suit reading his speech from a teleprompter. This wasn't surprising for a Serious Speech about tax reform. The Brookings Institution and the Tax Policy Center aren't a call-and-response kind of crowd."

• Democrats: Party of Detail So Far in '08 ,The Associated Press (September 22, 2007) by Nancy Benac. (Appeared in: Los Angeles Times, San Luis Obispo Tribune, Los Angeles Daily News, Fort Worth Star Telegram, Newsday, Charlotte Observer, The News Tribune, Meadow Free Press, Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, Wyoming News, Jackson News-Tribune, Herald News Daily, White Rock Reviewer, Macon Telegraph, Pioneer Times-Journal, Akron Farm Report, Prescott Herald, Dunton Springs Evening Post, The Kindred Times, Chandler News-Dispatch, Chippewa Herald, Centre Daily Times, Carlisle Sentinel, Miami Herald, North County Times, New Hope Courier, Dunton Springs Evening Post, Hinesberg Journal, The Westfall Weekly News, Pierceland Herald, Guardian Unlimited, UK)
  

  "Len Burman, director of the private Tax Policy Center, said it is important for candidates not to get too specific about their tax proposals during the campaign because that is when they are most susceptible to pressure to give away the store."

• Rise in sales tax is sought,The Baltimore Sun (September 21, 2007) by Andrew A. Green and James Drew.
  

  "Some say that the state's sales tax is not as regressive as it might seem. Researchers at the Cato Institute and the Urban Institute said the fact that Maryland does not tax food or medicine is a major mitigating factor."

• Bayh, Hill propose new homeowner deduction,The Indiannapolis Star (September 20, 2007) by Maureen Groppe.
  

  "The standard deduction was expanded in 1986 to take into account the deduction that those who itemize typically get for state and local income and property taxes, said Kim Rueben, a senior research associate with the Washington, D.C.-based Tax Policy Center. That was intended to make it easier to file so people wouldn't have to itemize."I just don't think that the money is there to do something like that," she said of the new proposal."

• Democratic Candidates Silent on Alternative Minimum Tax,The New York Sun (September 20, 2007) by Russell Berman.
  

  "It's a little bit surprising," the director of the Tax Policy Center, Leonard Burman, said of the decision by Messrs. Obama and Edwards to exclude the alternative minimum tax from their proposals. "I mean, it's the 800-pound gorilla in the room."

• BONNIE ERBE: Health care vs. tax cuts,Centre Daily Times (September 19, 2007).
  

  "According to the Urban Institute, it is a financial albatross on some 23 million to 24 million Americans."

• The Trail: Obama Outlines Tax Cuts,Washington Post (September 19, 2007) by Anne E. Kornblut.
  

  "In our new economy, there is no shortage of new wealth," he told the Tax Policy Center. "But wages are not keeping pace. . . . This isn't the invisible hand of a market at work. It's the successful work of special interests."

• Obama Proposes Tax Cuts for Middle Class and Elderly ,New York Times (September 19, 2007) by Jeff Zeleny.
  

  "In an address to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, Mr. Obama also proposed major simplifications to the tax system, with a goal of making basic tax filing a five-minute exercise. For about 40 million Americans without complex taxes, he said, the government would essentially send a bill based on electronic information from employers and banks."

• Obama plan shifts tax burden to rich,Los Angeles Times (September 19, 2007) by Michael Finnegan. (Appeared in: Houston Chronicle)
  

  "We shouldn't be distorting our tax code to benefit a few powerful interests," Obama said in remarks to several dozen tax experts at the Tax Policy Center, a research center in Washington run by the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution."

• Democrats Outline Tax Approach; Relief for Middle Earners Would Be Offset by Increases for Wealthy ,Wall Street Journal (September 19, 2007) by Deborah Solomon and Sarah Lueck. (subscription required)
  

  "People feel like they're one loss of health insurance or job loss away from serious problems and the proposals are clearly playing to that," said William Gale, a Democratic tax specialist at the Brookings Institution."

• Obama proposes a tax shift,Boston Globe (September 19, 2007) by Sally Cragin.
  

  "Speaking at the Tax Policy Center in Washington, Obama proposed an $80 billion to $85 billion tax cut for the middle class that includes a tax cut of up to $1,000 for 150 million people and their families; a homeowner's tax credit for those who do not itemize deductions; eliminating the income tax for seniors who make less than $50,000; and streamlining tax filings so that many Americans could complete tax returns in less than five minutes."

• A 5-minute tax return; Obama wants the IRS to calculate simple returns, end income taxes for some seniors ,Chicago Sun-Times (September 19, 2007) by Lynn Sweet.
  

  "For decades, we've seen a successful strategy to ride anti-tax sentiment in this country toward tax cuts that favor wealth, not work," Obama said in a speech to the Brookings Tax Policy Center."

• Obama Would Shift Tax Burden to Wealthy ,New York Sun (September 19, 2007) by Russell Berman.
  

  "For decades, we've seen successful strategies to ride anti-tax sentiment in this country toward tax cuts that favor wealth, not work," Mr. Obama said in a 20-minute address organized by the Tax Policy Center."

• Obama: Shift tax burden to the well-off ,Miami Herald (September 19, 2007) by Margaret Talev. (Appeared in: The News & Observer, Belleville News Democrat)
  

  "We've gone too far from being a country where we're all in this together to a country where everyone's on their own,'' Obama told the Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, center-left think tanks."

• TAX THE WEALTHY: OBAMA ,New York Post (September 19, 2007) by Charles Hurt.
  

  "In the speech at the Tax Policy Center, Obama promised to give 150 million American workers a tax break of up to $1,000 and reduce taxes for some 10 million lower income homeowners. Also, the Illinois Democrat said, he would eliminate all income taxes for the estimated 7 million seniors who make less than $50,000 a year."

• Healthy Wisconsin is good business ,Small Business Times (September 19, 2007) by Jon Erpenbach.
  

  "Research by the RAND Corp., the Urban Institute and the American Academy of Actuaries shows that if health savings accounts are more widely used, premiums for traditional comprehensive employer based insurance could more than double."

• Barack Obama tax plan takes from rich, gives to middle class ,Daily News (September 19, 2007) by Michael Saul.
  

  "It's time for policies from Washington that put a little wind at the backs of the American people," the Democratic presidential hopeful said in a speech to the Tax Policy Center here."

• Obama unveils tax cut plan for middle class and seniors,The Hill (September 19, 2007) by Sam Youngman.
  

  "A senior fellow at the Urban Institute and director of the Tax Policy Center, Leonard Burman, said Obama had the beginnings of some good ideas with regard to closing loopholes and simplifying the tax code, but the idea of cutting taxes as "goodies" for some Americans would be an extension of President Bush’s legacy."

• Obama Casts Voters As Agents of Change ,The Baltimore Examiner (September 19, 2007) (Appeared in: Macon Telegraph, Fort Worth Star Telegram, Charlotte Observer)
  

  "Presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., delivers remarks on tax relief for the middle class, Tuesday, Sept. 18, 2007, in Washington, during an event hosted by the Tax Policy Center and the Brookings Opportunity '08 project."

• Obama Casts Voters As Agents of Change ,The Baltimore Examiner (September 19, 2007) by Jim Kuhnhenn. (Appeared in: Macon Telegraph, Fort Worth Star Telegram, Charlotte Observer)
  

  "Presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., delivers remarks on tax relief for the middle class, Tuesday, Sept. 18, 2007, in Washington, during an event hosted by the Tax Policy Center and the Brookings Opportunity '08 project."

• Obama Economic Plan Includes Tax Breaks ,Associated Press (September 18, 2007) by Nedra Pickler. (Appeared in: USA Today, Chicago Tribune, The Plain Dealer, The Washington Examiner, Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, Philadelphia Inquirer,  Denver Post, Wyoming News, Minneapolis Star Tribune, The Times-Picayune, MSN Money, Forbes, San Diego Union Tribune, Chippewa Herald)
  

  "We need a tax code that's fair - a tax code that rewards work and advances opportunity," Obama said in a speech to the Tax Policy Center."

• Obama tax plan: $80 billion in cuts, 5-minute filings,CNN.com (September 18, 2007).
  

  "Obama, an Illinois Democrat who is a front-runner for his party's 2008 presidential nomination, said during a speech at the Tax Policy Center that the present tax code reflects the wrong priorities because it rewards wealth instead of work."

• Obama offers plan for middle-class tax cuts; Democratic contender wants burden shifted from labor to capital,Marketwatch (September 18, 2007) by William L. Watts.
  

  "For decades, we've seen a successful strategy to ride anti-tax sentiment in this country toward tax cuts that favor wealth, not work. And for decades, we've seen the gaps in wealth in this country grow wider, while the costs to working people are greater," Obama said in a speech hosted by the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan think tank."

• Obama Proposes Tax Cut for Middle Class, Increase for Investors ,Bloomberg News (September 18, 2007) by Matthew Benjamin and Max Berley.
  

  "Obama, 46, is the first Democratic candidate to propose a comprehensive strategy for overhauling the tax code. In the speech to the Tax Policy Center today, he portrayed the current system as overly complex and skewed toward helping the wealthy at the expense of the middle class."

• Obama envisions tax burden shift ,Boston Globe (September 18, 2007).
  

  "Speaking at the Tax Policy Center in Washington this afternoon, Obama will propose an $80 billion to $85 billion tax cut for the middle class. "

• Obama’s Middle-Class Tax Cut,MSNBC.com (September 18, 2007) by Andy Merten and Aswini Anburajan
  

  "Another question that remains unanswered by the Obama tax plan is the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), which penalizes many middle-class taxpayers. Congress has traditionally expanded the exemptions under the AMT on a year to year basis, with only 3.5 million Americans qualifying to pay the tax last year. If congress doesn't act to renew the exemption this year, the AMT would affect 23 to 24 million Americans, according to the Urban Institute."

• Obama's tax plan would help middle class, pinch the rich ,Chicago Tribune (September 18, 2007) by Mike Dorning.
  

  "Obama presented the tax plan in a speech to the Tax Policy Center, a non-partisan research institute, a day after going to the NASDAQ stock exchange in New York to criticize the values of Wall Street. The tax proposals continue a populist economic approach."

• Obama Criticizes 'Burdens' of Market,New York Sun (September 17, 2007) by Grace Rauh.
  

  "Mr. Obama is scheduled to unveil a set of tax proposals tomorrow at the Tax Policy Center in Washington. He said today that he wants to modernize and simplify the tax code and give "a break to middle-class Americans, to seniors, and the homeowners who are feeling today's anxieties and uncertainty."

• Obama Presents Economic Plan Today ,New York Sun (September 17, 2007) by Rusell Berman.
  

  "Mr. Obama's campaign says he will lay out a broad economic vision in his speech today before issuing a set of proposals in an address tomorrow at the Tax Policy Center in Washington."

• Editorial: The Alternative Maximum Tax,York News-Times (September 11, 2007) by Rep. Adrian Smith.
  

  "In 1969, Congress adopted the Alternative Minimum Tax -- or the AMT -- to ensure wealthy individuals could not avoid income taxes. At the time, this seemed like the perfect solution. However, while regular income tax rates are indexed for inflation, the AMT is not. According to the Tax Policy Center, the average AMT taxpayer owed more than $6,000 in additional tax in 2006."

• Where’s My Trickle?,The New York Times (September 10, 2007) by Paul Krugman. (subscription required)
  

  "It was an extremely elitist tax cut even by Bush-era standards: the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center says that more than half of the tax breaks went to Americans with incomes of more than $1 million a year."

• Federal tax credit does what it's supposed to - aid the poor,San Antonio Express-News (September 8, 2007) by Scott Stroud.
  

  "A 2006 report from the Urban Institute said it lifted 4.4 million people out of poverty in 2003, more than half of them children."

• Rangel to End Minimum Tax in `Mother of All Reforms' (Update3),Bloomberg News (September 7, 2007) by Ryan J. Donmoyer.
  

  "As another source of revenue, Democrats are considering imposing a 4 percent surtax on married couples who earn more than $200,000. The plan was conceived by Leonard Burman, the director of the Washington-based Tax Policy Center and a former tax official in President Bill Clinton's Treasury Department."

• Rangel's Priority Is Repealing the AMT,The New York Sun (September 7, 2007) by Russell Berman.
  

  "It's the perfect storm of bad tax policy," the director of the Urban Institute's Tax Policy Center, Leonard Burman, told lawmakers yesterday, adding that the AMT is "hideously complex."

• Congressman calls for new U.S. tax code,The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (September 7, 2007) by Marilyn Geewax.
  

  "One witness at Thursday's hearing, Leonard Burman, director of the Tax Policy Center at the Urban Institute, said Congress could fix the problem by eliminating the AMT and then imposing a surtax on high-income taxpayers."

• Editorial: Time to pay attention to workers' payroll taxes,The Sacramento Bee (September 3, 2007).
  

  "The vast majority of working Americans pay a greater share of their federal taxes as payroll taxes, not income taxes. In fact, 86 percent of wage earners pay more in payroll taxes than income taxes, according to the Tax Policy Center."

August

• Foes of IRS seek friends on campaign trail,The Charlotte Observer (August 31, 2007) by Jim Morrill.
  

  "The required (sales tax) rate would be sufficiently high to make enforcement too difficult and evasion too tempting," writes William Gale, an economist with the Washington-based Tax Policy Center. "The sales tax would raise burdens on low- and middle-income households and sharply cut taxes on the top 1 percent."

• California budget signed; bond sales to resume,Reuters (August 24, 2007).
  

  "California's state and local spending have continuously gone up in recent years. According to the Tax Policy Center, state and local governments spent amounts equal to 20.6 percent of residents' personal income in 2005, up from 18.4 percent a decade ago and 16.4 percent in 1987."

• American Voices: Notable Quotes From the Week in Business,Bloomberg News (August 24, 2007) by Kelly Riddell.
  

  "Every time you propose a tax increase, the lobbyists come in and say this is the end of the world as we know it. The arguments are almost always overstated."

• Giving while living' alters inheritances,USA Today (August 24, 2007) by Mindy Fetterman .
  

  "Most of the gifts that pass among family members aren't mega-transfers, but rather millions of small ones, says William Gale of the Brookings Institution."

• Blackstone Says Senate Bill Would Cost Firm $525 Million a Year,Bloomberg News (August 24, 2007) by Ryan J. Donmoyer.
  

  "Supporters of raising taxes on private-equity firms took issue with Blackstone's contentions. Leonard Burman, co-director Tax Policy Center, run by the Brookings Institution and Urban Institute in Washington, said the 'tiny bit of validity' in Blackstone's argument is limited to short-term effects."

• Focus Tax Incentives on the Students Who Need Them,The Chronicle of Higher Education (August 17, 2007) by Susan M. Dynarski.
  

  "A study by the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center showed that more than half of the benefits of the tuition tax deduction flowed to households with incomes over $100,000."

• Final Regs Clarify Child And Dependent Care Credit; Add Safe Harbor For Short Absences,Federal Tax Weekly (August 16, 2007).
  

  "Because the child and dependent care credit is non-refundable, only individuals who owe federal income taxes can take advantage of the credit," Elaine Maag, a research associate at The Urban Institute, told CCH. Approximately 6.3 million taxpayers claimed the credit in 2004, Maag noted."

• Giuliani's Health Care Proposal Promotes Market-Based Reforms,Investor's Business Daily (August 13, 2007) by Sean Higgins. (Other Appearances: CNNMoney.com)
  

  "Len Burman, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute, says the plan could help low-income people gain coverage but could be a wash in terms of reducing the number of uninsured in the country."

• Tourist Traps,Forbes.com (August 8, 2007) by Janet Novack.
  

  "Urban Institute economist Kim Rueben, one of the Enterprise study’s authors, notes the proliferation of tourist taxes are part of a larger phenomenon: State and local politicians (particularly in Western states with voter referendums) have become wary in recent years of imposing general tax hikes that might rile voters. So when they need revenue, they look first to impose taxes on outsiders and on narrow--and when possible, 'sinful' groups--such as smokers, drinkers, gamblers and speeders."

• Private Sector: Pain, no gain,Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (August 7, 2007) by Linda Golodner and Bill Connors.
  

  "Two leading tax policy experts, William Gale of the Brookings Institution and Kim Rueben of the Urban Institute, completed a study last summer analyzing the impact of a $4-per-day rental car tax in Kansas City, Mo. They found that piling taxes onto car rental customers is both inefficient, because it can distort choices about modes of transportation, and inequitable."

• Andrew Sullivan: The Daily Dish,The Atlantic Online (August 5, 2007).
  

  "Furthermore, a sales tax large enough to replace all federal taxes would have to be around 60 percent, according to Bill Gale of the Brookings Institution."

• Explaining the Alternative Minimum Tax,The Wall Street Journal (August 5, 2007) by Tom Herman.
  

  "Moreover, "a lot of the AMT's victims will be solidly middle class," warns Len Burman, a former Treasury Department official and now director of the Tax Policy Center."

• The 2010 Economic Doomsday,New York Times (August 3, 2007) by Tom Redburn.
  

  "With the tax system, there is a cliff," says William Gale, co-director of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center in Washington. "There’s not with entitlements."

• Democrats get stuck in proposal-tax loop,USA Today (August 3, 2007) by Richard Wolf.
  

  "All the big decisions have been put off," said Len Burman, director of the Tax Policy Center, a joint venture of the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution think tanks. Democrats' proposals "have mostly been pretty small. They're nothing like what you would need to repeal the AMT. And paying for entitlements is going to cost even more."

• Partisan Payback Over 'Pay-as-You-Go' ,Washington Post (August 2, 2007) by Jonathan Weisman and Lori Montgomery.
  

  "I've actually been pleasantly surprised at the extent to which they've sustained the discipline," said Robert D. Reischauer, president of the Urban Institute and a former director of the Congressional Budget Office."

• Wife-Swapping, Taxes and Spreads Are All Related ,Bloomberg News (August 1, 2007) by Amity Shlaes.
  

  "From 1922 to 1933, the spread between the top long-term capital-gains rate and the income tax level was sometimes even larger, as wide as 60 percentage points, as Leonard Burman of the Urban Institute notes in The Labyrinth of Capital Gains Tax Policy: A Guide For the Perplexed."

July

• Editorial: Tax Hike Scorecard,Wall Street Journal (July 31, 2007). (subscription required)
  

  "Raise the capital gains rate to 28% from the current 15%. This would repeal not only the capital gains tax cut of 2003 but also the tax cut (to 20% from 28%) that Bill Clinton signed into law in 1997. Presidential candidate John Edwards proposed this 86% increase in the capital gains tax last week, and he's been echoed in recent days by such Democratic tax sachems as Alan Blinder and Leonard Burman. "

• Edwards pushes tax simplification plan; tax preparation industry ready for battle ,The Hill (July 31, 2007) by Jonathan E. Kaplan.
  

  "Stanford Law professor Joel Bankman, a longtime advocate of the idea, and an economist at the Brookings Institution, Bill Gale, advised Edwards on developing the idea."

• Editorial: The Revenue Canard,New York Sun (July 31, 2007).
  

  "Maybe Mr. Schumer hasn't noticed, but the federal government's revenues for 2006, according to the Tax Policy Center of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, were $2.4 trillion dollars. That's an all-time record, both in absolute terms and in constant, i.e., inflation-adjusted dollars."

• End the Break On Capital Gains ,Washington Post (July 30, 2007) by Len Burman.
  
  "In fact, the tax break on capital gains does more harm than good. The overall level of saving responds little to tax rates. And enough investment is financed from sources unaffected by individual income taxes -- such as pension funds, insurance companies and foreigners -- that the direct taxation of capital gains of U.S. stakeholders doesn't matter much."
• Edwards's Tax Plan Focuses On Low, Middle-Income Families,Wall Street Journal (July 26, 2007) by Deborah Solomon. (subscription required)
  

  "The dilemma that's going to confront the next president the day he or she walks into office is the huge fiscal gap in terms of the promised expenditures we're going to make," said Eugene Steuerle, senior fellow with the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan think tank. Looming obligations for entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare are going to leave little room for spending or tax cuts."

• Sweet blog special: John Edwards unveils econ plan. Tax free savings for college., Chicago Sun-Times Blog (July 26, 2007) by Lynn Sweet.
  
  "In the past six years, George Bush has cut taxes on capital gains and dividends and started to eliminate taxes on inheritances completely. As a result of his regressive tax policies, the share of the federal tax burden borne by taxpayers in the middle and fourth quintiles is increasing by 0.5 percentage points, while the share of taxes paid by the top 1 percent fell by the same amount. [Tax Policy Center, 2006]"
• CEOs, Greenspan: Corporate tax code hurts everyone, CNNMoney.com (July 26, 2007) by Jeanne Sahadi.
  
  "We have a very uneven landscape in business taxation," William Gale, co-director of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, noting that different types of business activities can be taxed at different rates, which can encourage investments for tax purposes rather than economic growth purposes."
• Cut corporate taxes, or close loopholes?, Marketplace (July 26, 2007).
  
  "But another participant in today's conference, Brookings Institution tax expert William Gale, says not all companies pay those high tax rates, thanks to a long list of deductions and investment tax credits."
• Cigarette-tax hike would fund kids' healthcare; A program for low-income children is up for renewal. To pay for it, Congress may boost the tax per pack to $1 , Los Angeles Times (July 26, 2007) by Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar.
  

  "Using [tobacco taxes] as a long-term strategy to pay for healthcare is problematic because you're setting up two conflicting goals: If you can get everybody to stop smoking, you'll lose your revenue source," said Kim Rueben of the nonpartisan Urban Institute. But, "as an interim solution, I think this is better than many other possibilities, because it is feasible to get it passed," she said."

• Paulson Says U.S. Hurt by High Tax Rates , New York Times (July 25, 2007) by Edmund L. Andrews. (registration required)
  

  "Put yourself in the shoes of someone like Paulson - what are you going to do?" said C. Eugene Steuerle, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute who worked on tax policy at the Treasury Department under President Ronald Reagan. "They’re not getting any traction on health. They’re not getting any traction on Social Security. The best thing they can do is go ahead with studying the issues in a bipartisan way."

• Washington's Hidden Taxes , Forbes (July 25, 2007) by Brian Wingfield.
  

  "In testimony before Congress last month, Leonard Burman, director of the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan think tank here, said that by 2010, half of all tax filers making between $75,000 and $100,000 will be subject to the AMT. In the past, Congress has applied temporary fixes to rein in this expanding tax, but it has not done so this year."

• Fed chief stumbles into U.S. income inequality debate , Reuters (July 24, 2007) by Pedro Nicolaci da Costa.
  

  "Tax policy can definitely play a role in mitigating inequality," said Len Burman, director of the Tax Policy Center in Washington. "It's kind of ironic that over the past six years, as inequality has widened to its worst levels since the Great Depression, the tax system has become much more regressive."

• Op-Ed: Car Rental Excise Taxes Proliferate At Alarming Rate, Business Travel News Online (July 24, 2007) by Abrams Consulting Group president Neil Abrams.
  

  "William G. Gale of the Brookings Institute and Kim Rueben of the Urban Institute conducted in July 2006 another, more academic evaluation of the impact of this issue. Their report, "The Economic Effects of Rental Car Excise Taxes," concluded, "Piling taxes on car rental customers is, in general, both inefficient and inequitable. It is inefficient because it can distort choices people make regarding what mode of transportation they use. It is inequitable because it is unclear why users of one particular business or service should bear a disproportionate cost of financing government."

• McCain, in Michigan, calls for tax overhaul , The Detriot News (July 24, 2007) by Gordon Trowbridge.
  

  "Roberton Williams, a tax expert at the Tax Policy Center in Washington, said only deep program cuts and major reform of entitlement programs such as Medicare and Social Security would fill the budget hole left by repeal of the AMT. Eliminating earmarks and slicing budget items here and there "doesn't solve the problem," he said. "There's just not enough money there."

• Comment: Car renters shouldn't have to carry unfair tax load , San Antonio Express (July 21, 2007) by Linda Golodner and Bill Connors.
  

  "Still, communities like San Antonio that are already tapping car rental customers might want to take another look at their long-term strategy. Two leading tax policy experts, William Gale of the Brookings Institution and Kim Rueben of the Urban Institute, completed a study last summer analyzing the impact of a $4-per-day rental car tax in Kansas City, Mo."

• Md. Officials Weigh Overhaul Of Income Tax Rates, Brackets , Washington Post (July 18, 2007) by John Wagner.
  
  "Maryland is not without some company, though. Eight states have a flat income tax, according to the Tax Policy Center. And in one other -- Alabama -- the top tax bracket starts at the same income level as in Maryland."
• Our View: Otter's right. It's time to put money into better roads. Let's break the gridlock , Idaho Statesman (July 15, 2007).
  

  "The gas tax - a trusty old sedan of a tax that, according to the Forum on Transportation Investment report, accounts for 69 percent of Idaho transportation dollars - might not be the best option. Only 10 states charge a higher gas tax, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Tax Policy Center."

• Private-equity taxes may rise, Seacoast Online (July 12, 2007) by Kevin Hall.
  
  "Anytime you tax two similar activities in different ways, people are going to figure out ways to arrange to pay the lower tax," said Len Burman, the director of the Tax Policy Center, a joint effort between the centrist Urban Institute and the liberal Brookings Institution. "These are pretty simple tax-shelter arrangements."
• Dems Hope To Boost Tax Rates On Private Equity Compensation , Investor’s Business Daily (July 10, 2007) by Jed Graham.
  
  "Urban Institute senior fellow Len Burman, who served in the Treasury Department under President Clinton, sees "a very strong case for changing the tax treatment of carried interest." In effect, he said, partners get an interest-free loan for a 20% stake. If the fund makes money, they get 2%. But if there are no profits, there's no risk, no repayment and no interest."
• Consensus Elusive on Alternative Minimum Tax, The New York Sun (July 10, 2007) by Russell Berman.
  
  "One think tank, the Tax Policy Center of the Urban Institute, is advocating a 4% "surtax" on couples making more than $200,000 and individuals making more than $100,000; the proposal, supporters argue, would keep the AMT's intended focus on high earners, but it is sure to face opposition as a tax hike."
• Editorial: A Dagger for the AMT , New York Sun (July 9, 2007).
  

  "Under the plan, put forth by the Tax Policy Center of the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, the AMT would be replaced with a surtax of 4% of adjusted gross income above $100,000 for singles and $200,000 for couples. That would amount to a huge marginal tax increase, but until recently, conservatives haven't had a ready response for what to do instead."

• Davis must try to find the political center or be marginalized , Herald Courier (July 8, 2007) by Andrea Hopkins.
  

  "The non partisan Tax Policy Center has calculated that extending these and some other ‘middle-income’ provisions would be worth $700 billion over 10 years to taxpayers," FactCheck.org reports."

June

• The Goodie Bag, National Journal (June 30, 2007) by John Maggs.
  
  "According to the Tax Policy Center, more than half of the mortgage-interest benefit goes to households than earn more than $100,000 a year."
• We're still stuck with the AMT , San Francisco Chronicle (June 28, 2007) by Kathleen Pender.
  

  "Burman, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute, favors repealing the AMT and paying for it with a 4 percent surtax on adjusted gross income over $200,000 for couples and $100,000 for individuals."

• Tax experts argue AMT reform , Investment News (June 27, 2007) by Sara Hansard.
  

  "Turn the state and local tax deduction into a credit," counseled Leonard Burman, director of the Tax Policy Center of the Urban Institute, a liberal think tank in Washington, in response to a question from Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Col., about how to help pay the estimated $800 billion, 10-year cost of repealing the tax."

• Baucus Says AMT Patch This Year But Not 'Right Away', CongressDailyPM (June 27, 2007) by Martin Vaughan.
  

  "But Baucus pressed witnesses to volunteer pay-for ideas that would be "politically realistic." Hassett and Tax Policy Center Director Leonard Burman suggested scaling back the state and local income tax deduction as one revenue source to tap."

• Warning: Tax Danger Ahead, Washington Post (June 25, 2007) by Alan D. Viard.
  

  "For example, according to the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, a family with $75,000 would owe an extra $1,997 because of the AMT, even if the family had no itemized deductions. To add insult to injury, the affected taxpayers could face an IRS penalty for not having enough taxes withheld during the year to cover their bill."

• Here's an Easy Way Out of Our Tax Mess (No Joke), Bloomberg News (June 25, 2007) by Kevin Hassett.
  

  "According to calculations by the Brookings-Urban Tax Policy Center, a family with $75,000 in income and four children would face almost $2,000 in extra tax absent a patch. Individuals with higher incomes will generally face higher taxes from the AMT."

• Most bars, eateries already smoke-free, The Republican and Herald (June 21, 2007).
  

  "According to the Tax Policy Center, in 2005 Pennsylvania brought in more than $1 billion in tax revenue from tobacco."

• The Magic $50 Billion Tax Hike, U.S. News and World Report Capital Commerce blog (June 20, 2007) by James Pethokoukis.
  

  "Blame whomever you want for today's current fiscal mess, but don't cling to any myths about how far rescinding recent tax cuts for the rich would go toward meeting the nation's many budgetary shortfalls."

• The Tricky Math of Returns, Wall Street Journal (June 20, 2007) by Tom Herman. (subscription required)
  

  "It's taken me 10 years to figure it out, and I'm still not sure" of all the details, says Len Burman, a former Treasury Department official and now director of the Tax Policy Center, a joint venture of the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution."

• Debt and the Corporate Tax Base, Wall Street Journal (June 16, 2007) by Anita Raghavand. (subscription required)
  

  "Drawing on data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the share of personal interest income that is exempt from tax rose to 71% in 2004 from 53% in 1991, says Len Burman, director of the Tax Policy Center, a joint venture of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution in Washington."

• Private-equity could see a tax hike, Marketplace (June 15, 2007).
  

  "Len Burman: The ideal is actually tax all income the same. The current system doesn't do that very well and these private equity firms are basically trying to take advantage of asymmetries in the system."

• Time to rein in the alternative minimum tax, The Christian Science Monitor (June 11, 2007) by David R. Francis.
  

  "Both the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and the Tax Policy Center, a joint venture of the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution, have proposed formulas for fixing the AMT. The influential and liberal New York Times recently supported the Tax Policy proposal in an editorial."

• Editorial: Tax policy has spawned a monster, St. Petersburg Times (June 11, 2007).
  

  "It's the dirty little secret of President Bush's much ballyhooed tax cuts, which failed to update the AMT. It particularly penalizes those with large deductions for children and state and local taxes. A married couple making $75, 000 with four children but no itemized deductions would pay almost $2, 000 more in taxes next year if the AMT is applied, according to the Tax Policy Center."

• Wedding bells might give you the tax blues , San Francisco Chronicle (June 10, 2007) by Kathleen Pender. (registration required)
  

  "Eugene Steuerle, a senior fellow with the Urban Institute, points out that marriage-penalty relief, like many provisions in the 2001 and 2003 tax acts, expires after 2010. "My sense is that Congress will maintain the marriage penalty relief," he says, but there are no guarantees."

• Democrats Seek Formula To Blunt AMT, Washington Post (June 8, 2007) by Lori Montgomery.
  

  "The debate has focused attention on a different surtax proposed by the Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution. That plan would eliminate the AMT and replace it with a 4 percent surcharge on income over $200,000 for families and $100,000 for singles, cutting taxes for 22 million households and raising them for more than 3 million."

• Switching To Biofuels Could Cost Lots of Green, Washington Post (June 8, 2007) by Steven Mufson and Dan Morgan.
• Blunting Impact of the AMT - Burman Interview, CNBC (June 8, 2007). (registration required)
  

  "We aren't paying enough attention to the green lost to the Treasury . . . in stimulating ethanol to make the environment greener," said Robert D. Reischauer, president of the Urban Institute and former director of the Congressional Budget Office. "Before we leap to extend subsidies for alternative fuels or ethanol, we need to take a hard look at their impact on future deficits."

• Leonard Burman and Greg Leiserson: What to do about the alternative minimum tax, The Washington Examiner (June 6, 2007).
  

  "In short, the option would repeal the AMT and replace it with an add-on tax of four percent of adjusted gross income (AGI) above $100,000 for singles and $200,000 for couples. The thresholds would be indexed for inflation after 2007."

• AMT: Popular tax breaks in the cross hairs, CNNMoney.com (June 1, 2007) by Jeanne Sahadi.
  

  "Repealing the state and local tax deduction could make up for the revenue loss of full AMT repeal and even allow for a 2 percent reduction in all income tax rates assuming President Bush's tax cuts expire after 2010, according to estimates from the Tax Policy Center."

• Editorial: Obama's delusional spreadsheet, Washington Times (June 1, 2007).
  

  "On May 13, Mr. Obama told ABC News that he would fund his health-care program by "rolling back the Bush tax cuts on the top 1 percent of people who don't need it." According to the Tax Policy Center, the top 1 percent of household income begins at an adjusted-gross-income level of about $350,000."

May

• AMT Overhaul Schedule Slips, Nationaljournal.com/The Gate (May 31, 2007) by Martin Vaughan.
  

  "The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center last week released a proposal for a 4 percent surcharge on all income above $100,000 for singles and $200,000 for couples, which it estimated would fully offset the cost of AMT repeal over 10 years. Such a surtax would apply to income before most deductions, including the mortgage interest deduction, and could be structured to apply to other types of income including capital gains and dividend income."

• Big ideas for the 2008 race,