TPC Citations & Sources

2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 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, Washington Times (May 31, 2007) by Michael O'Hanlon.
  

  "Some ideas coming out of the project to date are quite provocative. A simple and elegant place to start is with economist Bill Gale's proposal for how to begin address our anemic personal savings rates."

• INVESTING: Funds woo investors subject to AMT, Courrier-Post (May 31, 2007).
  

  "But the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center estimates that in 2010, under the current law, a third of the taxpayers will be affected by the AMT, compared to 4 percent in 2006."

• Obama health plan points to tax increases, The Des Moines Register (May 29, 2007) by Jason Clayworth.
  

  "The campaign suggested tax increases for the wealthiest Americans may be the way Obama would pay for his plan. The campaign released estimates from the Urban/Brookings Tax Policy Center saying the money could be raised by restoring the top two personal income tax brackets and rates on dividends and capital gains to Clinton-era levels.

• The Caucus blog: Obama’s Health Plan, New York Times (May 29, 2007) by Kate Phillips.
  

  "Mr. Obama recommends paying for his proposal - his is modeled after the plan that covers federal employees - in part by using the tax revenue that would be recouped if President Bush’s tax cuts expired. (His campaign released estimates that an additional $50 billion to $65 billion in revenue would be needed, releasing research by the Urban/Brookings Tax Policy Center on how the money could raised through imposing higher taxes on people in the top income brackets.)

• The Rise of the Bottom Fifth - How to Build on the Gains of Welfare Reform, Washington Post (May 29, 2007) by Ron Haskins.
• Editorial: Taxes of the Times , New York Sun (May 29, 2007).
  

  "The New York Times yesterday came out for "a new 4 percent tax on income above $200,000 a year for married couples and above $100,000 for single taxpayers." The Web site of the Tax Policy Center, whose proposal it is that the Times is endorsing, acknowledges that under the proposal, "After 2010, the sum of the top statutory rates in the regular income tax and the add-on tax rate would be higher than the top statutory rates under pre-2001 law - 43.6 percent on ordinary income and 24 percent on capital gains."

• Editorial: Fixing the Alternative Tax , New York Times (May 28, 2007). (registration required)
  

  "The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center has come up with a plan that deserves lawmakers’ careful attention. It would get rid of the alternative tax altogether, and in its place impose a new 4 percent tax on income above $200,000 a year for married couples and above $100,000 for single taxpayers."

• Repairing Social Security, Scripps Howard News Service (May 25, 2007) by Jay Ambrose.
  

  "Eugene Steuerle, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute, has done the math and can show that repealing the reductions for those making more than $200,000 a year and applying the extra revenue to Social Security would reduce the future annual shortfall by no more than 20 percent, even if every cent went to that cause."

• Dems Want You to Take a Hike, OpinionJournal.com (May 24, 2007) by Pete DuPont.
  

  "But that would be expensive--reducing revenues by around $50 billion a year, according to an analysis by the Tax Policy Center. Under the House "pay as you go" rule, tax cuts must be "paid for" by other tax increases or spending cuts, so if the Congress were running $50 billion annual shortfalls as a result of the Rangel tax cuts, where would the money to balance the budget come from? From the top 2% of taxpayers. "

• AMT-Fix Proposals Abound, But No Sign of Unity in Congress, Daily Tax Report (May 23, 2007).
  

  "Lawmakers have discussed a new proposal by the Tax Policy Center that would repeal the AMT but make up the lost revenue by imposing a new 4 percent surtax on adjusted gross income over $100,000 for single filers and $200,000 for joint filers, but said it has not gained much traction."

• Beating the AMT to Death, WebCPA.com (May 23, 2007) by Alicia Korney.
  

  "[T]he Tax Policy Center outlined its own options for the AMT back in January and did itself one better this week, with a proposed surtax of 4 percentage points on couples earning more than $200,000 and on single taxpayers and heads of household who earn half that, a measure that the group says would make it possible to eliminate the AMT."

• Group Offers a Simple Fix for Alternative Minimum Tax, New York Times (May 22, 2007) by David Cay Johnston.
  

  "Separately, the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center said yesterday that a simulation using its widely respected computer model showed a simple way to eliminate the levy, known as the alternative minimum tax, for nearly everyone who makes less than $200,000."

• Shortchanging your retirement, Frederick News-Post (May 22, 2007) by Jon Stewart.
  

  "The Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 cut the top tax rate on long-term capital gains from 20 percent to 15 percent, the lowest level since World War II, according to the Tax Policy Center, a tax analysis think tank."

• Could We Afford a President Edwards?, U.S. News and World Report (May 16, 2007) by James Pethokoukis.
  

  "First of all, rescinding the Bush tax cuts for upper-income Americans would bring in only $50 billion a year, according to an analysis by the Urban Institute."

• Fidelity adds to AMT tax-free funds , Investment News (May 14, 2007) by Kathie O'Donnell.
  

  "Established in 1970, the federal Alternative Minimum Tax, or AMT, was originally aimed at a small number of individuals and corporations perceived to be taking advantage of deductions and exemptions to pay little or no federal income tax. The Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center however estimates that in 2010, under the current law, a third of the taxpayers will be impacted by the AMT, up from 4% in 2006."

• Feature Story: Dems Mull Tax Hikes On Rich, But Changes Aren't Likely Soon, Investor’s Business Daily (May 8, 2007) by Jed Graham.
  

  "A Tax Policy Center analysis found that 756,000 households with earnings between $500,000 and $1 million could face a tax bill that's $26,000, or 13.6%, higher."

• Inflation to blame for minimum tax mess , The Courier & Press (May 4, 2007) by Matt Gardner.
  

  "It is true, by the way, that the 1993 Congress increased the AMT top tax rate. But Congress also increased the regular tax rates and the AMT exemptions. Early conveniently forgets to mention these other changes, each of which actually reduced the number of AMT taxpayers. The net impact of the 1993 changes, as the Urban Institute's Tax Policy Center has found, was to slow the growth of the AMT, not (as Early suggest) to accelerate it."

• Back to taxing the rich , Marketplace (May 1, 2007).



"The AMT has been triggered mostly for taxpayers in Democratic strongholds with high state and local taxes. But Len Burman, who heads the Tax Policy Center, a D.C. research group, says the geography and, importantly, the politics of the AMT now threaten Republican areas too."

April

• Poverty in U.S. raises more questions about social reform, The Baylor Lariat (April 26, 2007) by Clarie St. Amant.



"The Urban Institute found that the combination of the proposed reforms in minimum wage and child care, along with an expansion of the earned tax credit and child tax credit, would by themselves reduce poverty by 26 percent."

• Middle class faces a ticking tax bomb, The Record (April 26, 2007) by Herb Jackson.



"Bergen County is ground zero for the AMT," said Leonard Burman, director of the Washington-based Tax Policy Center. "People in the $200,000 to $500,000 income category most likely got no benefit at all from the Bush tax cuts."

• The not-super rich may get AMT break, CNNMoney.com (April 25, 2007) by Jeanne Sahadi.
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"In previous analyses of various AMT reform options, the Tax Policy Center estimated that excluding joint filers with incomes under $250,000 would mean a tax cut for 66 percent of taxpayers in the top 10 percent of the income distribution."

• Pressure Mounts to Crack Down On Those Not Filing Tax Returns, Wall Street Journal (April 25, 2007) by Tom Herman. (subscription required)



"The biggest part of the estimated gap comes from underreporting of tax owed by people who do file returns, says Eric Toder, former director of the office of research at the IRS and now a senior fellow at the Urban Institute in Washington."

• Democrats Craft New Tax Rules, New Image, Washington Post (April 23, 2007) by Lori Montgomery. (Other Appearances: MSNBC, The Spokesman Review, The News Tribune)



"But an analysis by the Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, suggests that the nation's wealthiest families -- less than 1 percent of all taxpayers -- would have to pay 5 to 13 percent more to offset the revenue lost by exempting the middle class from the AMT, with families who make more than $1 million paying an extra $52,000, on average, each year."

• 'Pay-As-You-Go' Threatens Dems' Agenda, Washington Post (April 23, 2007) by Andrew Taylor. (Other Appearances: The New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Seattle Post Intelligencer, Houston Chronicle, The Spokesman Review, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Wyoming News, The Washington Examiner, Forbes, Centre Daily Times, Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, Newsday, Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, Los Angeles Times, Belleville News-Democrat)



"More than 20 million additional taxpayers are threatened with the AMT next filing season if Congress doesn't act, and they face tax increases averaging $2,000, according to Len Burman, of the Tax Policy Center, a joint program run by the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution."

• Putting the AMT Problem In Perspective, Tax Notes(April 23, 2007) by Lee A. Sheppard.



"A discussion at New York University School of Law on April 10 featuring AMT expert Len Burman of the Urban Institute unintentionally showed the AMT to be somewhat less of a problem than all the hyperbolic ranting about it would indicate."

• 2008 Democrats Propose a Ceiling on Bush Tax Cuts, New York Times (April 21, 2007) by Edmund L. Andrews.



"Simply extending Mr. Bush’s tax cuts for families that earn less than $200,000, and most of the reduction in estate taxes on inherited wealth, could cost about $900 billion over the next decade, according to new estimates by the Tax Policy Center, a nonprofit research group whose tax estimates are considered reliable by most analysts."

• The ABCs of Dealing With the AMT, The Wall Street Journal (April 18, 2007) by Tom Herman. (subscription required)



"For 2007, if Congress does nothing, more than 70% of filers with income between $100,000 and $200,000 will be subject to the AMT, says Mr. Burman. In addition, more than one-third of those with income between $75,000 and $100,000 will be caught in the AMT's web."

• Tax Time: Still Not Do-It-Yourself, Time (April 16, 2007) by Barbara Kiviat.



"Plus, as Eric Toder, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute who has studied the adoption of tax software, says, "You need to own a computer, as well."

• Cleaning Up the Alternative Tax, New York Times (April 16, 2007).(subscription required)



"In 2007, the alternative tax will affect 23 million filers. By 2010, it will hit 32 million taxpayers, including nearly all upper-middle-class families with children."

• As US tax rates drop, government's reach grows, The Christian Science Monitor (April 16, 2007) by Mark Trumbull.



"Arguably the mortgage interest deduction actually reduces the number of homeowners, because it pushes up the price of housing," Len Burman of the Urban Institute said last week in a seminar titled "Stupid Tax Tricks."

• 'Rich man's tax' now is taking bigger bites from middle class, The Buffalo News (April 16, 2007) by Jerry Zremski.



"Those temporary 'patches' have had some impact. The number of families subject to the tax more than doubled between 2000 and 2005 but in 2006 appeared to level off at 3.5 million, the Urban Institute- Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center reported."

• More taxpayers feel bite of alternative minimum tax, Chicago Tribune (April 15, 2007).



"Some changes by Congress in recent years have kept a lid on that growth, but the measures are temporary: An estimated 3.5 million taxpayers are due to pay the AMT for 2006, but without any changes in the current law that will explode to more than 23 million this year and more than 32 million by 2010, according to experts at the Tax Policy Center."

• Fewer keeping the nation afloat, Los Angeles Times (April 15, 2007) by Kathy M. Kristof and Jonathan Peterson.



"Indeed, wealthy Americans have benefited more than the poor from the tax cuts implemented under President Bush, said Leonard E. Burman, director of the Tax Policy Center and a senior fellow at the Urban Institute."

• After 94 years, filing taxes still a process of trivial tyranny, The Baltimore Sun (April 15, 2007) by Jay Hancock.



"One reason the tax code looks like a bird's nest, Burman says, is Congress' fondness for funneling social policy through the tax apparatus - subsidizing homeownership, helping the poor, promoting long-term stock ownership, etc. "Most other countries don't try to do so much with their tax system as we do," he says."

• Democrats push for tax overhaul, Chicago Tribune (April 14, 2007) by William Neikirk. (registration required)



"Len Burman, a former Treasury Department official in the Clinton administration and a scholar at the Urban Institute, said many middle-class tax breaks would be popular with Democrats, such as a permanent child-care tax credit."

• Dangerous Tax Times, The New York Sun (April 13, 2007) by Diana Furchtgott-Roth.



"According to the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center, the AMT will affect 3.5 million filers filing their 2006 returns on Monday. These are chiefly families with large numbers of children in states with high income taxes, such as New York, all of which reduces their taxable income and makes them subject to the AMT."

• The Alternative Minimum Tax soap opera - Minimal Effort, The New Republic online (April 13, 2007) by Max B. Sawicky. (subscription required)



"The AMT is a provision of the federal individual income tax, launched in its current form in 1986. Its aim was to preclude the possibility of persons with high gross incomes escaping tax liability altogether. Essentially it is a parallel tax system. It affects people who tend to have high incomes, a lot of deductions, and returns with complex financial or business transactions. Presently, it is paid by fewer than four million taxpayers. But, without changes in tax law, according to the Urban Institute, it could be paid by as many as 32 million in just three years."

• Chicken-poop tax credit smells foul, MarketWatch (April 11, 2007) by Ruth Mantell.



"The chicken-poop tax credit is pretty stupid, but it is nowhere near the only "stupid tax trick" legislators have pulled on Americans, an expert with the Tax Policy Center said Wednesday."

• Media Amnesia Strikes on AMT Reform, Business & Media Institute (April 11, 2007) by Julia A. Seymour.



"Originally a soak-the-rich tax to catch a couple hundred taxpayers, the AMT has expanded and is now likely to affect more than 23 million households during the 2007 tax cycle, the Tax Policy Center estimated."

• The flat tax: It's simple, alluring, But one-size-fits-all idea faces skepticism, too, San Francisco Chronicle (April 11, 2007) by David Lazarus.



"A 17 percent or 19 percent flat tax certainly would be a massive tax cut for high-income people," said Eric Toder, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center in Washington. "Simpler? Yes," he said. "But a flat tax would be inconsistent with the preferences of the American people. By and large, people -- not all people, but many people -- prefer a progressive system. We have increasing inequality in society. There's no reason to make it worse."

• Marriage Penalty Is Expected to Ensnare More Couples With the Growth of AMT, Wall Street Journal (April 11, 2007) by Tom Herman. (subscription required)



"Lawmakers have "eliminated the marriage penalty for many married couples and mitigated it for others -- but have not done away with it entirely," says Roberton Williams, principal research associate at the Tax Policy Center, a joint venture of the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution."

• At Issue with Gene Purcell in for Ben Merens (Interview with Bob Williams), Wisconsin Public Radio (April 9, 2007).
• Democrats Seek to Lead the Way in Tax Overhaul, New York Times (April 9, 2007) by Edmund L. Andrews. (subscription required) (Other Appearances: San Jose Mercury News, Tuscaloosa News, Wilmington Morning Star, Dallas Morning News.)



"You're talking about replacing a hidden tax which most people don?t even know about with an explicit tax," said Leonard Burman, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute. "On policy grounds, it's a good idea. On political grounds, it's a lot easier to have the tax hidden."

• Edwards wants IRS to complete up to 50 million tax returns, Winston-Salem Journal (April 6, 2007) by Mike Baker.



"Eric Toder, a former director of research at the IRS and a senior fellow at The Urban Institute in Washington, praised Edwards for proposing new ideas but questioned whether they were realistic....Toder did support Edwards' plan to provide free Internet filing for taxpayers, but he warned there would likely be strong opposition from tax preparers who have build an industry on helping people file their taxes."

• New Urgency in Debating Health Care, New York Times (April 6, 2007) by Milt Freudenheim. (subscription required) (Other Appearances: Times Daily, Tuscaloosa News, Lakeland Ledger, Spartanburg Herald Journal, Wilmington Morning Star)



"Economists say that employers would raise wages if they did not have to pay for employee health care. The Treasury would stand to gain $140 billion a year in personal income taxes if the benefits were treated as wages, said Len Burman, director of the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center in Washington. There would be about $70 billion more in additional payroll taxes due on those wages, he said."

• Bush's Solution To The Health Care Crisis, Z Magazine Online (April 2007) by Kip Sullivan.



"According to the Tax Policy Center, the percent of Americans with employer-sponsored coverage who will pay more taxes will rise to 40 percent within a decade."

• 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover, but Only 23 to Fix AMT, Wall Street Journal (April 2, 2007) by David Wessel: Options to Fix the AMT. (subscription required)



"In a right-meets-left presentation, the American Enterprise Institute and the Tax Policy Center of the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution offer a Tax Day (Monday, April 16) forum examining the 23 plans on the table to stop the alternative minimum tax from reaching deeper into the middle class."

March

• Tax Deal Provides Added Relief to Middle-Income Homeowners, New York Times (March 31, 2007) by Danny Hakim and Ford Fessenden.(subscription required)



"While Massachusetts is now 31st in terms of its state and local tax burden, New York ranks first, according to the Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute."

• Live discussion: The House Moves on the Federal Budget, Washington Post (March 30, 2007) by Lori Montgomery.



"I haven't parsed the benefits of the Bush tax cuts lately, but the Tax Policy Center has loads of charts on their web site that can help you tease the issue apart. I think the Republican assertion means exactly what it says: on average, households saved around $2,600 a year in taxes thanks to the various rate reductions, credits and whatnot."

• House cuts tax breaks; Group says Americans may pay more, Times Record News (March 30, 2007) by Trish Choate.



"Congress will extend some of these provisions like the child tax credit and maybe some of the rate cuts for low-income people," said Len Burman, director of the Tax Policy Center."

• CNN In the Money, CNN (March 30, 2007).



"The short answer is that Congress is counting on the revenue. The AMT is supposed to be bringing in over $1 trillion over the next ten years and when the president says he's going to balance the budget by 2012 he's assuming that money is going to come in, so policy-makers can't reconcile the fact that this is really phantom, that it's really not going to materialize."

• How families making $75,000 can get hit with AMT, CNNMoney.com (March 23, 2007) by Jeanne Sahadi.



"The Tax Policy Center estimates that by 2010, 89 percent of married couples with two or more kids and adjusted gross incomes (AGI) between $75,000 and $100,000 will be subject to the AMT. In 2006, only 1 percent of families in this group were subject to the AMT. Those who live in high-tax areas are the most vulnerable."

• This Minimum Tax Might Max You Out, Investor's Business Daily (March 23, 2007) by Christina Wise.



"The Tax Policy Center, which is a joint venture of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, estimates 23 million taxpayers will be subject to the AMT in 2007 - many of them in the upper middle class."

• Democrats Plan to Restore Budget Discipline, Washington Post (March 22, 2007) by Lori Montgomery.



"After that, "all those disciplining rules went by the wayside," said Rudolph G. Penner, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office and a senior fellow at the Urban Institute."

• Alternative minimum deduction 'hitting the wrong people', Herald News (March 22, 2007) by Heather Haddon: The Individual Alternative Minimum Tax, Testimony Before the Subcommittee on Select Revenue Measures, House Ways and Means Committee.



"In recent years, the number of households affected by the Alternative Minimum Tax has skyrocketed. In 1970, 20,000 of America's wealthiest households paid it. This year, 3.5 million will have to pay. If Congress doesn't pass another temporary adjustment to the income limit -- as it did last year -- it will climb to 23.4 million in 2008, according to the Tax Policy Center of Washington, D.C."

• What's the alternative to the AMT?, Marketplace (March 21, 2007): The Individual Alternative Minimum Tax, Testimony Before the Subcommittee on Select Revenue Measures, House Ways and Means Committee.



"If they don't extend this temporary patch, there are going to be 20 million more people subject to the AMT next year. The problem with this kick-the-can approach is that every year, it gets more expensive."

• Opinion: Taxes going up soon if not now, Times Herald-Record (March 21, 2007): Measuring Fiscal Disparities Across the U.S. States.



"As a study by the Urban Institute showed earlier this year, New York is the national leader in the area of "tax effort," which amounts to raising more than you need. New York comes in 19th on the list of spending needs but is second on the list of taxes raised, 39 percent above the national average."

• Congress wants a look under the couch cushions, Marketplace (March 20, 2007).



"Eric Toder with the Urban Institute says that could mean either greater efficiency or less intensive audits. And that may not be all bad. He says there's a case to be made for so called light-touch audits."

• Review and Outlook: Alive on Arrival, The Wall Street Journal (March 19, 2007): The President's Proposed Standard Deduction for Health Insurance: An Evaluation.



"The Bush economists believe their plan will shave the nation's total health bill by 3%, or $60 billion a year. And the left-leaning Urban Institute says in a recent report that the "current tax breaks encourage us to buy excessive amounts of health insurance, because the more we spend, the bigger the subsidy. That tends to increase health costs, partly because the oversized health plans include less in the way of cost constraints, and partly because we are simply less cost-conscious when someone else is paying the bill."

• AMT reform: The cap gain conundrum, CNNMoney.com (March 14, 2007) by Jeanne Sahadi: The Individual Alternative Minimum Tax, Testimony Before the Subcommittee on Select Revenue Measures, House Ways and Means Committee.



"If the purpose of AMT is to limit tax shelters, this makes sense since virtually any individual income tax shelter you can imagine involves converting ordinary income into lightly taxed capital gains or dividends," said Len Burman, director of the Tax Policy Center, during testimony before a House panel last week."

• Rangel looking to trim ?fat? from tax code, The Hill (March 14, 2007) by Jessica Holzer and Heidi Bruggink: The Individual Alternative Minimum Tax, Testimony Before the Subcommittee on Select Revenue Measures, House Ways and Means Committee.



"The AMT was designed to ensure that the wealthy paid enough in taxes, but it will engulf tens of millions of taxpayers in the next several years. Repealing that tax, however, would reduce revenue flowing to the Treasury by at least $800 billion over the next decade, according to the Tax Policy Center. Just patching it this year will cost $50 billion in lost revenue, estimates the Joint Committee on Taxation."

• TAXES, CongressDaily AM (March 14, 2007) by Martin Vaughan: The Individual Alternative Minimum Tax, Testimony Before the Subcommittee on Select Revenue Measures, House Ways and Means Committee.



"In testimony before the Ways and Means panel last week, Tax Policy Center Director Leonard Burman said the number of AMT taxpayers could be kept to 9.7 million, without increasing the deficit, by raising exemption amounts and increasing AMT tax rates from 26 and 28 percent to 31 and 33.5 percent."

• Editorial: Here's one tax that should be scrapped, Delaware County Times (March 12, 2007): The Individual Alternative Minimum Tax, Testimony Before the Subcommittee on Select Revenue Measures, House Ways and Means Committee.



"Because of poor design, millionaires are actually less likely to owe AMT than middle-income people with kids," Tax Policy Center Director Len Burman told the House Ways and Means Committee."

• Families Face Alternative Minimum Tax, NPR, Morning Edition (March 9, 2007) by Anna Vigran: The Individual Alternative Minimum Tax, Testimony Before the Subcommittee on Select Revenue Measures, House Ways and Means Committee.



"According to the Tax Policy Center, a Washington, D.C., think tank, 23.4 million taxpayers will be subject to the AMT in 2007, unless Congress acts to change current law. That's up from the less than 4 million who paid AMT last year, when a temporary, higher exemption was in place; it expired at the end of 2006 but is likely to get extended for at least another year."

• Tax-gap closure efforts worry small business, MarketWatch (March 9, 2007) by William L. Watts & Ruth Mantell.



"Eric Toder, a tax policy expert at the Urban Institute, pointed out that tax-gap figures are difficult to gauge, making it difficult to estimate progress. That doesn't mean it's not worth trying to improve compliance, but it does mean that revenues from closing the gap can't be relied on as offsets to new spending or additional tax measures, such as providing relief from the alternative minimum tax, Toder said in an interview after the discussion."

• Kaine gets feedback on bill, The Roanoke Times (March 9, 2007) by Ray Reed: State Motor Fuels Tax Rates (per gallon), 2006.



"The Virginia gasoline tax is 17.5 cents per gallon, which is in the bottom 10 among the states, according to the Tax Policy Center."

• Thanks, Rich People!, Time (March 8, 2007) by Justin Fox.



"So what is it that has driven up tax revenues so dramatically over the past couple of years? "It's actually fairly clear," says the dean of America's tax-policy geeks, the Urban Institute's C. Eugene Steuerle. "It's just the increasingly unequal distribution of income."

• API priorities misplaced in President's Budget, Asian American Press (March 8, 2007): The Distribution of the 2001-2006 Tax Cuts.



"The national debt has increased to $8.7 trillion, increasing our borrowing from foreign countries. The President's budget squanders trillions on tax cuts for the wealthy - giving the wealthiest one percent $62,000 in tax breaks in 2010. [Tax Policy Center, 11/06] "

• AMT: Middle-class more at risk than millionaires; Tax experts spell out for House panel the perils of the 'wealth tax' for the non-wealthy, CNNMoney (March 8, 2007) by Jeanne Sahadi: The Individual Alternative Minimum Tax, Testimony Before the Subcommittee on Select Revenue Measures, House Ways and Means Committee.



"Cutting the regular income tax without fixing the AMT at the same time is the tax policy equivalent of throwing gasoline on a fire," Burman said."

• Democrats Look for Permanent AMT Fix, Washington Post (March 8, 2007) by Lori Montgomery: The Individual Alternative Minimum Tax, Testimony Before the Subcommittee on Select Revenue Measures, House Ways and Means Committee.



"For many families, the Bush tax cuts lowered their regular tax bills sufficiently to push them into the AMT, Burman said. In this tax year, he said, AMT taxpayers would number only about 10.2 million families if not for the tax cuts; instead, 23 million households are projected to owe an extra $6,800, on average."

• Search underway for alternative minimum tax fix; Key Democrat says subcommittee aiming for 'bipartisan solution' to AMT, MarketWatch (March 7, 2007) by William L. Watts: The Individual Alternative Minimum Tax, Testimony Before the Subcommittee on Select Revenue Measures, House Ways and Means Committee.



"To simply repeal the AMT would leave a $668.1 billion hole, if President Bush's first-term tax cuts expire as scheduled in 2010. If they are extended, the gap could exceed $1 trillion over a decade, according to calculations by the Tax Policy Center."

• Democrats seek tax perks for slices of middle class; But how will they pay for the bevy of credits and deductions?, Los Angeles Times (March 5, 2007) by Joel Havemann and Molly Hennessy-Fiske (Other appearances: The Baltimore Sun) (registration required).



"Budget watchers such as Burman consider "tax expenditures," as they call tax breaks for targeted groups, the equivalent of government spending. To parents, a $1,000 tax credit for baby-sitting expenses isn't much different from a $1,000 check from the government. And the government's bottom line is the same whether $1,000 is deducted from revenue or added to spending."

• The Untaxed Rich, Found and Then Lost, New York Times (March 4, 2007) by David Cay Johnston: Options to Fix the AMT. (subscription required)



"Left unchanged, the alternative tax this year will take back about 27 percent of the Bush tax cuts, mostly from people making $75,000 to $500,000, the Tax Policy Center calculated. The center?s estimates are held in high regard by the administration and by administration critics."

• Tips for Avoiding AMT Hit; Planning Ahead Is Key In Staying Away From Tax Bite, Wall Street Journal (March 3, 2007) by Andrea Coombes: Options to Fix the AMT (subscription required).



"Among those most likely to be affected by the AMT for 2006 are those who live in high-tax areas, those with large numbers of children and those with income between $200,000 and $1 million, says Roberton Williams of the Tax Policy Center, a joint venture of the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution."

• Editorial: Proper way to support troops?, Daily Press (March 2, 2007).



"People who earn over $1 million a year would receive an average of $158,000 a year from the cuts, according to the Tax Policy Center."

• Markets' Problem Is Politics, New York Sun (March 2, 2007) by Diana Furchtgott-Roth: Options to Fix the AMT.



"The Alternative Minimum Tax taxes Americans at a rate of 26% or 28%, depending on income. According to a senior fellow at the Urban Institute, Leonard Burman, if Congress does nothing, the number of families subject to the AMT will rise to 23 million in 2007 and to 32 million in 2010 from 4 million in 2006."

• Look out, tax filers! AMT may take a bite out of you, Herald News (March 1, 2007) by Mark Schwanhausser: Options to Fix the AMT.



"This tax season, an estimated 3.5 million taxpayers will pay the AMT because it's higher than their regular tax. Barring action by Congress, the number of taxpayers owing the AMT will vault to 23.4 million in 2007 -- a nearly sevenfold increase, according to the Tax Policy Center."

February

• Washington Wire: Putting a Value on a Bush Health Proposal, Wall Street Journal online (February 28, 2007) by Sarah Lueck:The President's Proposed Standard Deduction for Health Insurance: An Evaluation. (subscription required)



"The administration had figured that its proposal could cut revenues by $32.8 billion over 10 years. One possible reason for the disparity: The administration may be assuming the shift in tax incentives would cause more people to switch to cheaper policies faster. In the long-term, the plan is likely to increase revenues as rising health-care costs push up the cost of insurance, according the Tax Policy Center. That?s because the standard deduction Bush is proposing is tied to the consumer price index, not health-care costs, which tend to rise much faster."

• 8 ways to avoid tax-time headaches; Instead of loading up on aspirin, follow this advice, Consumer Reports (February 2007):The Individual Alternative Minimum Tax: Historical Data and Projections



"About 23.4 million taxpayers are expected to get hit this year with the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), up from 3.5 million people last year, according to a December brief from the Tax Policy Center. The AMT was originally intended to snare the wealthy with inordinately high tax deductions."

• Better Health Through Politics, Slate.com (February 28, 2007) by Jacob Weisberg: The President's Proposed Standard Deduction for Health Insurance: An Evaluation.



"A paper from the liberal Tax Policy Center calls the president's proposal "in some respects...innovative and a step in the right direction." But Bush is thinking too small. His plan risks undermining the current employer-based system without replacing it, and fails to grapple in a serious way with the problem of the uninsured."

• AMT solution still unclear, MarketWatch (February 28, 2007) by William L. Watts: Options to Fix the AMT.



"If they are extended, the gap could exceed $1 trillion over a decade, according to calculations by the Tax Policy Center."

• The big budget squeeze leaves poor, uninsured on the outside again , Catholic News Service (February 28, 2007) by Nancy Frazier O'Brien.



"It makes no more sense to commit future economic resources than it would be to decide today where to station troops until the next millennium," Steuerle said in testimony before the Senate Budget Committee a few days before Bush's budget was made public in early February. "Only major systemic reform can restore a normal democratic process," he added. "Each generation must regain the right to decide spending and tax priorities based on the nation's current needs, not on past anticipation."

• Experts Differ Over Bush's Healthcare Tax Plan, CNS News (February 27, 2007) by Monisha Bansal: The President's Proposed Standard Deduction for Health Insurance: An Evaluation.



"But Roberton Williams, a principal research associate with the Tax Policy Center, was less impressed. "Not everybody benefits," he said. Those who would not be able to afford even minimal coverage would not receive the credit and those whose premiums are more than the deduction will see their taxes rise, Williams said."

• Taxed: What Makes New York Different, New York Times (February 25, 2007) by Sewell Chan: Measuring Fiscal Disparities Across the U.S. States. (subscription required)



"Kim Reuben, an economist at the Urban Institute, said that a far greater proportion of New York State residents are covered by various health and social services programs than in California, Texas or Florida."

• Better Tax Collection Promised To Finance Big-Ticket Programs, Investor's Business Daily (February 21, 2007) by Jed Graham.



"While proposals to expand information reporting to improve compliance probably make sense, they are unlikely to make a significant dent in the tax gap, said Urban Institute senior fellow Eric Toder. "The low-hanging fruit has been picked," said Toder, IRS research director from 2001 to 2004 and deputy assistant secretary for tax analysis under President Clinton. "I don't see closing the tax gap as a major cure-all for our fiscal problems."

• CHECKLIST: Get it in gear, Courier-Post (February 21, 2007): Options to Fix the AMT



"About 23.4 million taxpayers are expected to get hit this year with the AMT, up from 3.5 million people last year, according to a December brief from the Tax Policy Center."

• Will Bush Raise Taxes to Fix the AMT?, U.S. News and World Report online (February 20, 2007) by James Pethokoukis: Options to Fix the AMT



"As a recent analysis of a variety of AMT fixes by the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution found, "this option raises more than enough money to pay for repeal of the AMT... . As a result, under this option, income tax rates can be reduced by 2 percent across the board." Other options include paying for an AMT repeal by raising capital gains tax rates. But just as with raising marginal income tax rates, this smells like another veto candidate since it would undo part of Bush's 2003 tax cuts."

• Are Roth IRAs Bad for Government?, MSNBC.com (February 20, 2007) by Dan Caplinger.



"According to estimates by the Urban Institute, the long-term cost of expanding Roth conversions will be more than $14 billion over the next 40-45 years."

• Professionals can ease pain of filing taxes, but at a price, Star Tribune (February 20, 2007) by Gene Meyer.



"Rising or not, preparation fees probably are a bargain for many of the approximately six in 10 taxpayers who hire professional help, suggests Eric Toder, a former IRS research director who is now a tax research specialist with the Urban Institute in Washington. "You need to look at it in terms of what you get back for the money," Toder said."

• What You Need to Know about the AMT, Kiplingers Personal Finance (March 2007) by Vera Gibbons: Options To Fix the AMT.



"Unless Congress makes fundamental changes, by 2010 the AMT will hit half of those with earnings between $75,000 and $100,000, and some earning even less will be affected. "All the growth is in the lower income classes," says Jeff Rohaly, tax-modeling director of the Tax Policy Center."

• On lawmakers' minds: Paying for AMT reform, CNNMoney.com (February 16, 2007) by Jeanne Sahadi: Options to Fix the AMT



"If AMT relief, which expired at the end of tax year 2006, is extended, instead of 23.4 million taxpayers being hit in 2007, only 3.8 million will have to pay AMT and the majority of those taxpayers will have incomes over $200,000, according to the Tax Policy Center."

• Democrats Focus On Tax Relief For Middle Class, Wall Street Journal (February 16, 2007) by Sarah Lueck: Options to Fix the AMT (subscription required)
• Love Means NOT Spending , Washington Post (February 15, 2007) by Michelle Singletary: Options to Fix the AMT



"As Marcus reports, figures compiled by the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center demonstrate how wide reaching the AMT will be. If the AMT is not fixed and the Bush tax cuts are extended, 89 percent of married families with two or more children and incomes between $75,000 and $100,000 will be hit with this tax by 2010 -- compared with less than one percent in 2006."

• Taming the Deficit, Together, New York Times (February 12, 2007) by Bill Frenzel, Charles Stenholm, William Hoagland, and Isabel Sawhill: Taming the Deficit (subscription required)



"The major reform would be to broaden and simplify the tax base by turning almost all itemized deductions into 15 percent credits against taxes. We would also place a cap on how much of employer-paid health insurance premiums could be excluded from taxes."

• Money From Somewhere, New York Times (February 11, 2007) by Edmund L. Andrews: Options to Fix the AMT (Other Appearances: Foster's Daily Democrat)



"Preventing that increase is expected to cost $40 billion in 2007 and more in every subsequent year. A full repeal of the A.M.T., without touching Mr. Bush?s tax cuts, would cost $1.5 trillion over the next decade, according to estimates by the Tax Policy Center, a research group in Washington affiliated with the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution."

• Q & A: Balancing the federal budget, Los Angeles Times (February 11, 2007) by Joel Havemann: Options to Fix the AMT (Other appearances: Canton Repository)



"The administration has not released an estimate of what repeal would cost, but the private Tax Policy Center has estimated $91 billion in 2012. If the administration had included that item in its budget, its $61-billion surplus in 2012 would have turned into a $30-billion deficit."

• Congress is unwilling to address tough taxing issues, St. Louis Post-Dispatch (February 11, 2007) by David Nicklaus: Options to Fix the AMT



"The policymaking process is not working really well these days," said Leonard Burman, director of the Tax Policy Center in Washington. "There's bipartisan agreement that we need to do something about the AMT, but nobody is talking about the hard choices we need to make to close the revenue gap."

• Smart bombs: Alternative universe, The Spokesman-Review (February 10, 2007) by Gary Crooks: Options to Fix the AMT (registration required)



"Left unchecked, half of all households will be hit by the AMT by 2017, including nearly 90 percent of families with at least two children and incomes between $75,000 and $100,000, according to the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center."

• Three steps to better healthcare - Bush's plan would produce a lot of insurance shoppers without making healthcare more affordable, Los Angeles Times (February 10, 2007) by Henry J. Aaron.



"The bigger problem with the Bush plan is that it would not ensure that people would be able to find insurance at a reasonable price. The plan would produce millions more such shoppers because it would make it much easier for employers, bedeviled by rising premiums, to stop sponsoring coverage."

• You vs. the Tax Code, New York Times (February 10, 2007): Options to Fix the AMT (subscription required)



"Because tax cuts in recent years have brought regular rates very near the A.M.T. rates, increasing numbers of taxpayers are finding themselves subject to the A.M.T. Some 3.6 million owed it in 2005, and 3.8 million are expected to owe it for 2006. Without a one-year patch enacted last summer, the projected number would have been 19 million, and the Urban Institute predicts that 23 million will be liable this year if Congress does not change the law again."

• America's No. 1 Endangered Species, Reason Online (February 9, 2007) by Nick Gillespie: How Much Do Americans Move Up and Down the Economic Ladder?



"Urban Institute economists Daniel P. McMurrer and Isabel V. Sawhill estimate that between 25 percent to 40 percent of individuals switch quintiles in a given year and that "rates of mobility have not changed over time. Research tracking individuals in the lowest income quintile in 1968 found that 23 years later, 53 percent were in a higher quintile and that half had spent at least a year in the top income quintile."

• Analysis: Bush health plan impact unclear, United Press International (February 9, 2007) by Olga Pierce: The President's Health Insurance Proposal - A First Look



"Health insurance is a classic example of ... market failure," said Len Burman, director of the Tax Policy Center at the Urban Institute. Letting the private market provide the bulk of healthcare coverage is "fraught with risks," he said, and could be the demise of health insurance altogether."

• Fuming about fees - New York taxes might be going down, but hidden taxes are going up, Star-Gazette (February 9, 2007) by Jim Pfiffer: Measuring Fiscal Disparities Across the U.S. States



"New York leads the nation in taxes and fees. Each of us pays an average of $6,300 annually in taxes and fees to live, work and have fun in the Empire State. That's about $1,200 more than the national average, says the Urban Institute, a Washington-based nonpartisan policy research organization."

• Closer look at Bush's budget finds unadvertised tax traps, McClatchy Newspapers (February 8, 2007) by Kevin G. Hall: The President's Health Insurance Proposal - A First Look (Other appearances: Kansas City Star, San Luis Obispo Tribune, Fort Wayne News Sentinel, Myrtle Beach Sun News, Biloxi Sun Herald, Belleville News-Democrat, San Jose Mercury News, Contra Costa Times, The State, Macon Telegraph, Bradenton Herald, Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, Charlotte Observer, Monterey County Herald)



"The Bush administration estimates that 19 percent of Americans with employer-provided health plans would pay taxes in 2009, when it's proposed to take effect. Over a decade, the number exposed would rise to 31 percent, according to the Tax Policy Center, which is sponsored by two center-left think tanks, the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute."

• Bush's plan won't cure what ails us, The Register-Guard (February 8, 2007) by Peter DeFazio.The President's Health Insurance Proposal - A First Look



"And, although details about the president's plan are scarce, leading experts argue the payroll tax changes will lead to cuts in Social Security benefits. According to the director of the non-partisan Tax Policy Center, "A family earning $30,000 a year could see its retirement benefit cut in half."

• Bush's Course on Budget Parallels Iraq, The Wall Street Journal (February 8, 2007) by David Wessel. (subscription required)



"William Gale of the Brookings Institution think tank - populated by deficit-fearing Democratic wonks who have been trying to find common ground with deficit-fearing Republican wonks - has been thinking a lot lately about the parallels between Mr. Bush on Iraq and Mr. Bush on the budget. "The Bush administration's two signature policies have been the war in Iraq and consistent pressure for tax cuts," he argues. "On the surface, they look quite different and were advocated by different parts of the administration. Look a little deeper and some common patterns emerge -- so maybe this says something about the principles or management style of the Bush administration."

• New Tax Data Incorrect , The Galveston County Daily News (February 7, 2007) by Roberton Williams.
• Bush's Stealth Tax Increase, Washington Post (February 7, 2007) by Ruth Marcus: Options to Fix the AMT.



"Figures compiled by the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center demonstrate the AMT's dramatic effect. If nothing is done to fix the AMT and the Bush tax cuts are extended as he wants, 89 percent of married families with two or more children and incomes between $75,000 and $100,000 will be hit by the AMT by 2010 -- compared with less than 1 percent in 2006. By 2017, almost half of all taxpayers -- 53 million -- will owe the AMT. The tax will hit two-thirds of those making between $75,000 and $100,000 and 90 percent of those making $100,000 or more."

• Tax hits wrong target, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (February 7, 2007). Options to Fix the AMT.



"The Washington-based Tax Policy Center estimates that one-year relief in 2007 alone will cost the government $40 billion in lost revenue."

• Editorial: Bush budget veers into fantasyland, St. Petersburg Times (February 7, 2007): Options to Fix the AMT.



"The higher alternative tax rate, which will ensnare millions of middle-income families in the next two years, would cost $850-billion over a decade to repeal, according to the Tax Policy Center. Instead of accounting for the cost of that fix - which both Bush and Democrats say they want - the president wants to extend his current tax cuts at a cost of $1.6-trillion over the same time period. The Bush tax cuts favor wealthier Americans, so the moral of this story is clear."

• Romney, Battered Over Social Issues, Shifts Focus to Economics, Bloomberg News (February 7, 2007) by Heidi Przybyla.



"The cost of such a move would be considerable. Capping tax rates at 30 percent, for example, would cost about $222 billion, said Len Burman, a tax expert at the Urban Institute, a Washington research organization. If that's added to the cost of extending the Bush tax cuts, Burman said the price tag might run to "about $1.9 trillion" over 10 years. Even so, the call for additional individual tax cuts would be popular with Republican primary election voters, many of whom view continuous tax- cutting as essential."

• Marie Cocco: Preserving income inequality, The Sacramento Bee (February 7, 2007) by Marie Cocco: The Distribution of the 2001-2006 Tax Cuts. (registration required)



"But there has been no greater pander than the one Bush has delivered to the have-mores: The tax cuts that, by any measure, have lavished far more benefits on the wealthy than on Americans of average means. One of the more rigorous analyses of the tax cuts' effect, by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, shows that they'll raise the after-tax income of those with incomes of $1 million or more by 6 percent this year. That's nearly three times the gain in after-tax income to be felt by those roughly in the middle of the income spectrum."

• Money: Navigating the AMT labyrinth, The Wall Street Journal (February 6, 2007) by Emily Friedlander: Options to Fix the AMT. (subscription required)



"If no extension is passed, more than 25% of all taxpayers could be subject to the AMT next year, according to a January report from the Tax Policy Center, a joint venture between the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute. The number could rise to 34.7% by 2017."

• Editorial: Many questions, few answers, The Tennessean (February 6, 2007). The President's Health Insurance Proposal - A First Look.



"Len Burman of the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center says "If the goal is to try to get people to spend less on health care, why subsidize high-deductible health plans over aggressively managed care? Just create the right incentives for people to economize ... and let them pick the option that works best."

• How Plans to Expand Health Coverage Could Affect Insured, The Wall Street Journal (February 6, 2007) by Laura Meckler: The President's Health Insurance Proposal - A First Look. (subscription required)



"This could translate into a very substantial drop in retirement living standards," concluded an analysis by the Tax Policy Center, a joint venture of two liberal-leaning think tanks, the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution."

• Bigger AMT Bite Means It's Time To Plan Ahead, Investor's Business Daily (February 5, 2007) by Stuart Weiss: Options to Fix the AMT.



"More taxpayers are feeling the bite of the alternative minimum tax. The AMT will affect about 26% of all taxpayers this year, the Tax Policy Center says."

• Budget Counts on Money That Won't Be There, U.S. News and World Report (February 5, 2007) by Chris Wilson: Options to Fix the AMT.



"At issue here is the alternative minimum tax, a complex secondary taxing system that was originally designed to prevent a small number of high earners with high deductions from escaping paying any or all income tax. But because of the AMT's rather arcane rules, the AMT now snags more and more people every year, and it threatens to engulf thousands of taxpayers in the next three years. The Tax Policy Center estimates that, according to the current law, 32 million people will be paying more taxes under the AMT in 2010, producing over a trillion dollars in revenue."

• Bush's budget: How you may pay for the surplus, CNNMoney.com (February 5, 2007) by Jeanne Sahadi: Options to Fix the AMT.



"The cost of permanent repeal or reform would be many times that. The Tax Policy Center estimates that repealing the AMT would cost $851 billion between now and 2017, assuming the president's tax cuts are allowed to expire. If they're extended - pushing more people into AMT territory - the projected cost over 10 years rises to $1.6 trillion."

• Paulson Has Clout for Showdown Over Worst Tax: Kevin Hassett, Bloomberg News (February 5, 2007) by Kevin Hassett: Options to Fix the AMT.



"There are many different ways that this can be done. A recent study by the Tax Policy Center, jointly run by the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, contains a number of possible alternatives. For example, much of the cost of repealing the AMT can be recaptured by also repealing the state and local income-tax deduction."

• Lawmakers see pot of gold in tax gap; Constrained by deficits, they're talking up the $300 billion owed to the IRS and ways to harvest it, Los Angeles Times (February 4, 2007) by Joel Havemann. (Other Appearances: The Baltimore Sun, KTLA 5)
  

  "And as Robert D. Reischauer, president of the Urban Institute, pointed out, a lot of the money is owed by people who have gone bankrupt or moved overseas to escape the IRS' reach."

• When it's 1040 Time, Is A Pro Worth The Price? Cost And Quality Of Assistance Can Vary Widely, The Kansas City Star (February 4, 2007) by Gene Meyer.
  

  "Rising or not, tax preparation fees probably are a bargain for many of the approximately six in 10 taxpayers who hire professional help, suggests Eric Toder, a former IRS research director who is now a tax research specialist with the Urban Institute in Washington, D.C."

• Alternative minimum tax bites deep in '06, deeper in '07, The Mercury News (February 4, 2007) by Mark Schwanhausser: Options to Fix the AMT.



"This tax season, an estimated 3.5 million taxpayers will pay the AMT because it's higher than their regular tax. Barring action by Congress, the number of taxpayers owing the AMT will vault to 23.4 million in 2007 -- a nearly seven-fold increase, according to the Tax Policy Center."

• Health Coverage's Momentum, Washington Post (February 4, 2007) by David S. Broder. (Other Appearances: Sacramento Bee, Kansas City Star, St. Petersburg Times, Daytona Beach News-Journal, Gwinnett Daily Post, Clarksville Leaf Chronicle, Fort Worth Star Telegram, Seattle Times, The Spokesman Review, Indianapolis Star, Norman Transcript, The State)



"A major barrier to all such schemes is the feature of the federal tax code that subsidizes job-based health insurance by making its cost deductible to the business and tax-free to the employee. As C. Eugene Steuerle of the Urban Institute testified to Congress last week, this represents a $200 billion-a-year subsidy, with most of the benefits going to the well-to-do -- a sum that could be much better spent on helping the uninsured."

• AMT may thwart best-laid budget plans, CNNMoney.com (February 2, 2007) by Jeanne Sahadi: Options to Fix the AMT.



"There are ways to repeal or reform AMT without increasing the deficit, Burman said. For instance, if Congress repealed the state and local tax deduction that alone could make up for the revenue loss, assuming the tax cuts are allowed to expire, Burman said. If the cuts are made permanent, other changes would be required as well."

• Editorial: Bush's proposal, The Anniston Star (February 2, 2007): The President's Health Insurance Proposal - A First Look.



"Now we know that Bush did not design this plan all on his own. It is the work of advisors and experts who share his general political philosophy. But the president signed off on it, so surely he understood the impact this would have on middle- and lower-class workers who would eventually become middle- and lower-class retirees - the ones who depend most on Social Security. Living largely from paycheck to paycheck today, they will welcome the tax break now. However, according to the Tax Policy Center's analysis of the plan, 'this could translate into a very substantial drop in retirement living standards, the social consequences of which could be enormous."

• Bush Addresses Income Inequality, Washington Post (February 1, 2007) by Michael Abramowitz and Lori Montgomery.



"Democrats have blamed Bush's tax policies for contributing to that trend. Wealthy households reaped the most benefit from tax cuts enacted between 2001 and 2006, according to an analysis by the Tax Policy Center, a project of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution. Last year, families making more than $1 million a year saw their after-tax income increase by 6 percent because of the tax cuts, while families making $40,000 to $75,000 saw after-tax income rise by about 2.5 percent."

• The Bush Rx for New York, The New York Sun (February 1, 2007) by Michael Cannon: The President's Health Insurance Proposal - A First Look.



"Beyond encouraging people to purchase basic coverage, the proposal would eliminate the existing incentive to overconsume medical care. Left-leaning scholars Len Burman and Roberton Williams of the Urban Institute, and Jason Furman of the Brookings Institution, note that the proposal could help curb rising health expenditures by encouraging 160 million Americans to become more cost-conscious."

January

• AP Failed Its Own Tax Test, The Daily News (January 31, 2007).
• What Bush Didn't Say About Social Security, The Washington Post (January 30, 2007) by Allan Sloan: The President's Health Insurance Proposal - A First Look.



"But low-income people -- who get much more in benefits per dollar of Social Security tax than maxed-out folks do -- would see benefits shrink by a far higher percentage. "A family earning $30,000 a year could see its retirement benefit cut in half," says Len Burman, director of the Tax Policy Center, a joint venture of the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute. This would be an especially serious blow, because $30,000 families tend to rely almost entirely on Social Security for retirement income, whereas high-income families rely far less on Social Security because they have retirement accounts, pensions and savings."

• Up to 1 million Texans could face dreaded tax, Houston Chronicle (January 30, 2007) by Bennett Roth: Options to Fix the AMT.



"Take the example of a family with an income of $75,000, four children and standard exemptions and deductions of $31,100. If no changes are made to tax law, the Tax Policy Center estimated, this family would fall under the AMT in 2007 and pay an additional $1,997 in federal taxes."

• Experts See Peril in Bush Health Proposal, New York Times (January 28, 2007) by Robert Pear: The President's Health Insurance Proposal - A First Look. (subscription required)



"If your employer does not provide health insurance and you have to buy it on your own, you get no tax benefit at all. The president?s plan would eliminate that distinction." But Mr. Reischauer said, "A glaring problem with the president?s plan is that he did not call for any stronger regulation of the individual insurance market. In that market as it now exists in most states, insurers can deny coverage or charge higher rates to sick people."

• Health Plan's Impact Debated, Washington Post (January 27, 2007) by Christopher Lee: The President's Health Insurance Proposal - A First Look.



"Len Burman, director of the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, said that, in leveling the field, the White House should also seek to scrap the HSA tax break, whose purpose is to counter the tax code's current bias toward comprehensive and expensive employer-provided coverage. Under Bush's plan, it would be the only extra tax break for health insurance -- one that would most benefit wealthy people, who can best afford the financial risk of a high-deductible plan and to sock away a lot of money in an HSA."

• Health plan deduction cuts Social Security, The Plain Dealer (January 27, 2007) by Elizabeth Auster: The President's Health Insurance Proposal - A First Look.



"The Bush administration has said that people with low-paying jobs who owe little or no income taxes still would gain because the deduction also would apply to payroll taxes. Williams, however, said the Tax Policy Center's analysis suggests that any savings on payroll taxes would eventually be canceled out by the lower benefits workers would get when they retire."

• Bush ignites health debate, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (January 26, 2007) by Guy Boulton: The President's Health Insurance Proposal - A First Look.



"In some respects, the plan is very innovative and a step in the right direction," said an analysis by the Tax Policy Center of the Urban Institute, and the Brookings Institution. "It acknowledges that there are no easy answers and spells out some tough choices."

• Alternative minimum tax can bite you, MarketWatch.com (January 26, 2007) by Andrea Coombes: Options to Fix the AMT.



"You have leaders in both the Senate and House who say they want to fix it, but they've also said they want to abide by the pay-as-you-go rules, which means they need to pay for lost revenue. That's going to make it a challenge," said Len Burman, director of the Tax Policy Center. The Center offers 23 solutions for recovering revenue lost by reforming the AMT."

• White House Touts Health Care Savings, Washington Post (January 25, 2007) by Kevin Freking: The President's Health Insurance Proposal - A First Look.
  (Other Appearances: The State, Myrtle Beach Sun News, The Examiner, Seattle Post Intelligencer, Fort Worth Star Telegram, Centre Daily Times, Belleville News-Democrat, Macon Telegraph, San Francisco Chronicle, San Luis Obispo Tribune, Contra Costa Times, Sacramento Bee, Monterey County Herald, San Diego Union Tribune, San Mateo Daily Journal, Los Angeles Daily News, North County Times, Biloxi Sun Herald, Pioneer Press, Howell Times and Transcript, Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, Fort Wayne News Sentinel, Kansas City Star, Bradenton Herald, Times Picayune, Gainesville Sun, Aberdeen American News, Nashua Telegraph, Wyoming News, Durham Herald Sun, New Philadelphia Times Reporter, WHDH-TV, KOMO, CBS News, FOX News)



"Coverage in the individual market is generally cheaper than coverage in the group market, but many Americans, particularly those with pre-existing health conditions, will find it difficult getting a company to sell them a policy, said Len Burman of the Tax Policy Center, a joint program run by the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution. "For many, the nongroup market doesn't work well," Burman said. "It works fine for people who are healthy. It just doesn't work well for people who are sick."

• Experts Examine Bush Health Plan, Washington Post (January 25, 2007) by Christopher Lee and Lori Montgomery: The President's Health Insurance Proposal - A First Look.



"After 10 years, though, only about 60 percent will, so more people would be hit by the tax, according to an analysis by the Tax Policy Center, a project of the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute. The administration's own figures show the government losing as much as $40 billion in tax revenue in the first year but breaking even over a decade as more revenue rolls in."

• Bush's health proposal gives and takes, Los Angeles Times (January 25, 2007) by Molly Hennessy-Fiske and Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar: The President's Health Insurance Proposal - A First Look.



"At the outset, only about 20% to 25% of insurance plans would be above the deduction threshold. But in the following 10 years, as premium costs increased, 40% of plans would face additional taxes, according to an estimate by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center in Washington."

• Editorial: Credit Offer, Washington Post (January 25, 2007): The President's Health Insurance Proposal - A First Look.



"An even better approach, suggested in a thoughtful analysis by the Tax Policy Center of the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, would make the credit progressive (lower-income taxpayers would get a larger credit), refundable (taxpayers who don't pay enough taxes to reach the amount of the credit would get money back) or both."

• Bush plan spotlights uneven tax treatment of health care benefits, USA Today (January 24, 2007) by Sandra Block: The President's Health Insurance Proposal - A First Look.



"Workers who are covered by employer plans could lose their coverage, critics say. The Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, predicts that some small and midsize employers would drop their coverage."

• President's agenda faces many challenges, MarketWatch (January 24, 2007) by Greg Robb: The President's Health Insurance Proposal - A First Look.



"Analysts at the Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution, said Bush's health insurance plan was "very innovative and a step in the right direction. "The proposal will almost certainly encourage some people, who currently lack insurance, particularly middle-income families, to get it," the Tax Policy analysis concluded. But they suggested that the deduction be replaced by a tax credit or voucher to give low-income families a larger incentive to get coverage."

• The War Over Healthcare Begins, U.S. News and World Report (January 24, 2007) by James Pethokoukis: The President's Health Insurance Proposal - A First Look.



"An analysis from the nonpartisan Urban Institute says it's "a major step toward improving the efficiency of the market for health insurance. By severing the link between work and insurance, it would offer everyone the same tax incentives to obtain insurance coverage and limit spending on healthcare."

• Bush wants tax code changes to spread health care, Chicago Tribune (January 24, 2007) by Judith Graham. (subscription required) (Other appearances: Houston Chronicle, Arizona Daily Star, Charlotte Observer, Myrtle Beach Sun News, The State, Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, Belleville News-Democrat, Centre Daily Times, Contra Costa Times, Monterey County Herald, San Luis Obispo Tribune, Kansas City Star. Biloxi Sun Herald, Bradenton Herald).



"Robert Reischauer, president of the Urban Institute, worries that the president's plan would push more people into the individual insurance market, which is notorious for being expensive and excluding people with pre-existing medical conditions. "It's a jungle, and that's on a good day," he said."

• Bush moves to expand health insurance by revising tax code, McClatchy Newspapers (January 24, 2007): The President's Health Insurance Proposal - A First Look.



"The president has correctly identified the problems in the health tax system and has proposed a solution that, in some respects, would move us forward," said Jason Furman, a senior fellow at The Brookings Institution. But he added that more incentives are needed to help low-income people afford health care."

• The Knee-Jerk Opposition, Washington Post (January 24, 2007) by Ruth Marcus: The President's Health Insurance Proposal - A First Look.



"As Jason Furman, a leading Democratic economist, wrote last summer in Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, "[R]educing subsidies for pricey plans would likely lead to a health insurance system that includes more cost sharing, promotes more consumer consciousness, and plays a modest, but potentially meaningful, role in restraining health spending."

• Tax proposals get mixed reviews, The Baltimore Sun (January 24, 2007) by M. William Salganik: The President's Health Insurance Proposal - A First Look.



"As premiums rise, however, fewer people would save taxes over time, and revenue would increase to offset early-year declines. As many as 60 percent of the insured could be paying higher taxes by the 10th year, according to an analysis by three economists at the Tax Policy Center of Urban Institute and Brookings Institution."

• Bush speech faces obstacle course, Chicago Tribune (January 23, 2007) by Mark Silva: The President's Health Insurance Proposal - A First Look. (registration required)



"There are "winners and losers" in the plan, said Jason Furman, an expert on tax policy at the Brookings Institution. "It is great that the president has come along and identified that our existing health-care system is inadequate. And he is giving more of an incentive for people who lack insurance to get insurance," he said. "But then, unfortunately, when you get to the details, some of these things have to be improved."

• What Bush's health plan means to you, CNNMoney (January 23, 2007) by Jeanne Sahadi: The President's Health Insurance Proposal - A First Look.



"Some are concerned, too, that employers may decide to stop offering healthcare plans at work and just give money to employees to buy insurance on their own. That could make it harder for less healthy individuals to buy affordable coverage, because they're not as desirable to insurers as healthy people. And some of those healthy people may decide to forego coverage altogether if it's not a default offering at work, said Robertson Williams, principal research associate at the Tax Policy Center."

• Editorial: A Good Start On Health Care Reform, Investor's Business Daily (January 22, 2007).



"Gene Steuerle, an economist with the liberal Urban Institute, said: "No failure of political nerve stands out more than the unwillingness to tackle the tax break for employer-provided insurance."

• Opinion: Looking high and low for taxes, Washington Times (January 21, 2007) by Alan Reynolds.



"The Tax Policy Center estimated that extending the 10 percent tax bracket for $43 billion a year would do nothing for the poorest fifth, save $15 a year for the second fifth, $38 for the middle fifth and $83 for the richest one-tenth of 1 percent (like Mrs. Pelosi). Since the 10 percent tax bracket has no effect on marginal tax rates on the next dollar earned, it has no beneficial impact on incentives to work or save. The sizable revenue involved would be much better spent shaving a few points off the corporate tax and highest individual tax (because businesses file under both)."

• Bush to Urge New Tax Plan for Health Care Coverage, New York Times (January 21, 2007) by Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Robert Pear. (subscription required)



"One of the nation?s leading experts on tax policy, C. Eugene Steuerle, a Treasury official in the Reagan administration who is now a senior fellow at the Urban Institute, said the proposal would probably help increase the number of people with health insurance at no cost to the budget."

• Report Lists Possible Alternatives To Widely Disliked Minimum Tax, Washington Post (January 19, 2007) by Lori Montgomery: Options to Fix the AMT.



"This is going to take some political leadership," said one of the report's authors, Leonard E. Burman, director of the Tax Policy Center, a project of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution. "Somebody's got to explain to people why this tax makes no sense, that we've been counting on it for a bunch of money, and that we've got to come up with other sources of revenue."

• Fix U.S. AMT tax by cutting deductions: groups, Reuters (January 19, 2007) by David Lawder: Options to Fix the AMT (Other Appearances: CNNMoney.com).



"In a new policy paper, The Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution said the alternative minimum tax, or AMT, threatens to ensnare 23 million taxpayers in 2007 unless Congress approves another temporary "patch" or eliminates it altogether."

• Ex - Clinton Aide Orszag Named New U.S. CBO Director, The New York Times (January 18, 2007). (subscription required)
• NYers Take Nation's Hardest Tax Wallop, New York Post (January 18, 2007) by Kenneth Lovett: Measuring Fiscal Disparities Across the U.S. States.



"Report co-author Kim Rueben said New York typically provides more government services, and that leads to higher taxes. But an upside of that, Rueben said, is that because of its larger tax base and wealthier population, New York was in a better economic position to handle the aftermath of the catastrophe of the 9/11 terrorist attacks than Louisiana was after Hurricane Katrina."

• Editorial: Sales tax hike is never a good idea, Times-Herald Record (January 18, 2007): Measuring Fiscal Disparities Across the U.S. States.



"The Business Council of New York State is touting a new study by the Urban Institute showing that state and local taxes in New York are the highest in the country. The institute's study deals with something called "tax effort," roughly equivalent to measuring how hard New York tries to keep taxes up."

• Same story on New York taxes, Buffalo Business First (January 17, 2007): Measuring Fiscal Disparities Across the U.S. States. (Other Appearances: Albany Business Review, Phoenix Business Journal, Milwaukee Business Journal, Charlotte Business Journal, San Antonio Business Journal, Washington Business Journal).



"The ranking by the nonprofit Urban Institute of the so-called "tax effort" showed that actual collection of state and local taxes was 34 percent higher than the national average. That was the highest of any state in the country. The next-closest state was Maine, at 18 percent above the national average."

• Tax break sought in Harford; Measure would help homeowners on fixed incomes, The Baltimore Sun (January 17, 2007) by Mary Gail Hare.



"Measures such as Harford's are often referred to as "circuit-breaker relief." "These programs are often implemented as a way of letting off some steam in local areas to avoid something that could be worse," said Kim Rueben, a public finance economist at the Tax Policy Center in Washington."

• Editorial: Take on the beast, not just a tentacle, The Missoulian (January 15, 2007).



"According to the Washington-based Tax Policy Center, 23 million Americans face AMT this year. That number is projected to grow to 39 million over the coming decade, as incomes rise. All of these people face significantly higher effective tax rates than people paying regular income tax."

• Editorial: Unjust tax system needs fix, The Mercury News (January 15, 2007) (Other Appearances: Belleville News-Democrat, Fort Wayne News Sentinel).
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"Without some kind of change, the AMT threatens to bite 23.4 million taxpayers in 2007, according to the Tax Policy Center, a joint venture of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution. By 2010, 32.4 million could owe the tax, including nearly half of all households earning $50,000 to $75,000 and 80 percent of those earning $100,000 to $200,000."

• AMT 3 little letters, 1 big tax headache, Chicago Tribune (January 14, 2007) by William Neikirk. (registration required) (Other Appearances: Brandenton Herald, Black Enterprise, Contra Costa Times, Sun-Sentinel).



"The Tax Policy Center, sponsored by the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, both Washington think tanks, estimated recently that 32.4 million taxpayers, or 34 percent, would be subject to the tax by 2010. By 2015, as many as 45 percent of all taxpayers could be paying the levy unless something is done, a Bush administration tax-reform advisory panel said in 2005."

• Editorial: Stealthy alternative tax morphs into monstrosity, USA Today (January 14, 2007).



"The AMT makes a joke of the regular tax system and masks the true size of the budget crisis facing the nation. Long-term budget projections are based on "current law," meaning they assume the AMT will go into full effect. Because that's unlikely to happen, the long-term projections overstate government revenue during the next 10 years by $850 billion to $1.4 trillion, the non-profit Tax Policy Center estimates."

• Taxpayers won't see relief soon, San Francisco Chronicle (January 14, 2007) by David Lazarus.



"So where does that leave taxpayers? If nothing is done, the number of people caught by the AMT will hit 23 million this year, according to the Tax Policy Center in Washington. That number soars to 39 million within 10 years."

• State agencies facing budget cuts, Waxahachie Daily Light (January 13, 2007) by Joann Livingston.



"Measuring Fiscal Disparities Across the U.S. States compares the revenue capacity and expenditure requirements of all 50 states and concludes that while Texas has greater requirements for state and local spending than most other states, it makes less effort to raise the necessary revenue. The study, which was released by the Tax Policy Center in Washington, D.C., calculates each state's revenue capacity, which is the total revenue that state and local governments could raise if they applied a national-average level of taxes and fees."

• String of Hopefuls for 2008 Choose Sides in Iraq Plan, Wall Street Journal (January 12, 2007) by John Harwood. (subscription required)



"House Speaker Pelosi identifies $500,000 earners -- a more exclusive group than party leaders have previously targeted -- as source of revenue for cutting middle-class taxes. Imposing pre-Bush 39.6% rate on those with incomes over $500,000 would raise more than $85 billion over four years, Tax Policy Center estimates."

• Washington News - Democrats Will Seek "Narrow" Tax Hikes, U.S. News and World Report (January 12, 2007).



"The Wall Street Journal (1/12, Harwood) reports in its "Washington Wire" section that congressional Democrats "seek to isolate Republicans with narrow tax-increase targets. House Speaker Pelosi identifies $500,000 earners -- a more exclusive group than party leaders have previously targeted -- as source of revenue for cutting middle-class taxes. Imposing pre-Bush 39.6% rate on those with incomes over $500,000 would raise more than $85 billion over four years, Tax Policy Center estimates."

• AMT: Keep it or kill it, you'll pay for it, CNNMoney.com (January 11, 2007) by Jeanne Sahadi.



"Change tax preferences, thereby increasing many's tax liability: If AMT is repealed, one option might be to repeal the state and local income tax deduction under the regular tax code as well. That alone could more than make up for the decline in AMT revenue, assuming the tax cuts are allowed to expire, said Len Burman, director of the Tax Policy Center."

• Sen. Brownback embraces a flat tax in his 2008 presidential bid, McClatchy Newspapers (January 10, 2007) by Matt Stearns (Other Appearances: The State, Myrtle Beach Sun News, Centre Daily Times, Biloxi Sun Herald, Monterey County Herald, Contra Costa Times, San Luis Obispo Tribune, San Jose Mercury News, Charlotte Observer, Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, Macon Telegraph, Belleville News-Democrat, Fort Wayne News Sentinel, Kansas City Star, Bradenton Herald)



"You take care of the people at the bottom, you cut taxes for the people at the top and, if you're keeping the same size government, you have to raise taxes on people in the middle," said Len Burman, director of the centrist Tax Policy Center, a Washington research center."

• IRS Urged to Abandon Private Debt Collection; Taxpayer Advocate Says System Lacks Transparency, Assails AMT and Tax Gap, Washington Post (January 10, 2007) by Kathleen Day (Other appearances: San Francisco Chronicle, Mail Tribune).



"The Tax Policy Center, a nonprofit joint research project of the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, estimates that if Congress had not frozen the AMT in 2005 at a level where it now affects nearly 4 million filers, it would have applied to more than 12.7 million out of more than 130 million individual tax filings, up from 1 million in 1999. By 2010, if Congress doesn't abolish it or freeze it at current levels, about 30 million taxpayers will be subject to the AMT, or about 92 percent of households with incomes between $100,000 and $500,000."

• Get Ready for a Sarbanes-Oxley of a Tax Increase: Amity Shlaes, Bloomberg News (January 10, 2007) by Amity Shlaes.



"Peter Orszag, the scholar chosen by the Democrats to direct the Congressional Budget Office, has likewise suggested cap adjustment. Some Republicans are willing to trade cap abolition for privatization of some share of Social Security."

• Renewing sales tax deduction could get harder, lawmakers say, The Examiner (January 9, 2007) by Suzanne Gamboa (Other appearances: Fort Worth Star Telegram, KRIS-TV, Orange Leader).



"Leonard Burman, co-director of the Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, said the House pay-as-you-go rules make it harder to enact any kinds of tax breaks like the sales tax deduction or spending programs."

• It's all about how you raise minimum wage (Interview with Len Burman), Marketplace (January 9, 2007).



"Just because lawmakers raise the minimum wage, doesn't mean it won't come back for debate a few years down the road. The reason is that the minimum wage is not automatically adjusted for inflation. Every year it becomes less valuable."

• A Bad, Bipartisan Tax Plan, Washington Post (January 8, 2007) by Sebastian Mallaby.



"Repealing the AMT would preempt that sort of bargain; but it would also be bad on its own terms. For all its administrative clunkiness, the AMT is wonderfully progressive: 90 percent of its revenue comes from those earning more than $100,000 a year, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center."

• House Adopts Pay-as-You-Go Rules, Washington Post (January 6, 2007) by Lori Montgomery.



"Coming up with that kind of cash is possible, budget experts say, but doing so is probably going to be politically unpalatable. For example, Leonard E. Burman, co-director of the Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, is working on options for covering the cost of a repeal. Among them: Allowing the president's tax cuts to expire and eliminating the federal deduction for state and local income taxes."

• Can Bush's Tax Cuts Survive?, Wall Street Journal (January 6, 2007) by Nick Timiraos. (subscription required)



"There's less support, particularly among Democrats, for tax cuts that are seen as benefiting the most affluent. That includes tax cuts on capital gains and dividends and the cut in the top two tax brackets, all of which would cost an estimated $558 billion through 2016 (less the amount of taxes people would save by reducing their capital gains realizations and other tax avoidance efforts), according to the Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute."

• House's 'Pay-Go' Rule Makes AMT Relief Harder, Wall Street Journal (January 6, 2007) by Sarah Lueck. (subscription required)



"The AMT was designed to prevent upper-income people from avoiding paying taxes altogether, but it wasn't indexed for inflation. Without a change to the system, that would, over time, require a growing number of middle-class families to pay higher taxes. Congress has passed temporary patches to prevent this. But without a change in law, more than 30 million taxpayers would be subject to the tax in 2010, according to the Tax Policy Center, a joint venture of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution."

• Jackson Counts On Congress In Wall Street Bid, Wall Street Journal (January 6, 2007) by Deborah Solomon. (subscription required)

"It's going to really constrain what Congress can do," said Len Berman, director of the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan Washington think tank."
• New rule: Pay as you go, Marketplace (January 5, 2007).



"Eliminating the AMT would cost more than $750 billion in lost revenue over 10 years. To make that up, Len Burman of the Tax Policy Center think tank says Congress would most likely have to raise other taxes. You could pay for eliminating the AMT by raising tax rates under the regular income tax, or you could eliminate the state and local tax deduction. Or you could re-target the AMT so it just affected very-high-income people."

• Politicians cross aisle to fix alternative minimum tax, The Daily Transcript (January 5, 2007): The Individual Alternative Minimum Tax: 11 Key Facts and Projections. (subscription required)



"Back in 1970, only 20,000 taxpayers were subject to the AMT. However, in 2006, the Tax Policy Center estimates 3.5 million households fall into the category that is eligible for the higher tariff, which averaged $6,782. And, unless Congress acts, the number will swell to more than 23 million taxpayers."

• Baucus Tax Bills Aim to Repeal AMT, Preserve Research Credit, Wall Street Journal (January 5, 2007): The Individual Alternative Minimum Tax: 11 Key Facts and Projections. (subscription required)



"It would cost at least $750 billion in tax revenue over the next decade, according to the Tax Policy Center."

• Economic concerns top agenda for new Congress, Asbury Park Press (January 5, 2007) by Marie Cocco: The Distribution of the 2001-2006 Tax Cuts.



"The elections have not reversed the laws of economics," the president wrote in The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday. Making his tax cuts permanent, he argued, will do the trick. Those cuts, according to the nonpartisan Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center, have given an average of $112,000 to households with incomes of $1 million or more, and $750 to those in the middle of the income spectrum."

• AMT may thwart best-laid budget plans, CNNMoney.com (January 4, 2007) by Jeanne Sahadi.



"There are ways to repeal or reform AMT without increasing the deficit, Burman said. For instance, if Congress repealed the state and local tax deduction that alone could make up for the revenue loss, assuming the tax cuts are allowed to expire, Burman said. If the cuts are made permanent, other changes would be required as well."

• Senators seek repeal of alternative minimum tax, MarketWatch (January 4, 2007) by William L. Watts: The Individual Alternative Minimum Tax: 11 Key Facts and Projections.



"Repealing the AMT would reduce revenues by $750 billion through 2016 if President Bush's first-term tax cuts expire, as planned, and by $1.3 trillion if they are extended, according to the Tax Policy Center."

• Editorial: Balancing act, Houston Chronicle (January 4, 2007): Measuring Fiscal Disparities Across the U.S. States.



"A study just released by the Tax Policy Center and the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston calculates that although Texas has greater needs than all but five other states, its efforts to raise revenue rank 37th. That suggests that Texans are far from being overtaxed. Paying less into public coffers, they in turn are poorly served by state and local government compared to their counterparts across the country."

• Baucus, Grassley introduce bill to repeal AMT, CNNMoney.com (January 4, 2007) by Jeanne Sahadi: The Individual Alternative Minimum Tax: 11 Key Facts and Projections



"As a result, the number of taxpayers nabbed by AMT will jump from 3.5 million in 2006 to 23 million for tax year 2007 and to 39 million by 2017, according to the Tax Policy Center. That assumes President Bush's tax cuts implemented since 2001 expire as scheduled. If they don't, then 53 million taxpayers -- or about half of all taxpayers -- will pay the AMT by 2017."

• New Congress likely to favor consumers, MSNBC.com (January 4, 2007) by Vanessa Richardson.



"Congress has dealt with the AMT on a stop-gap basis by increasing the exemption level every year," said Roberton Williams, a senior research associate at the Tax Policy Center in Washington. "Nothing is covered for 2007 yet, so it must be addressed." If not, he said, the AMT will hit 19 million taxpayers, compared with 4 million in 2006."

• Rubin Returns, Guiding Paulson on Dollar, Pelosi on Deficit, Bloomberg News (January 4, 2007) by Rich Miller.



"In a sign of Rubin's growing clout, the Democrats chose Peter Orszag, director of the Hamilton project, to lead the Congressional Budget Office."

• Editorial: Bush can't be blamed for being a spendthrift, Bangor Daily News, (January 4, 2007).



"Instead, says Mr. Greenstein, "the president?s tax cuts are the single largest factor driving the return of deficits." By 2010, these tax cuts, he points out, will cost more than three times the federal funding for education - elementary, secondary and post-secondary. They will be worth the cost of the Departments of Education, Veterans Affairs, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, State and Energy combined. The Brookings Institution-Urban Institute for Tax Policy Center shows why: In 2006, the average household with income above $1 million will receive $112,000 from tax cuts enacted since 2001."

• Making the Most of 2007's Tax Breaks, Wall Street Journal (January 3, 2007) by Tom Herman (subscription required).



"And unless Congress overhauls the law, more than 23 million people will be ensnared by the alternative minimum tax this year, up from 3.5 million in 2006, according to estimates by the Tax Policy Center."