Widespread and profound public misinformation about government presents a serious challenge to democratic accountability. This paper demonstrates that two of the most common examples of public misperception may be systematically overestimated; public misperceptions of “foreign aid” spending and...

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

Unemployment insurance (UI) helps workers smooth their consumption after employment loss, but may also diminish their incentive to quickly find new jobs, thereby lengthening spells of unemployment and raising the aggregate unemployment rate. Less appreciated is the effect that UI has on...

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 allows owners of certain pass-through businesses (such as sole proprietorships, partnerships, and S corporations) to take a new deduction. However, the structure of the deduction is complicated because its generosity depends on many factors, such as the nature...

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), under the conference agreement, would reduce taxes on average for all income groups. However, not all taxpayers would benefit to the same degree, and some would pay higher taxes. Even taxpayers with the same income could pay different amounts of tax depending...

The Tax Policy Center has released an analysis of the macroeconomic effects of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act as passed by Congress. We find the legislation would boost US gross domestic product (GDP) 0.8 percent in 2018 and would have little effect on GDP in 2027 or 2037. The resulting increase in...

The Tax Policy Center has released distributional estimates of the conference agreement for the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act as filed on December 15, 2017. We find the bill would reduce taxes on average for all income groups in both 2018 and 2025. In general, higher income households receive larger...

Both the Senate and the House versions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) would reduce taxes on average for all income groups. However, not all taxpayers would benefit to the same degree, and some would pay higher taxes. Even taxpayers with the same income could pay different amounts of tax...

Both territorial and worldwide systems for taxing income of multinational companies are difficult to implement because the concepts of income source and corporate residence on which the systems are based have become less economically meaningful. Recent legislation enacted by the House and Senate...

The Tax Policy Center has released an analysis of the macroeconomic effects of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act as passed by the Senate on December 2, 2017. We find the legislation would boost US gross domestic product (GDP) 0.7 percent in 2018, have little effect on GDP in 2027, and boost GDP 0.1...