Brief

[Charleston (WV) Sunday Gazette Mail] The growing complexity of the income tax, proposed tax-free "savings accounts," and expansions of tax loopholes are poisoning the income tax and creating a consumption tax by default.

February 23, 2003
Leonard E. Burman
Brief

[Los Angeles Times] On May 15, the Senate passed a tax cut that would probably prove even more costly and less responsible than the Bush Administration. The president's dividend-relief proposal would cost almost $400 billion over the next 10 years. The Senate version could end up costing...

May 20, 2003
Leonard E. BurmanPeter Orszag
Brief

[Newsday] The tax bill that President George W. Bush signed into law last week sped up most of the 2001 tax cuts' provisions that were supposed to phase in gradually. Left out, however, were provisions that would have helped low-income working familiesincluding the increase in the refund...

June 6, 2003
Leonard E. Burman
Brief

[ Brookings Institution] This brief argues that the time is ripe for an integrated credit that combines the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and the CTC into an Earned Income Child Credit (EICC). The proposed EICC simplifies and standardizes the definition of qualifying children and those...

July 1, 2003
Adam CarassoC. Eugene Steuerle
Brief

In 2001, Congress significantly expanded the scope of Individual Retirement Accounts (IRA). This paper uses variation in IRA eligibility rules in the 1980s and 1990s to determine whether more widespread access to IRAs undermines traditional employer-sponsored pensions, especially 401(k)-type...

December 1, 2003
Leonard E. BurmanRichard W. JohnsonDeborah Kobes
Brief

Recent and proposed fiscal policies--the tax cuts, proposals to make them permanent, and the Medicare prescription drug bill--will hurt economic prospects for most of today's children and all future generations. The programs will leave economic growth largely unchanged, but will redistribute...

July 1, 2004
William G. GaleLaurence J. Kotlikoff
Brief

[Marketplace] While everyone is focusing on those things President Bush and Senator John Kerry disagree about, perhaps they should be paying attention to those things on which they do agree. Senior fellow and Tax Policy Center co-director, Len Burman, takes a look at what he calls the "...

September 21, 2004
Leonard E. Burman
Brief

The American Jobs Creation Act of 2004 includes a major attempt to reform the tax rules for deferred compensation arrangements covering corporate managers. This paper examines the tax policy and corporate-governance policy objectives of the reform effort, explores the shortcomings of the...

November 23, 2004
Michael Doran
Brief

For nearly a decade, federal higher education subsidies have increasingly been delivered through the tax code rather than through direct spending programs such as grants, loan subsidies, and work study. This paper reviews the results of using new modules in the TRIM and Tax Policy Center...

August 19, 2005
Leonard E. BurmanElaine MaagPeter OrszagJohn O'Hare
Brief

The individual alternative minimum tax (AMT) was originally designed to limit the amount of tax sheltering and to assure that high-income filers paid at least some tax. The current AMT, however, has strayed from those original goals and under current law the tax will affect over 23 million...

January 19, 2007
Leonard E. BurmanGreg LeisersonWilliam G. Gale