Increased demand for better use of evidence in policymaking has sparked bipartisan support for better evaluation of federal spending programs. Tax expenditures, spending-like subsidies embedded in the tax code, cost taxpayers roughly as much as domestic discretionary programs, yet receive little...

This paper examines the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) of 2017, the largest tax overhaul since 1986. The new tax law makes substantial changes to the rates and bases of both the individual and corporate income taxes, cutting the corporate income tax rate to 21 percent, redesigning international...

These tables show the expected present value at age 65 of benefits received in retirement and taxes paid over a career for households with different wage and marriage histories. The underlying data come from the Social Security Administration and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS...

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 leaves many promises of tax reform unfulfilled. In this paper, we examine the plan’s prospects to boost future growth, and discuss fundamental reforms that would boost the stock of capital and generate sustained, long-term growth. After making the case that the...

The Tax Policy Center (TPC), in conjunction with the Internal Revenue Service Office of Research, Applied Analytics and Statistics (RAAS), has recently developed distributional estimates of individual compliance costs for tax filers. This paper describes the process used by TPC to incorporate...

We examine the budget outlook, given new Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projections that reflect the recently enacted tax bill and spending deals. The prospect of routine trillion-dollar deficits has dominated public response to CBO’s report, but the underlying problem is even more serious....

Children under age 6 experience the highest rates of poverty of any age group and are particularly vulnerable to poverty’s lasting effects. The child tax credit (CTC) provides a $2,000 per child credit for children under age 17 (along with a credit of up to $500 per dependent 17 and older). But...

The Tax Cut and Jobs Act (TCJA) will reduce individual income taxes on average for all income groups and in all states. Unlike prior Tax Policy Center reports, this analysis focuses on the distribution of the individual income tax changes, and does not include changes in the corporate income tax...

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 paper surveys evidence on the effect of estate and inheritance taxes on entrepreneurship and presents some new evidence. We use the...

This paper provides new estimates of the number and characteristics of same-sex married couples after Supreme Court rulings in 2013 and 2015 established rights to same-sex marriage. Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) subsequently ruled that same-sex spouses would be treated as...