How should governments use the considerable revenue carbon taxes can raise? There are many options for cutting other taxes, increasing spending, or reducing borrowing. We organize the options into four goals: offset the new burdens that a carbon tax places on consumers, producers, communities,...
Corrective taxes can encourage healthier, safer, and less polluting behavior. But how should governments use their revenue? Options abound to cut other taxes, boost spending, or reduce borrowing. We organize those uses into four categories: offsetting new burdens, furthering the same goal,...
What we eat and drink can cause obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and other conditions. In response, many governments have enacted or are considering taxes on unhealthy food and drinks. This report evaluates the rationale behind such taxes; reviews evidence on their effects; analyzes different...
Does the traditional rationale for taxing externalities also apply to internalities? Yes, if the goal is maximizing efficiency. Efficient taxes reflect any harms consumers overlook, whether to others or themselves. Yes with caution, if the goal also includes equity. Internality taxes fall most...
The case for a carbon tax is strong. A well-designed tax could efficiently reduce the emissions that cause climate change and encourage innovation in cleaner technologies. The resulting revenue could finance tax reductions, spending priorities, or deficit reduction—policies that could offset the...
In a contribution to the Policy Dialogue on Entrepreneurship blog of Kauffman.org. Joseph Rosenberg and Donald Marron examine how tax policy affects investment incentives for startup companies. Startups often make losses, and thus cannot make immediate use of the R&D tax credit, accelerated...
We examine how tax policies alter investment incentives, with a particular focus on startup and innovative businesses. Consistent with prior work, we find that existing policies impose widely varying effective tax rates on investments in different industries and activities, favor debt over...
Student loans, mortgage guarantees, and other lending programs create special challenges for federal budgeting. Under official budget rules, these programs are projected to bring in $200 billion over the next decade. Under an alternative, favored by many analysts, they appear to lose $100...
Giving people cash is a great way to soften COVID-19’s economic blow. But it’s sparked a classic debate. Should the federal government give money to...
Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and a score of Democratic cosponsors want to use the tax code to discourage direct-to-consumer advertising by drug companies. Their bill,...
Carbon dividends are the hottest idea in climate policy. A diverse mix of progressive and conservative voices are backing the idea of returning carbon tax...
Record stock buybacks—driven in part by the corporate tax changes in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA)—have sparked a media and political furor. Unfortunately,...
The tax treatment of employee stock and options used as a compensation mechanism raises a classic Goldilocks problem. We want the tax burden on this...
How fast will the US economy grow? When mainstream forecasters consult their crystal balls, they typically see real economic growth around 2 percent annually over...
The House Freedom Caucus wants to eliminate the Budget Analysis Division at the Congressional Budget Office and rely on outside research organizations, including the Urban...
Soda taxes won big at the ballot box in November. Voters in Boulder, Colorado, and three California cities (Albany, Oakland, and San Francisco) approved new...
Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump agree on one thing: Managers of private equity funds should pay ordinary tax rates on their carried interest, not the...
Britain will soon tax sugary drinks. Whether you love that idea or hate it, you’ve got to give the Brits credit: They’ve designed a better version of...
On Monday, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) defended the current method for budgeting for federal lending programs, known as “credit reform...
Should you face an extra tax if you drink soda? Eat potato chips? Uncork some wine? Light up a cigarette or joint? Toast yourself in a tanning booth...
Climate change is hot. From the pope’s encyclical to the upcoming United Nations conference in Paris, leaders are debating how to slow and eventually...
Treasury closed the financial books on fiscal 2014 last week. As my colleague Howard Gleckman noted , the top line figures all came in close to their...
