Expert

Eric Toder

Nonresident Fellow

Before joining Urban, I had a long career in government, including three years as a political appointee heading the staff of tax policy economists in the Treasury Department. I joined Urban after leaving government service because it is a place where I could continue to do high-quality research on important issues, surrounded by great colleagues. I value the commitment to nonpartisan and independent analysis, and the encouragement Urban provides to seek better ways of communicating research findings and basic facts about the economy and policy issues to non-technical audiences.

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Primary tasks

Brief

Individual Taxes

Effects of Tax Incentives on Homeownership

Federal tax law provides several tax benefits for homeowners. This chartbook focuses on the home mortgage interest deduction. We provide updated estimates of the distributional effects of the home mortgage interest deduction, show how those estimates could change if people pay down their home...

July 1, 2020

Chenxi Lu Eric Toder Surachai Khitatrakun Robert McClelland

Brief

Individual Taxes

Tax Incentives for Retirement Savings

Federal tax law provides substantial tax incentives for retirement saving. These include the deferral of taxes on contributions to retirement savings accounts by employers, employees, and self-employed taxpayers and the earnings on these contributions until the funds are withdrawn in retirement...

May 11, 2020

Eric Toder Surachai Khitatrakun Aravind Boddupalli

Research report

Individual Taxes

Are Tax Expenditures Worth the Money?

In this report, we evaluate major federal tax expenditures. We distinguish between tax expenditures that are effectively spending programs and those that are departures from a comprehensive income tax but are not essentially spending substitutes. Most major tax expenditures have some policy...

January 22, 2020

Frank Sammartino Eric Toder

Brief

Individual Taxes

How Did the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act Change Tax Expenditures?

The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act reduced tax expenditures but by much less than the Tax Reform Act of 1986, relative to the size of the economy. In this report, we review the major changes from the new law to individual (nonbusiness) and business tax expenditures. The former category includes tax...

January 22, 2020

Frank Sammartino Eric Toder

Brief

Individual Taxes

Tax Expenditure Basics

Tax expenditures are the revenue losses attributable to special provisions in tax laws that reduce taxes for certain sources or uses of income or for certain groups of taxpayers. They are called tax expenditures because many of them effectively serve the same function as direct spending programs...

January 22, 2020

Frank Sammartino Eric Toder

Brief

State and Local Issues

State Income Tax Expenditures

In this brief, we consider both personal and business income tax expenditures at the state level. We use California, Massachusetts, Minnesota, and the District of Columbia as examples. We separate tax expenditures into those that occur because of conformity with federal tax provisions and those...

January 17, 2020

Aravind Boddupalli Frank Sammartino Eric Toder

Brief

Individual Taxes

What are the Largest Nonbusiness Tax Expenditures?

In this brief we consider the largest nonbusiness tax expenditures in the individual income tax. We provide a description of these provisions, estimates of their cost and the distribution of their tax benefits across income groups, and briefly summarize their effects. We consider tax...

July 17, 2019

Frank Sammartino Eric Toder

Brief

Business Taxes

What are the Largest Business Tax Expenditures?

In this brief, we list the 10 major business tax expenditures with the largest revenue losses, as defined by the Office of Tax Analysis (OTA) of the US Treasury Department and the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT). We provide a brief description of each provision and briefly...

July 17, 2019

Frank Sammartino Eric Toder

Research report

Federal Budget and Economy

Distributional Effects of Individual Income Tax Expenditures After the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act

This paper provides estimates of the total cost of and distributional effects of nonbusiness tax expenditures claimed on individual tax returns after enactment of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, taking account of interactions among provisions. Nonbusiness tax expenditures will reduce tax...

June 5, 2019

Eric Toder Daniel Berger

From TaxVox

Federal Budget and Economy
Examining the Tax Rules at Risk in SCOTUS Moore v. US Case
October 11, 2023 –
Later this year, the US Supreme Court will hear Moore v. United States , a case in which the plaintiffs are challenging the constitutionality of...
Individual Taxes
A Carbon Tax is Not the Solution to Global Climate Change
October 5, 2021 –
The definition of insanity, according to a famous quotation (often mis-attributed to Albert Einstein) is “doing the same thing over and over and expecting different...
Federal Budget and Economy
Tax Expenditures Remain A Significant Share of The Economy
April 20, 2021 –
Despite years of widespread discussion among lawmakers about the need to broaden the federal income tax base, tax expenditures have remained remarkably stable as a...
Individual Taxes
How Would Paydown Affect The Reform Of Home Mortgage Interest Deduction?
July 21, 2020 –
Reforming the mortgage interest deduction (MID) could raise federal tax revenue and make the tax system more progressive. But some taxpayers, especially those with high...
Business Taxes
Is A Modified Destination-Based Income Tax The Solution For Taxing Global Multinational Corporations?
April 15, 2020 –
Tax authorities around the world are in an increasingly contentious battle over how to tax the income of multinational corporations . In 2017, the US...
Federal Budget and Economy
What Tax Experts Can Contribute: Lessons from World War II
March 31, 2020 –
The United States is facing an immense human tragedy. According to one influential analysis , up to 2 million Americans could die from COVID-19 in...
State and Local Issues
States Adopt Some Federal Tax Expenditures And Add Others
January 24, 2020 –
In fiscal year 2020, Georgia will spend nearly $500 million in film and television tax credits in return for the promise of new jobs and...
The Tax Cuts And Jobs Act Reduced Tax Expenditures But By Much Less Than The 1986 Tax Reform Act
December 10, 2019 –
For years, tax reformers have advocated reducing marginal tax rates, broadening the tax base, and eliminating provisions that provide special benefits to select forms of...
What The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act Means For Tax Expenditures
June 5, 2019 –
In a new paper , my former Tax Policy Center colleague Daniel Berger and I calculate that the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA)...
Despite the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the Federal Tax System is Becoming More Progressive Over Time
September 18, 2018 –
The Tax Policy Center’s newly released baseline tables tell a nuanced and somewhat paradoxical story. For over a decade, legislative changes and real income growth...
Campaigns, Proposals, and Reforms
In A Trade War, The Enemy Is Us
July 23, 2018 –
Walt Kelly ’s comic strip character Pogo said: “We have met the enemy and he is us.” It seems a particularly apt metaphor for the...
Distributional Effects of a Carbon Tax Depend on How the Revenue is Spent
July 19, 2018 –
Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy just released a series of papers on how a carbon tax would reduce greenhouse gas emissions, affect economic...
Business Taxes
Is the TCJA An Accountants’ Bonanza Or Nightmare?
June 12, 2018 –
In a Harvard Business Review article last December, I described how the complex and poorly vetted provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA)...
Business Taxes
Eliminate The Deduction For Qualified Business Income And Require Most Firms To Be Taxed As Pass-Throughs
June 4, 2018 –
The most problematic provision of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) may be its 20 percent deduction for qualified business income (QBI) of owners...
1986 RIP: Different Tax Rates for Different Income Sources
March 16, 2018 –
The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) was the most far-reaching tax legislation since the Tax Reform Act of 1986 (TRA86). It also put...
Business Taxes
Explaining the TCJA’s International Reforms
February 2, 2018 –
In a blog post introducing a recent article I wrote for AEI’s Economic Perspectives, AEI’s Stan Veuger describes this approach as replacing “subdued worldwide corporate...
Comparing the House and Senate Tax Cut Bills to the GOP Presidential Campaign Promises
November 30, 2017 –
The New York Times reports that some Republican senators are clamoring for larger tax cuts, especially for pass-through business income. The Times says that while...
Campaigns, Proposals, and Reforms
The House Ways and Means Tax Bill Would Raise the National Debt to 123 percent of GDP by 2037
November 16, 2017 –
The Tax Policy Center estimates that the House Ways and Means Committee’s version of the Tax Cut and Jobs Act (TCJA) would increase the ratio...
Business Taxes
Navigating the confusing language of international tax reform
December 14, 2016 –
There has been considerable confusion about how to describe the treatment of international taxation in corporate tax reform plans. The House GOP blueprint , for...
Individual Taxes
How a mortgage tax credit would affect borrowers of different incomes in different states
December 7, 2016 –
This post is part of the Tax Policy Center’s new series, Tax Line , which digs into the data behind the day’s most pressing tax...
Campaigns, Proposals, and Reforms
Trump Adviser Comments on Taxes and Trade Turn Economic Theory On Its Head
October 14, 2016 –
Yesterday’s presentation by Donald Trump's economic adviser, Peter Navarro, at the Tax Policy Center’s discussion of the presidential candidate tax plans reminded me of a...
Campaigns, Proposals, and Reforms
Trump’s Phony Claim about Carried Interest
October 10, 2016 –
When asked in last night’s debate about what he would do to make sure the rich pay their fair share of taxes, Donald Trump said...
Federal Budget and Economy
A value added tax is not a trade barrier
September 28, 2016 –
Donald Trump peddled an economic fallacy in Monday night’s Presidential debate by suggesting that Mexico’s value added tax, or VAT, gives its producers an advantage...
Business Taxes
Treasury’s New Regulations are an Important Shift in U.S. Tax Policy
April 12, 2016 –
Treasury’s new regulations limit the ability of foreign-based multinationals to reduce taxable profits on U.S.-source income. This is a major...
Business Taxes
Corporate Tax Inversions are Only Part of the Problem
December 10, 2015 –
The planned merger of Pfizer and Allergen to create an Irish parent company, a transaction often called an inversion, has rekindled concerns about U...

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Eric Toder

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From TaxVox