In response to the financial market crisis and Great Recession, there has been a resurgence of interest in financial transaction taxes (FTTs) around the world. We estimate that a well-designed FTT could raise about $50 billion per year in the United States and would be quite progressive. We...
The Statistics of Income (SOI) Division of IRS prepares a publicly available file, the Public Use File, from its annual sample of income tax returns. The PUF is a critical data source for tax policy analysis. To insure taxpayer confidentiality, SOI applies disclosure avoidance procedures to the...
This paper describes the major provisions in the Tax Reform Act of 2014, the comprehensive tax reform plan released on February 26, 2014, by Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI). It also presents the Tax Policy Centers analysis of the plans revenue impact beyond the 10-year budget...
Errors in the formulas for computing payroll tax for the self-employed result in their paying less payroll taxes than workers with the same earnings. All self-employed workers benefit from these errors, but those with high earnings benefit disproportionately. A provision in Ways and Means...
This document reviews several notable tax proposals in President Obamas fiscal year 2015 Budget. These include expanding the earned income tax credit (EITC) for workers without qualifying children, expanding the child and dependent care tax credit for families with young children, conforming...
In "100 Million Unnecessary Returns," Michael Graetz, professor of law at Columbia University, proposed sweeping tax reform that would remove most current taxpayers from the income tax rolls, reform the corporate income tax, significantly reduce the top individual and corporate rates, and adopt...
Newly released W-2 data from the Statistics of Income (SOI) Division of IRS describe in detail the wages and retirement contributions of workers from 2008 through 2010. SOI economists Kevin Pierce and Jon Gober provide an overview of the data and compare them with (much less detailed) data for...
This document reviews several notable tax proposals in President Obamas Fiscal Year 2014 Budget. These include a 28 percent limit on certain tax expenditures, a cap on tax preferences for retirement savers with high balances, a minimum tax ("Buffett Rule") on high-income taxpayers, alternative...
Discussions of the effect of taxes on international competitiveness usually focus on corporate income tax rates, but individual income tax rates may also affect a countrys (or states) ability to compete for workers.
Republicans and some leading economists have raised concerns about the cost, fairness, and stimulative effects of proposed cash payments in the pandemic relief legislation Congress...
Some Senate Republicans say they want to scale back President Biden’s proposed $1,400 relief payments. Last week, my Tax Policy Center colleague Howard Gleckman proposed...
