In 1970, Philadelphia’s Franklin Institute got a Moog synthesizer —a giant, unwieldy computer that created music. The sound was weird and quite evidently electronic. My...

Back in 1991, Saturday Night Live spoofed politicians who see capital gains tax cuts as a panacea. In one sketch, after being frozen for eons,...

Congress is about to pass a massive economic stimulus package that will, among other things, send cash to most American households. The so-called rebates amount...

Pi Day is one of my favorite holidays, where I have a chance to celebrate math, pies, and puns. All of which I love. This...

On Friday, Elizabeth Warren released her financing plan for Medicare for All . It is predictably wonky and politically courageous—new spending is way more popular...

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) cut federal tax revenues by nearly $2 trillion over its first decade, with almost all the benefit going...

A new Tax Policy Center analysis finds that the vast majority of households that paid the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) before the 2017 Tax Cuts...

In a new paper , I propose a universal earned income tax credit (UEITC)—a one-for-one match on the first $10,000 of earnings delivered through a...

Alice Rivlin made the world a better place in so many ways. She will forgive me for ignoring most of them in this brief essay...

In Open: The Progressive Case for Free Trade, Immigration, and Global Capital , Kimberly Clausing has written a comprehensive and accessible analysis of three of...

The Treasury Department and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) recently agreed that OMB would review many tax regulations before they are released, a...

Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Ro Khanna (D-CA) just introduced the ‘‘ Stop Bad Employers by Zeroing Out Subsidies Act ’’ (or Stop-BEZOS) that would punish...

During primary season in 2000, I came upon my boss—a longtime Democratic insider—reading John McCain's tax plan. “It’s really good,” he said, and a lot...

In response to my post attempting to shoot down the Trump Administration’s trial balloon re capital gains indexation, a financial advisor wondered if I might...

The Trump Administration reportedly is thinking about using its executive authority to redefine capital gains so only returns from the sale of assets in excess...

National Economic Council chair Larry Kudlow reportedly wants the IRS to redefine capital gains to include only returns from the sale of assets in excess of inflation. Were it feasible, it would make sense to measure all income and expense in real terms. But indexing capital gains alone by executive fiat would make no sense. It would cut capital gains taxes by up to $20 billion a year for the richest Americans and open the door to a raft of new, inefficient tax shelters. And it would do all this without the approval of Congress.

A new paper and brief explore how estate and inheritance taxes (or wealth transfer taxes) affect entrepreneurs and would-be entrepreneurs. It is a contentious issue...

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) limits the itemized deduction for state and local taxes (SALT) on federal individual income tax returns to $10,000...

The centerpiece of the new tax law is a cut in the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent. Proponents promise the lower rate will bring jobs and investment to the United States and boost economic growth significantly.

The individual alternative minimum tax (AMT) looks like it may survive yet another tax overhaul. But the latest incarnation of the tax may look very...

Congress is rushing to rewrite the tax code before Christmas. True tax reform would be a wonderful present for America, but the current tax bills...

Yesterday my twitter feed exploded with cranky tweets about White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders’s press briefing, which started with an anecdote about bar tabs...

The GOP tax reform proposal may limit contributions to traditional 401k plans, while continuing to allow contributions to Roth accounts. It is borrowing in disguise--intended to skirt the borrowing limits in the congressional budget resolution--and may also undermine workers' retirement security.

While the Unified Framework announced by the Trump Administration and Congressional leadership last month would not repeal the home mortgage interest deduction (MID), other provisions...

The Trump Administration and key congressional Republicans have proposed repealing the itemized deduction for state and local taxes as one way to help pay for...