This paper examines the evolution of marginal federal income tax rates from 1980 to 1995. Those rates fell dramatically for most taxpayers. In 1980, three-quarters of taxpayers faced statutory tax rates above 15 percent, but by 1995, less than one-quarter of taxpayers were in that situation. The...
Previous theoretical analyses of the capital gains tax have suggested that investors have considerable opportunity to avoid the tax. Yet, past empirical work found little evidence of such activity. Though confirming past findings that avoidance of tax on realized capital gains is not prevalent,...
The Congressional leadership that crafted the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 wants the tax system to be so simple that taxpayers can fill out a tax form on a postcard. Judging by some of the choices they made in the new law (with lots of help from the President), they had in mind a postcard the...
Republican leaders in Congress have refused to raise the federal debt limit unless the Biden Administration agrees to major spending reductions to reduce the national...
Congress should eliminate the debt ceiling this year. It serves no useful purpose. It doesn’t contribute to fiscal discipline, and breaching it entails large, potentially,...
On April 1, 2002, a press release announced, “The Tax Policy Center, a new joint venture between the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution” was...
Senators Mike Crapo (R-ID) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) recently asked for an investigation into the Internal Revenue Service’s research activities, including its use of contractors...
Partisan congressional squabbling over the nation’s debt limit once again threatens to shut down the federal government and perhaps trigger a worldwide financial crisis. The...
President Biden has proposed to tax capital gains earned by high-income households more like other income. This is a significant reform that would close loopholes...
Capitalism produces a dizzying array of products and, in the process, generates an enormous amount of wealth. But capitalism creates a problem in that the...
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...
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...
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...
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...
