I was raised to believe that our first allegiance must be to the truth. In the past I’ve been fortunate to work for federal agencies that present facts and data in a nonpartisan fashion. I’m now excited to work at the Urban Institute, where I can similarly apply an evidence-based approach to important policy questions.
The earned income tax credit (EITC) and child tax credit (CTC) provide substantial benefits to working families with children. The EITC also provides modest benefits to workers without custodial children, often called “childless workers” for tax purposes. Together, the credits lift almost 9...
This report describes the Tax Policy Center (TPC) Microsimulation Model’s revamped home mortgage interest deduction (MID) module. The TPC tax model uses the module for simulating proposals that reform the MID. The new MID module improves upon the prior one in accounting for potential changes in...
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...
Until now TPC’s basic distributional analysis did not separately examine charitable contributions. As part of this research project, we have created a new module that extends the capacity of our microsimulation model to simulate the effect of proposed policy changes on charitable contributions....
This chartbook explores the implications of current-law income tax incentives for charitable donations along with several alternatives for tax deductions that are more universally available.
This paper uses a large panel of transaction-level capital asset sales data to investigate whether tax responsiveness varies with economic conditions. We estimate the tax elasticity associated with a large notch in the capital gains tax schedule, when the tax treatment changes from higher,...
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was passed into law on a dramatically accelerated schedule. That speed and the enormous scope of the TJCA and its individual elements suggests that alternatives may have been overlooked. The consequences of a proposed change in tax law are usually estimated with a...
In this report, we use a panel of anonymized data derived from income tax returns filed between 1999 and 2010 and Social Security benefits data to study how the labor force participation of retirement-age couples responds to taxation. We examine the responses of primary and secondary earners of...
Despite its relatively small role in the federal taxation system—accounting for less than 1 percent of revenues—the estate and gift tax is controversial. This paper surveys evidence on the effect of estate and inheritance taxes on entrepreneurship and presents some new evidence. We use the...
Inflation last year reached its highest level in the United States since 1981. As a result, the IRS announced the largest inflation adjustment for individual...
Starting in 2018, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA) dramatically raised the standard deduction, reducing the number of filers who reported their...
In response to two recent mass shootings, Representative Don Beyer (D-VA) introduced a bill that would impose a 1,000 percent excise tax on certain guns...
The synthetic control method (SCM) is a relatively new and valuable tool that makes it possible to measure state or local policy against a theoretical...
President Joe Biden and Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-OR) have proposed different ways to tax unrealized capital gains every year. Their shared goal...
In response to rising gas prices, Maryland suspended its gas tax for 30 days. Connecticut and Georgia also have created gas tax holidays and lawmakers...
While average effective tax rates barely changed in the US from 1945 to 2015, the average tax rates of high-income households fell sharply—from about 50...
President Biden’s campaign promise never to raise taxes on those making $400,000 or less annually will inevitably conflict with his proposal to tax unrealized capital...
President Biden’s American Families Plan would make two big changes in the tax treatment of investment income such as long-term capital gains and dividends. Some...
In 2017 and again in 2020, Congress made deficient—but temporary—changes to the federal income tax deduction for charitable giving. By significantly increasing the standard deduction,...
During each presidential election, the Tax Policy Center analyzes the tax policies of the two major candidates. This year, TPC estimated the effects of Democratic...
For the individual income tax, effective tax rates — measured as federal income tax divided by adjusted gross income (AGI) —have fallen significantly over the...
