[ Brookings Institution] President Bush's new tax plan is an answer in search of a question. It would provide little short-term stimulus. It seems unlikely to provide much of a long-term boost to growth or jobs. It is an incomplete way to reform corporate taxes. It would not boost investor...
Recent policy discussions have raised the possibility of payroll tax cuts or income tax credits based on payroll tax payments. In 2003, workers and employers each owe 6.2 percent Social Security tax on the first $87,000 of a worker's earnings, and a 1.45 percent Medicare tax on all wages....
[Newsday] Currently affecting only a few, mostly wealthy, taxpayers, the alternative minimum tax (AMT) will expand dramatically over the next several years, visiting high tax rates and mind-numbingly complex paperwork on unsuspecting middle-class families. Prompt action could reverse...
The United States is often said to maintain a classical tax system, under which corporate profits are subject to double taxation, once at the corporate level when they are earned, and again at the individual level when they are paid out as dividends. The Bush administration is reportedly...
The practice of requiring well-to-do Americans to pay a minimum tax was developed more than three decades ago. In January, 1969, then-Treasury Secretary Joseph W. Barr informed Congress that 155 individual taxpayers with income exceeding $200,000 paid no tax in 1966. The news set off a political...
Originally targeted at high-income households, the individual alternative minimum tax (AMT) is now on the verge of switching from a "class" tax to a "mass" tax. Under current law, the AMT will encroach dramatically on the middle-class over the next decade and will become the de facto tax...
Taxpayers pay alternative minimum tax (AMT) if their AMT liability exceeds their regular income tax. Originally targeted at a few high-income households who paid no federal income tax, this class tax is about to become a mass tax. The projected expansion occurs because the AMT is not indexed for...
The 2001 tax act phases out the estate tax over nine years, before reinstating it in year 10. That untenable plan guarantees that the estate tax will be revisited soon. This policy brief summarizes the economic effects of the estate tax and the proposed changes. The estate tax makes the tax...
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...
Most years, the Tax Policy Center celebrates Valentine Day with a whimsical analysis of the costs and benefits—tax-wise—of marriage. What’s new this year is that...
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,...
Recent analysis by the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) shows the impact of several tax pieces included in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). The...
Debates about corporate income tax cuts follow a familiar script. Republicans claim that rank-and-file workers benefit . Democrats argue that affluent shareholders reap the gains...
Over the past three decades, the United States has gone from taxing roughly half of closely held business (that is, firms other than corporations) and...
The murder of George Floyd, in May 2020, sparked a national reckoning and renewed attention to issues of racial equity and justice. This long-overdue awakening...
As of this morning, yields on 10-year Treasury bonds stood at 1.33 percent. The yield on TIPS bonds–which are adjusted for inflation–was negative. These astonishingly...
Last week, Congress and President Trump enacted the $2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, the largest aid package in American history...
The Congressional Budget Office just projected a series of $1 trillion budget deficits—as far as the eye can see. Narrowing that deficit will require not...
Martin Feldstein, who died earlier this week, was an intellectual giant who transformed modern public finance and tax policy analysis. He also was a kind,...
