Small business is the source of our entrepreneurial genius, creativity, and productivity. Nonetheless, a substantial portion of our economic activity occurs within large corporations, non-profits and public enterprises. This paper discusses how the federal income tax treats firms of different...

In 1979, federal taxes claimed 8 percent of the income of households in the lowest quintile of the income distribution.1 Over the following three decades, the average
effective tax rate (ETR) taxes as a percentage of income fell by nearly half to 4.3 percent in 2005. Most of the decline...

Fewer than one in seven individual income taxpayers reported taxable capital gains in 2006. Over half of taxpayers with gains had incomes below $75,000, but most capital gains were reported by very high income taxpayers. The 3 percent of returns with AGI over $200,000 reported 31 percent of AGI...

Recent tax acts sharply lowered tax rates on long-term capital gains and dividend income. For millions of taxpayers, however, the alternative minimum tax limits the benefits from these cuts by increasing the effective marginal tax rates on capital gains and dividend income. The culprit is the...

From an economic perspective, marginal tax rates play a critical role in determining the consequences of a change in tax policy. In an uncomplicated tax system the marginal rate is simply equal to the statutory rate. For millions of taxpayers, however, marginal tax rates differ markedly from...

A taxpayer's effective marginal tax rate (EMTR) is the percentage of an additional dollar of income that would be paid in federal income tax. An individual's EMTR could affect the decision to work or save more, or avoid income tax. We use the TPC's microsimulation model of the federal tax system...

Republican Presidential Candidate Fred Thompson has announced a tax plan that combines tax cut extensions, additional tax cuts, and an election to pay tax under a new alternative tax system that would substitute a larger standard deduction for all current deductions and credits and have two...

Student loans, mortgage guarantees, and other lending programs create special challenges for federal budgeting. Under official budget rules, these programs are projected to bring in $200 billion over the next decade. Under an alternative, favored by many analysts, they appear to lose $100...

Recently, there has been a spate of corporate inversions, where U.S. multinational corporations have combined with foreign companies, arranging their corporate structure to locate the residence of the resulting corporation in a foreign country with an attractive corporate tax climate. This paper...

Under current law, taxpayers may deduct interest paid on up to $1 million of acquisition debt used to buy, build, or improve a primary or secondary residence. Taxpayers can also deduct interest paid on up to $100,000 in home equity loans or other loans secured by their homes. This report...