This document reviews several notable tax proposals in President Obamas Fiscal Year 2014 Budget. These include a 28 percent limit on certain tax expenditures, a cap on tax preferences for retirement savers with high balances, a minimum tax ("Buffett Rule") on high-income taxpayers, alternative...

This document reviews several notable tax proposals in President Obamas fiscal year 2015 Budget. These include expanding the earned income tax credit (EITC) for workers without qualifying children, expanding the child and dependent care tax credit for families with young children, conforming...

This paper evaluates six options to achieve across-the-board reductions to a group of major exclusions and deductions in the income tax: (1) limiting their tax benefit to a maximum percentage of income, (2) imposing a fixed dollar cap, (3) reducing them by fixed-percentage amount, (4) limiting...

The benefits of itemized deductions for mortgage interest and property taxes vary by income and demographic characteristics. The two deductions increase after-tax income most for high-income families, particularly those with children, while low-income households hardly benefit at all. On average...

TPC estimates that 43 percent of Americans will pay no federal income tax this year, down from the peak of 50 percent in 2008 and 2009.

The effects of income tax changes on the economy and the distribution of after-tax income depend in part on the population that does not file a tax return or that does file a return but owes little or no net income tax liability. These types of tax units featured prominently in the debate over...

Senior Fellow Eugene Steuerle describes how tax legislation in 2001 brought to light the difficulty with trying to deal with only one side of the budget at a time, especially with regard to the progressivity issue.

Senior Fellow Eugene Steuerle argues that in a world with multiple transfer and tax programs, one can't solve the issue of how to set tax rates unless the tax and spending sides of the budget are analyzed together, and unless phaseouts of various tax and expenditure benefits are considered along...

Senior Fellow Eugene Steuerle explains that while tax reform might entail useful simplification of the tax code and the removal of many special tax breaks, it also appeals to many because of the low rate contained in a number of flat tax proposals. The size of the tax rate, however, has only a...

Senior Fellow Eugene Steuerle examines principal sources of concern about the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) regarding the credit's impact on work effort and the extent of noncompliance. His conclusions: (1) All transfers and taxes distort some choices, and the EITC is no exception. The EITC...