On February 15, 2018, Senators Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) requested specific information from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) on its oversight activities of nonprofit hospitals. In this brief, to provide evidence well beyond what the IRS considers, I present a new tool...
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 leaves many promises of tax reform unfulfilled. In this paper, we examine the plan’s prospects to boost future growth, and discuss fundamental reforms that would boost the stock of capital and generate sustained, long-term growth. After making the case that the...
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act included a new federal incentive—Opportunity Zones—to spur investment in poor and undercapitalized communities. Governors (and the mayor of the District of Columbia) have now selected which among the roughly 56 percent of eligible census tracts in the US should be...
Eugene Steuerle, Richard Fisher Chair at the Urban Institute and co-founder of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center gave this luncheon presentation at the ABA Tax Meetings Exempt Organization.
The Tax Policy Center (TPC), in conjunction with the Internal Revenue Service Office of Research, Applied Analytics and Statistics (RAAS), has recently developed distributional estimates of individual compliance costs for tax filers. This paper describes the process used by TPC to incorporate...
We examine the budget outlook, given new Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projections that reflect the recently enacted tax bill and spending deals. The prospect of routine trillion-dollar deficits has dominated public response to CBO’s report, but the underlying problem is even more serious....
Mark Mazur, Director of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, testified before the Joint Economic Committee during a hearing entitled “Unleashing America’s Economic Potential.” In his testimony, Mazur presented a review of the principles of desirable tax policy, clear and less clear findings...
Children under age 6 experience the highest rates of poverty of any age group and are particularly vulnerable to poverty’s lasting effects. The child tax credit (CTC) provides a $2,000 per child credit for children under age 17 (along with a credit of up to $500 per dependent 17 and older). But...
Widespread and profound public misinformation about government presents a serious challenge to democratic accountability. This paper demonstrates that two of the most common examples of public misperception may be systematically overestimated; public misperceptions of “foreign aid” spending and...
The Tax Cut and Jobs Act (TCJA) will reduce individual income taxes on average for all income groups and in all states. Unlike prior Tax Policy Center reports, this analysis focuses on the distribution of the individual income tax changes, and does not include changes in the corporate income tax...
Measuring the “Charitability” of Hospitals: Putting Meat on the Bones of the Grassley-Hatch Request
On February 15, 2018, Senators Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) requested specific information from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) on its oversight activities of nonprofit hospitals. In this brief, to provide evidence well beyond what the IRS considers, I present a new tool...
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act: A Missed Opportunity to Establish a Sustainable Tax Code
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 leaves many promises of tax reform unfulfilled. In this paper, we examine the plan’s prospects to boost future growth, and discuss fundamental reforms that would boost the stock of capital and generate sustained, long-term growth. After making the case that the...
Did States Maximize Their Opportunity Zone Selections?
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act included a new federal incentive—Opportunity Zones—to spur investment in poor and undercapitalized communities. Governors (and the mayor of the District of Columbia) have now selected which among the roughly 56 percent of eligible census tracts in the US should be...
Challenges & Opportunities for Charities after the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act
Eugene Steuerle, Richard Fisher Chair at the Urban Institute and co-founder of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center gave this luncheon presentation at the ABA Tax Meetings Exempt Organization.
Estimating the Effects of Tax Reform on Compliance Burdens
The Tax Policy Center (TPC), in conjunction with the Internal Revenue Service Office of Research, Applied Analytics and Statistics (RAAS), has recently developed distributional estimates of individual compliance costs for tax filers. This paper describes the process used by TPC to incorporate...
The Federal Budget Outlook: Even Crazier After All These Years
We examine the budget outlook, given new Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projections that reflect the recently enacted tax bill and spending deals. The prospect of routine trillion-dollar deficits has dominated public response to CBO’s report, but the underlying problem is even more serious....
Reflections on the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act
Mark Mazur, Director of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, testified before the Joint Economic Committee during a hearing entitled “Unleashing America’s Economic Potential.” In his testimony, Mazur presented a review of the principles of desirable tax policy, clear and less clear findings...
Improving the Child Tax Credit for Very Low-Income Families
Children under age 6 experience the highest rates of poverty of any age group and are particularly vulnerable to poverty’s lasting effects. The child tax credit (CTC) provides a $2,000 per child credit for children under age 17 (along with a credit of up to $500 per dependent 17 and older). But...
Reconsidering Americans' Overestimates of Government Waste and Foreign Aid
Widespread and profound public misinformation about government presents a serious challenge to democratic accountability. This paper demonstrates that two of the most common examples of public misperception may be systematically overestimated; public misperceptions of “foreign aid” spending and...
The Effect of The TCJA Individual Income Tax Provisions Across Income Groups and Across the States
The Tax Cut and Jobs Act (TCJA) will reduce individual income taxes on average for all income groups and in all states. Unlike prior Tax Policy Center reports, this analysis focuses on the distribution of the individual income tax changes, and does not include changes in the corporate income tax...