In his state of the union address, President Obama laid out his vision for the tax code. Earlier in the day , in a speech to the Chamber of Commerce, Senate Finance Committee chair Orrin Hatch (R-UT) described his. They are not only on different planets. They inhabit different galaxies. Obama wants

Death and taxes: Inevitable, but not always paired. President Obama wants to change that. In a wide-ranging tax plan he’ll highlight at tonight’s State of the Union address, he’d close “arguably the biggest loophole in the tax code for high-wealth households,” says TPC’s Len Burman. Len explains

The Daily Deduction will return Tuesday, after the Martin Luther King, Jr., holiday. The Senate Finance Committee has created five new working groups for tax reform. The bipartisan groups will address provisions of the tax code that relate to individuals, businesses, savings and investment,

The IRS is unable to do right by taxpayers, says the National Taxpayer Advocate. In its annual report to Congress , the in-house IRS watchdog finds that the agency’s budget cuts have eroded taxpayer service , especially for low-income taxpayers. At the same time the lack of effective administrative

Do deficits, or at least currently projected deficits, matter? It is an age-old question that’s going to get renewed attention in a Congress where Republicans have made no secret of their desire to cut government spending. Of course, cutting spending is not the same thing as reducing the deficit.

Governor LePage wants big tax cuts for Maine. Republican Paul LePage’s new budget proposal would cut the top income tax rate by 2.2 percentage points to 5.75 percent, and apply it to single tax filers with incomes over $50,000, instead of the current threshold of $21,200. The plan would cut

Sometimes, the strangeness on Capitol Hill takes your breath away. Representative Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) introduced three bills as soon as the new Congress was sworn in this week. The first would abolish the entire tax code and replace it with…something else. The other two would amend the

As you might have noticed, the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center website just had a makeover. It’s the beginning of a process that will make our careful nonpartisan analysis more engaging and easier to find and use. First, we have designed a new logo and have given TaxVox a new look. And you will

So much has changed. Yet, when it comes to taxes, so much has not. Republicans have taken control of Congress and now hold governorships in 31 states. The U.S. economy is finally on solid ground. And presidential hopefuls are gearing up for the 2016 election. But for all that, the top tax stories

Increasingly, states are tying tax cuts to revenue targets. It sounds reasonable enough: If a state collects more tax than it needs to fund government in a future year, rates automatically go down. But such tax triggers open the door to shameless budget gimmickry. The latest poster child for this

Congress is adjourned. The Daily Deduction will appear Mondays until it reconvenes. Could Dave Camp’s proposal and the corporate inversion debate prompt tax reform in 2015? TPC’s Bill Gale considers how they might shape developments in 2015. “Camp’s proposal provides the means to think seriously