If your neighborhood is anything like mine, “under contract” signs are blossoming like dandelions. Many (of the signs, not the weeds) were very likely the result of the artificial land rush created by tomorrow's expiration of Homebuyer Tax Credit II. The credit gives $8,000 to first-time buyers and up to $6,500 to move-up buyers.

President Obama’s Bipartisan Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform is having its first meeting today. As I peer at my bookshelf full of well-meaning policy prescriptions produced by similar panels over the years, I am skeptical at best. These enterprises are, as Dr. Johnson said of second marriages, “a triumph of hope over experience.” Still, you never know. As my colleague Gene Steuerle reminds me, few thought tax reform would get off the ground in 1984-85. Yet, by mid-1986, it had happened.

I share Howard’s criticism of the Senate proposition that characterizes a Value Added Tax (VAT) as “a massive tax increase that will cripple families on fixed income and only further push back America’s economic recovery.” However, my problem with the Senate vote isn’t that it opposes a VAT; rather, it’s that it rules out any VAT, even one that is part of a broader tax reform that reduces distortionary income and corporate taxes.

The combination of the recently-passed health care legislation and the President’s proposed rollback of the Bush tax cuts for upper-income taxpayers would sharply boost tax rates on the wealthy. This is great news for the high-end real estate market. It may seem counterintuitive, but raising taxes on those in the top brackets could increase urban house prices by as much as 10 percent, and even more in east and west coast cities where homes are most expensive. The drivers of this windfall: higher top rates on ordinary income and hikes in capital gains taxes. Obama’s proposal to limit the benefit of itemized deductions to 28 percent could more than reverse this housing windfall, but that measure is unlikely to win congressional approval.

Public opinions polls have shown that about two-thirds of Americans think government should provide a helping hand to low-income working families. But how? For many years, the answer was direct cash (or cash-like) assistance aimed at the poor, whether they worked or not, through programs such as Aid to Families with Dependent Children and Food Stamps. But beginning in the 1970s, the accelerating trend has been to target assistance to working families and to provide such aid through refundable tax credits rather than direct spending.

As I contemplate the furor over the Tax Policy Center’s calculation that 47 percent of Americans owed no income tax in 2009, I am reminded of Don Alexander, who was an IRS Commissioner during the Nixon and Ford Administrations. For decades Don, who passed away last year, argued passionately that the IRS’s job is to collect tax revenues, and not administer social programs. And that conflict is at the root of the 47 percent controversy.

Last June, my colleague Bob Williams posted a TaxVox article that reported 47 percent of American households paid no federal income tax in 2009. Bob was exactly right, but rarely has a bit of data been so misunderstood, or so misused. Let me explain—repeat actually—what this means: About half of taxpayers paid no federal income tax last year. It does not mean they paid no tax at all. Many shelled out Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes. In fact, only 14 percent of Americans didn’t pay either income or payroll taxes. Some paid property taxes and, it is fair to say, just about all of them paid sales taxes of one kind or another. So to say they pay no taxes is flat wrong.

Lots of chatter in Washington about a Value Added Tax. Paul Volcker, the former Fed chairman and gray eminence of the Obama economic team, was talking up the idea the other day. The Congressional Budget Office is looking at the implications of a consumption tax. And Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI) has included one as part of his fiscal Roadmap.

The Obama Administration has once again proposed eliminating the Advanced Earned Income Tax Credit. The idea, which the president also raised a year ago, is unlikely to go anywhere, given that not much has changed since the last time it was proposed. The White House would be better off putting its energy into figuring out how to make the advanced credit work, rather than writing it off. One model: the new tax credit contained in the just-passed health law.