Individual Taxes: TaxVox

Obama’s Newest Tax Credit: First Houses and Cars, Now Jobs

To the surprise of nobody, President Obama has proposed new tax subsidies for businesses that hire additional workers by the end of the year. Structured as a payroll tax holiday, the plan would give companies a $5,000 credit against their share of Social Security payroll taxes for each net new hire, plus a “bonus” 6.2 percent credit for real increases in overall wages. Because the subsidy would be capped at $500,000, small business would be the big winner.
January 29, 2010Howard Gleckman
Campaigns, Proposals, and Reforms: Research report

Desperately Seeking Revenue

In August 2009, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO, 2009) projected that the federal budget deficit would total $7.1 trillion over the 2010-2019 decade-under current law. That outcome would require the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts to sunset as scheduled in 2011 and Congress to stop "patching" the
January 29, 2010Rosanne AltshulerKatherine LimRoberton C. Williams

T10-0024 - Distribution of Federal Tax Burden, 2010, Baseline: Current Law with AMT Patch.

Distribution table, by cash income percentiles, showing the mean and various percentiles of the federal tax burden.
January 28, 2010
Individual Taxes: Current Law

T10-0025 - Distribution of Individual Income Tax Burden, 2010, Baseline: Current Law with AMT Patch

Distribution table by cash income percentiles showing the mean and various percentiles of the individual income tax burden.
January 28, 2010
Individual Taxes: Current Law

T10-0026 - Distribution of Individual Income and Payroll Tax Burden, 2010, Baseline: Current Law with AMT Patch

Distribution table by cash income percentiles showing the mean and various percentiles of the individual income and payroll tax burden.
January 28, 2010
Individual Taxes: Current Law

T10-0027 - Distribution of Effective Federal Tax Rate, 2010, Baseline: Current Law with AMT Patch

Distribution table by cash income percentiles showing the mean and various percentiles of the effective federal tax rate.
January 28, 2010
Individual Taxes: Current Law

T10-0028 - Distribution of Effective Individual Income Tax Rate, 2010, Baseline: Current Law with AMT Patch

Distribution table by cash income percentiles showing the mean and various percentiles of the effective individual income tax rate.
January 28, 2010
Individual Taxes: Current Law

T10-0029 - Distribution of Effective Individual Income and Payroll Tax Rate, 2010, Baseline: Current Law with AMT Patch

Distribution table by cash income percentiles showing the mean and various percentiles of the effective individual income and payroll tax rate.
January 28, 2010
Federal Budget and Economy: TaxVox

Obama After a Year: Reality Bites

The delivery was quintessential Barack Obama, which is to say brilliant, but the words could have been Bill Clinton’s. The lofty principles remain, but the agenda has become pedestrian—constrained by a $1.4 trillion budget deficit and partisan trench warfare where progress is measured in inches and not miles.
January 28, 2010Howard Gleckman
Federal Budget and Economy: TaxVox

The Jobs Tax Credit May Be Back

With Democrats crying for a jobs bill they can bring to voters before the November elections, it looks like President Obama may be about to...
January 27, 2010Howard Gleckman
Individual Taxes: TaxVox

Warm thoughts about Obama's freeze

The president has been attacked from the left and the right for his proposal to freeze non-security discretionary spending. The left feels betrayed that their leader would apply a scalpel (the administration’s term) to favored programs. The right whines that the freeze would amount to a drop in the overflowing bucket of red ink, and the quarter trillion in savings pale in comparison to the $10 trillion in deficits expected over the next decade.
January 27, 2010Leonard E. Burman
Campaigns, Proposals, and Reforms: Current Law

T10-0015 - Extend Expanded Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit; Baseline: Current Law; Distribution by Cash Income Level, 2011

Distribution table for tax units benefiting from the child and dependent care tax credit under both current law and an extension of the credit's EGTRRA provisions and allowance against the AMT.
January 27, 2010
Campaigns, Proposals, and Reforms: Current Law

T10-0016 - Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit: Raise Phaseout Threshold; Baseline: Current Law with EGTRRA Extensions; Distribution by Cash Income Level, 2011

Distribution table for tax units benefiting from the child and dependent care tax credit under a scenario that extends the credit's EGTRRA provisions and allows it against the AMT and one that also raises the phaseout threshold to $85,000.
January 27, 2010
Campaigns, Proposals, and Reforms: Current Law

T10-0021 - Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit: Raise Phaseout Threshold and Make Fully Refundable; Baseline: Current Law with EGTRRA Extensions; Distribution by Cash Income Level, 2011

Distribution table for tax units benefiting from the child and dependent care tax credit under a scenario that extends the credit's EGTRRA provisions and allows it against the AMT and one that also raises the phaseout threshold to $85,000 and makes the credit refundable. Estimates assume a 50
January 27, 2010
Campaigns, Proposals, and Reforms: Current Law

T10-0022 - Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit: Raise Phaseout Threshold and Make Fully Refundable; Baseline: Current Law with EGTRRA Extensions; Distribution by Cash Income Percentile, 2011

Distribution table for tax units benefiting from the child and dependent care tax credit under a scenario that extends the credit's EGTRRA provisions and allows it against the AMT and one that also raises the phaseout threshold to $85,000 and makes the credit refundable. Estimates assume a 90
January 27, 2010
Individual Taxes: Current Law

T10-0023 - Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit: Increase Phaseout Threshold; Baseline: Current Law with AMT Patch; Distribution by Cash Income Level, 2011

Distribution table for tax units benefiting from the child and dependent care tax credit under both current law with an AMT Patch and a scenario that also increases the phaseout threshold to $85,000.
January 27, 2010
Federal Budget and Economy: Brief

The U.S. Is Broke. Here's Why.

In his State of the Union address, President Obama no doubt will promise to attack the deficit. Trouble is, the deficit is only a symptom of a chronic disease that strikes at the very heart of democratic government. The disease? Fiscal sclerosis — setting future national priorities in stone long
January 27, 2010C. Eugene Steuerle
Individual Taxes: TaxVox

Obama, Deficits, Freezes, and Commissions

It has been an interesting day for us fiscal policy wonks. Over my morning muffin, I digested President Obama’s plan to freeze some domestic spending for the next three years as well as his package of aid to the middle-class. Then, I spent a few hours chewing over the CBO’s latest budget projections. Finally, I watched the Senate trash the bipartisan budget commission.
January 26, 2010Howard Gleckman
Individual Taxes: TaxVox

More Childless Workers Should Get the Earned Income Credit.

The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is the nation’s largest cash assistance program for low-income workers. In 2007, 24.5 million families received $48.5 billion. But while childless families accounted for nearly a quarter of tax units claiming the credit, they got less than three percent of the tax benefits.
January 25, 2010Elaine Maag
Campaigns, Proposals, and Reforms: Current Law

T10-0010 - Expand Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit; Multiple Baselines; Impact on Tax Revenues: 2011-20

Revenue table for expanding the child and dependent care tax credit.
January 24, 2010
Campaigns, Proposals, and Reforms: Current Law

T10-0011 - Expand Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit; Baseline: Current Law; Distribution by Cash Income Level, 2011

2011 distribution, by cash income level, of the federal income tax change of extending the EGTRRA provisions for the child and dependent care tax credit and permanently allowing it against the AMT.
January 24, 2010
Campaigns, Proposals, and Reforms: Current Law

T10-0012 - Expand Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit; Baseline: Current Law; Distribution by Cash Income Percentile, 2011

2011 distribution, by cash income percentile, of the federal income tax change of extending the EGTRRA provisions for the child and dependent care tax credit and permanently allowing it against the AMT.
January 24, 2010
Campaigns, Proposals, and Reforms: Current Law

T10-0013 - Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit: Raise Phaseout Threshold; Baseline: Current Law with EGTRRA Extensions; Distribution by Cash Income Level, 2011

2011 distribution, by cash income level, of the federal income tax change of extending the EGTRRA provisions for the increasing the phaseout threshold of the child and dependent care tax credit to $85,000.
January 24, 2010
Campaigns, Proposals, and Reforms: Current Law

T10-0014 - Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit: Raise Phaseout Threshold; Baseline: Current Law with EGTRRA Extensions; Distribution by Cash Income Percentile, 2011

2011 distribution, by cash income percentile, of the federal income tax change of extending the EGTRRA provisions for the increasing the phaseout threshold of the child and dependent care tax credit to $85,000.
January 24, 2010
Campaigns, Proposals, and Reforms: Current Law

T10-0017 - Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit: Raise Phaseout Threshold and Make Fully Refundable; Baseline: Current Law with EGTRRA Extensions; Distribution by Cash Income Level, 2011

2011 distribution, by cash income level, of the federal tax change from increasing the child and dependent care tax credit phaseout threshold to $85,000 and making it fully refundable. Estimates assume a 50 percent participation rate.
January 24, 2010