Proposals to reform the estate and gift tax range from comprehensive options, such as permanently repealing the estate tax or replacing the existing tax with...
An inheritance tax applies to the amount of gifts and bequests a taxpayer receives. Unlike estate and gift taxes, a progressive inheritance tax gives donors...
The federal unemployment insurance (UI) trust fund finances the costs of administering unemployment insurance programs, loans made to state unemployment insurance funds, and half of...
There are two Social Security trust funds: Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) and Disability Insurance (DI), though the two are often analyzed together as Old-Age,...
Social Security was designed primarily as a “pay-as-you-go” system. Instead of prefunded accounts for individuals, benefits are paid mainly out of contributions from current workers...
The Medicare trust fund comprises two separate funds. The hospital insurance trust fund is financed mainly through payroll taxes on earnings and income taxes on...
Excise taxes are narrowly based taxes on consumption, levied on specific goods, services, and activities. They can be either a per-unit tax (such as the...
Why Tax Carbon, and How Much? Emissions of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and other greenhouse gases are increasing global temperatures, raising sea levels, shifting...
The Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 defines tax expenditures as “revenue losses attributable to provisions of the Federal tax laws...
Simplification could improve the tax code in at least two important ways. First, simplicity would lower taxpayers’ costs of complying with the tax system in...
The Highway Trust Fund tracks federal spending and revenue for surface transportation. The trust fund has separate accounts for highways and mass transit. Because obligations...
The Constitution is clear that a president cannot spend money without a Congressional appropriation. It is less clear whether a president must spend money that...
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) reduced tax rates on both business and individual income, and enhanced incentives for investment by firms. Those features...
The federal government provides roughly $10 billion per year in tax subsidies that encourage non-fossil fuels (figure 1). The two largest are the energy investment...
Individuals, businesses, and other entities may have the legal obligation to pay certain taxes, but the economic burden (or incidence) of all taxes ultimately falls...
A tax is progressive if, on average, household tax burdens rise with incomes. This definition is generally considered too broad because there are various ways...
Distributional analyses of tax burdens across income groups play an important role in debates over the tax system and how to reform it. Differences in...
Shareholders bear some of the corporate income tax burden, but they aren’t the only ones. Over time, others bear some of the burden because of a chain reaction that begins with the shareholders...
Distributional analyses omit the ways tax cuts and tax increases affect other government finances—either through lower (or higher) spending or higher (or lower) debt. These...
Retail sales are business sales to households; neither business-to-business nor household-to-household transactions qualify. For example, the sale of a newly constructed home to a family...
