TaxVox

The voices of Tax Policy Center's researchers and staff

Individual Taxes

Who Really Pays Taxes?

June 26, 2008 –
Less than an hour after Howard Gleckman posted a blog entry on the presidential candidates’ tax plans, a question came in about TPC’s finding that Senator Obama’s plan would increase taxes of a low-income elderly couple by $150. How, the commenter asked, could that happen if Obama said he’d eliminate taxes for elderly households with income under $50,000?
Campaigns, Proposals, and Reforms

Obama and Social Security: Where’s the Beef?

June 24, 2008 –
Barack Obama has a plan to fix Social Security. Or does he? Obama does have a vague proposal to raise payroll taxes for workers making more than $250,000. But there is a lot less to it than meets the eye, and Obama has left some hugely important questions unanswered.
Individual Taxes

An Upcoming Tax Reform Program

June 21, 2008 –
I'll be moderating what should be an interesting discussion on fundamental tax reform at the New America Foundation on Tuesday. Other panelists will be New...
Campaigns, Proposals, and Reforms

What the Obama and McCain Plans Would Mean for Real Taxpayers

June 20, 2008 –
How will ordinary families be affected by the tax plans of John McCain and Barack Obama? To get some answers, I asked Greg Leiserson, TPC’s crack modeler, to develop some examples.
Campaigns, Proposals, and Reforms

McCain’s Disappearing Corporate Tax Reform

June 19, 2008 –
Johnny, we hardly new ye. John McCain’s ambitious plan to reform corporate taxes is disappearing faster than the Washington National's chances to win the national league pennant. What once had the makings of a provocative and potentially beneficial idea is morphing into a gimmicky mess.
Individual Taxes

Off Base: How McCain and Obama Hide Trillions in Debt

June 17, 2008 –
Barack Obama’s tax plan will either raise $262 billion over the next 10 years or increase the national debt by $2.7 trillion. John McCain would add either $615 billion or $3.6 trillion to the debt. What’s going on? Don’t everyone turn your computer off at once, but we need to talk about budget baselines.
Individual Taxes

Revised Estimates for the Candidates’ Tax Plans

June 17, 2008 –
We have updated our preliminary estimates of the revenue effects of the candidates’ tax plans. Our estimate for the ten-year revenue change compared with current law from Senator Obama’s plan is identical to that in our original study—a $2.7 trillion revenue loss. Our updated projection for Senator McCain’s plan shows a revenue loss of $3.6 trillion instead of $3.7 trillion. With interest costs, Obama would add $3.3 trillion to the national debt, while McCain would increase the debt by $4.3 trillion.
Campaigns, Proposals, and Reforms

Clarification on Senator Obama's Social Security plans

June 15, 2008 –
We've heard from the Obama campaign about our blog post on Senator Obama's Social Security tax increase on people earning more than $250,000. The campaign clarified that the threshold would be $250,000, but Senator Obama has not specified what the rate would be, when it would take effect, whether it would apply to employers, employees, or both, or what the tax base would be.
Campaigns, Proposals, and Reforms

Senator Obama Feeds Social Security a Donut Hole

June 13, 2008 –
In preparing our analysis of the candidates’ tax plans, we sent descriptions to each campaign for comment/clarification/correction. Senator Obama’s staff asked us not to include his reported support for a Social Security tax on earnings above $200,000 or $250,000, saying that there was no specific proposal. So we left the Social Security proposal out of our core analysis. We also left out Senator McCain’s proposal for an optional alternative tax system on similar grounds. We did discuss these non-proposals in two sidebars in our analysis.
Campaigns, Proposals, and Reforms

Obama and the Economy: Fighting The Wrong War

June 12, 2008 –
Barack Obama looks at the U.S. economy and worries about recession—which he would cure with a $50 billion stimulus bill. Increasingly, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke looks at the same economy and sees inflation—which he would treat by raising interest rates.