TaxVox: Individual Taxes

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The voices of Tax Policy Center's researchers and staff

Individual Taxes

Tax Expenditures at New America

April 16, 2009 –
TPC's Eric Toder will be part of an all-star cast tomorrow to discuss tax expenditures. Eric, who did a terrific paper with Len Burman and...
Individual Taxes

State Revenue Woes

April 15, 2009 –
State revenues are collapsing with the economy. A new study from the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government reports that state tax collections fell in the last quarter of 2008 for the first time since 2002 (see graph). Not only did the volatile personal and corporate income tax revenues drop but so did the usually more stable sales taxes—declining by 6 percent before adjusting for inflation.
Individual Taxes

Why I Hate Filing My Taxes

April 14, 2009 –
I still haven’t finished my taxes, probably because it is the civic duty I hate the most. It isn’t the paying that bothers me. It is the process. I hate that I have to give a private company $49.95 to help me perform a basic act of citizenship. I hate that I must sit in front of a computer for hours mindlessly typing in numbers. I hate that the Tax Code is an incomprehensible black box. The software asks for a number. I type it in. It appears on a form, and I, more or less, assume it is right. Mostly, I hate that the Tax Code is so damn complicated.
Individual Taxes

Taxing times for tax policy

April 13, 2009 –
I’m not doing my taxes. I’ll file them eventually, but the pointless complexity of the income tax makes me crazy. You’d think that I’d have an easier time because I kind of understand the tax law. But I also know that it doesn’t have to be this hard.
Individual Taxes

Number of taxable estates by state, 2011

April 10, 2009 –
Given the season, it is not unreasonable to ask: Why is this state different from all other states? People often want to know if we have state estimates to correspond to our national estimates of particular policies. The answer is always no, and that is what I told someone who asked how many farms and small businesses would owe estate tax in his state under President Obama's proposal. However, I found a very nice table on the IRS website showing number of estate taxpayers and amount owed by state for estate tax returns filed in 2007, so I used those numbers to allocate our national estimates of the number of taxable estates by state. Since the exemption level will be higher in 2011 if Obama's proposal is enacted ($3.5 million in 2011 versus $2 million in 2007), this isn't entirely kosher, but it gives a rough gauge of differences among states.
Individual Taxes

Who pays taxes? Who should?

April 9, 2009 –
At a fascinating TPC panel this afternoon, TPC’s Bob Williams, former CBO director (and McCain economic adviser) Doug Holtz-Eakin, former top Ronald Reagan tax adviser John (Buck) Chapoton, and Center on Budget & Policy Priorities executive director Bob Greenstein all wrestled with the nature—and future--of our progressive tax system.
Individual Taxes

Estate Tax Update

April 8, 2009 –
As taxvox blogmeister, Howard Gleckman, noted last week, the estate tax is once again in play in Congress. TPC has updated our estate tax estimates to reflect the latest CBO projections and IRS data. The main factor driving the revisions is that there's a lot less wealth to tax now than there was a year ago. The new tables show the distribution of returns, value of estate, and estate tax by size of estate for 4 policy options in 2011.
Individual Taxes

Is Obama Missing His Best Chance for Change?

April 7, 2009 –
Since his election, President Obama and his top aides have frequently cast the economic crisis as an opportunity to push his agenda of change. Now, three months into his presidency, we are getting a good sense of how he and the Democratic Congress intend to use that opportunity.
Individual Taxes

The Estate Tax: Hit and Myth

April 2, 2009 –
President Obama wants to maintain the 2009 rules on the estate tax—in effect allowing couples with assets of as much as $7 million to pass on their wealth tax free. Amazingly, this has some critics of the levy railing about confiscatory taxes. Art Laffer even argued in this morning’s Wall Street Journal that Obama's estate tax plan would short-circuit an economic recovery.
Federal Budget and Economy

Energy Taxes and the Detroit Bailout

March 31, 2009 –
If there are any ranches in Detroit, President Obama has just bet one on his yet-unborn plan to cap greenhouse gasses. Obama has effectively ordered GM and Chrysler to build more fuel-efficient cars in return for billions more in federal bailout money. But will enough people buy those cars with gas at $2-a-gallon to make this a successful strategy?