How Do Governments Raise Revenue?
The government provides various services at the federal, state, and local levels. How are they paid for? Taxes.
The government provides various services at the federal, state, and local levels. How are they paid for? Taxes.
Gov. Walz’s tax policy record is notable because of how much it contrasts with broader national trends. In recent years, most governors have championed tax cuts. Walz, rare among his peers, chose tax increases.
5 min readExempting Social Security benefits from income tax would increase the budget deficit by about $1.6 trillion over 10 years, accelerate the insolvency of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds, and create a new hole in the income tax without a sound policy rationale.
6 min readReviewing reported income helps to understand the composition of the federal government’s revenue base and how Americans earn their taxable income. The individual income tax, the federal government’s largest source of revenue, is largely a tax on labor.
9 min readImproving the country’s fiscal situation won’t be comfortable, but economic growth can help cushion the blow.
3 min readThe 2021 tax year was the fourth since the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) made many significant, but temporary, changes to the individual income tax code to lower tax rates, widen brackets, increase the standard deduction and child tax credit, and more.
9 min readCreative options including changes in Social Security benefits growth for higher earners and reforms to how Medicare compensates for health services should be on the table, along with broad-based and well-structured tax reforms.
6 min readThe CBO projects deficits will be higher than historical levels, largely due to growth in mandatory spending programs While some recent legislation has reduced the deficit, the Inflation Reduction Act is proving to be more expensive than originally promised.
5 min readThirty-four states will ring in the new year with notable tax changes, including 15 states cutting individual or corporate income taxes (and some cutting both).
17 min readOutside of the pandemic years, this year’s federal deficit is the highest in U.S. history. While tax revenue has increased about 28 percent since the pre-pandemic year 2019, spending has increased about 46 percent. Annual deficits are headed towards $3 trillion over the next few years.
3 min readNow is the time for lawmakers to focus on long-term fiscal sustainability, as further delay will only make an eventual fiscal reckoning that much harder and more painful. Congressional leaders should follow through on convening a fiscal commission to deal with the long-term budgetary challenges facing the country.
35 min readReviewing reported income helps to understand the composition of the federal government’s revenue base and how Americans earn their taxable income. The individual income tax, the federal government’s largest source of revenue, is largely a tax on labor.
10 min readTo address the more challenging parts of the budget, especially the unsustainable growth in mandatory spending, lawmakers should follow up on this debt ceiling agreement with a focus on long-term fiscal sustainability.
6 min readAny serious proposal to tackle the emerging debt and deficit crisis must also address our largest mandatory spending programs: Social Security and Medicare. Together, these two programs will be responsible for nearly 80 percent of the deficit’s rise between 2023 and 2032, according to Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projections.
8 min readAlthough the U.S. has a progressive tax system and a relatively low tax burden compared to the OECD average, average-wage workers still pay more than 30 percent of their wages in taxes.
4 min readWhile some temporary policies can help in a crisis, policymakers should focus their efforts on sustainable policies that support growth and the resilience of businesses (and government coffers) over the long term.
6 min readScandinavian countries are well known for their broad social safety net and their public funding of services such as universal health care, higher education, parental leave, and child and elderly care. So how do Scandinavian countries raise their tax revenues?
7 min readImmediately balancing the $20 trillion budget shortfall would take drastic, unwanted policy changes. Instead, lawmakers should target a more achievable goal, such as stabilizing debt and deficits with an eye toward comprehensive tax reform that can produce sufficient revenue with minimal economic harm.
4 min readThe latest IRS data shows that the U.S. federal individual income tax continued to be progressive, borne primarily by the highest income earners.
43 min readNew CBO data shows that the current U.S. fiscal system—both taxes and direct federal benefits—is very progressive and very redistributive.
7 min read