Alan Cole is a Senior Economist with Tax Foundation’s Center for Federal Tax Policy. His areas of focus include business taxes, cross-border taxes, and macroeconomics.
In addition to work at Tax Foundation, Alan Cole has served on the Joint Economic Committee and with The Conference Board, and published on a variety of economic topics. Alan has a bachelor’s degree in economics from Yale University and an MBA majoring in finance and public policy from the Wharton School. Alan lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife and daughter.
The US, as the world’s largest services exporter, has a stronger interest in combating discriminatory services taxation than in pursuing tariffs.
44 min read
The past decade’s record suggests that countries have reliable legislative methods to improve their tax systems through ordinary tax reforms.
22 min read
The side-by-side agreement is an important step in trans-Atlantic economic relations, however, there is more work to be done—on both sides of the Atlantic. If there’s a downside to the side-by-side agreement, it’s the risk of locking in mediocre tax policy choices for the long run.
What is a border adjustment? Is it a new idea? How would it work in practice?
11 min read
Our analysis of the major tax provisions included in the OBBBA finds it will increase long-run GDP by 0.7 percent. The major tax provisions will reduce federal tax revenue by nearly $5.2 trillion between 2025 and 2034, on a conventional basis.
12 min read
The reality is that the US is the winner from globalization, the capital of the world. Let’s keep it that way.
Senator Bernie Moreno’s (R-OH) Halting International Relocation of Employment (HIRE) Act is a proposal to discourage US companies from outsourcing jobs and services abroad for products consumed by Americans.
7 min read
The US has a reasonably robust system for containing profit shifting; it is in effect already working towards the Pillar Two goals. Its negotiating posture is in many cases curbing unreasonable sidetracks, not undermining the whole project.
The OBBBA moved the US international tax system in the right direction on several fronts. However, some of the changes, while encouraging certain domestic activity and exports, may harm physical activity abroad that supports US competitiveness and domestic activity.
8 min read
Even when international relations are frayed, there is value in finding ways to combat corporate profit shifting while also fostering a healthy commercial atmosphere and positive trade relations.
7 min read
The BEPS project’s 15 actions were decisive responses to real problems in cross-border taxation, offering real benefits but also real costs. A decade of implementation experience has revealed a critical side effect: sharply higher compliance costs for both tax administrations and the business community.
Lawmakers should consider maintaining QBAI and applying the several billion dollars from the Senate’s change toward other pro-growth international tax reforms instead.
6 min read
The Senate draft overall makes more changes to international tax policy than the House draft. On net the changes are positive.
8 min read
The House-passed “One Big Beautiful Bill” includes a new 3.5 percent tax on remittances, or non-commercial transfers of money that people in the US send to people abroad.
7 min read
The US Ways and Means Committee’s “Big Beautiful Bill” includes a retaliatory provision called Section 899, along with an expansion of the base erosion and anti-abuse tax (BEAT).
7 min read
The Trump administration recently announced a new round of so-called “reciprocal” tariffs, ranging from 10 percent to 50 percent, assigned to nearly every US trading partner. There’s a problem with its notion of “reciprocity,” though. The White House’s tariffs are intended to be real, while the so-called tariffs it is responding to are fake.
Despite characterizing the tariffs as “reciprocal,” the White House didn’t actually measure tariffs, currency manipulation, or trade barrier policies employed by other countries. Instead, it drew its estimates from something else entirely: bilateral trade deficits in goods.
7 min read
President Trump has announced that new tariffs will go into effect on April 2, following several weeks of threats. These new tariffs are likely to be broader in scope than the limited ones implemented thus far. So who is likely to pay for them?
7 min read
Tax legislation in 2025 may have good reason to address international corporate income taxes, because of scheduled changes slated to go into effect or because of international developments like the Pillar Two agreement.
63 min read
This week, the incoming Trump administration issued a day-one executive order on the global minimum tax agreement known as Pillar Two, which seeks to ensure multinational corporations pay at least 15 percent in income tax.
6 min read