Budget Reconciliation: Tracking the 2025 Trump Tax Cuts
On April 10, the House adopted the Senate’s amended version of the budget resolution, which allows $5.3 trillion in deficit-financed tax cuts.
8 min read
Expert
Alex Muresianu
Senior Policy Analyst
Alex Muresianu is a Senior Policy Analyst at the Tax Foundation, focused on federal tax policy. Previously, Alex worked on the federal team as an intern in the summer of 2018 and as a research assistant in summer 2020.
He attended Tufts University, graduating with a degree in economics and minors in finance and political science in February 2021. He also worked for the Pioneer Institute in 2019, spent a summer as a journalism intern at Reason magazine, and written op-eds for various print and online publications.
Alex originally hails from outside Boston, and enjoys Dungeons and Dragons, ’80s movies (Back to the Future, Indiana Jones, the Schwarzenegger filmography, Die Hard, etc.), and classic rock.
Latest Work
Taxing Life Insurance
As Congress attempts to prevent the expiration of major Tax Cuts and Jobs Act provisions, it needs to find ways to pay for them. Ideally, it should use the least economically harmful means possible.
3 min read
Four Paths for Inflation Reduction Act Reforms
The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) introduced a series of new targeted tax breaks, many of which seem to be much more expensive than originally forecasted. Understandably, repealing these subsidies is a key option for policymakers looking to pay to extend the expiring broader tax cuts passed in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA).
7 min read
EVs and the Highway Trust Fund: Five Things to Know
While fixing infrastructure funding has not been a focus of the tax expiration debate, it would be a smart way to pay for at least a small portion of the expiring tax cuts. In recent years, highway funding has exceeded highway revenues, and the introduction of electric vehicles has made the gas tax increasingly obsolete.
7 min read
The Role of LIFO in the Tax Code
While LIFO is rarely the main focus of the overall tax policy debate, it is a sound structural piece of the tax code. LIFO comes close to matching the economic ideal while still remaining true to the accounting principle.
15 min read
Expensing: It Pays to Be Permanent
As lawmakers work through the reconciliation process, permanently enacting improvements to deductions for capital investment and research and development (R&D) costs will create an economically powerful package.
7 min read
Harris’s America Forward Plan Should Cover Whole Economy, Not Just Favored Industries
Investment matters across the economy, and policymaking should reflect that.
4 min read
What Sets the US and China Apart on Tax?
Broad, pro-investment tax policy matters for growth, and the US has plenty of opportunities to make improvements, particularly given the advantages our cross-Pacific rival confers on its firms.
5 min read
Can US Tax Reforms Keep Up with China?
How does tax policy shape a nation’s competitiveness? Today, we’re diving into the showdown between the US and China, exploring how China’s enticing tax incentives pose a formidable challenge to America’s economic supremacy.
Kamala Harris Tax Plan Ideas: Details and Analysis
On tax policy, Harris carries forward much of President Biden’s FY 2025 budget, including higher taxes aimed at businesses and high earners. She would also further expand the child tax credit (CTC) and various other tax credits and incentives while exempting tips from income tax.
17 min read
Leveraging Tax Policy to Bolster US Economic Growth Amid Competition with China
Restoring expensing for R&D, machinery, and equipment; extending better cost recovery to structures investment; and avoiding raising the corporate tax rate would create a stronger, pro-investment policy environment for the US economy.
44 min read
Supernormal Returns: An Overlooked Foundation of Tax Policy Debates
Supernormal profits are an important concept, but we should be wary of analysis that both defines supernormal profits very broadly and equates all supernormal profits with monopoly profits that can be easily taxed without negative economic effects.
23 min read
Why Neutral Cost Recovery Matters
Allowing full deductibility of residential structures would mean more housing construction, particularly multifamily housing—a practical solution to address housing affordability challenges.
6 min read
Blog
Short FormHow World War II Reshaped US Taxation
World War II shaped many aspects of the modern world, including the US tax code. But the dramatic changes to our system that military mobilization required didn’t subside when the fighting finished; they’ve persisted to today.
4 min read
How Did the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act Simplify the Tax Code?
Not every change in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act simplified the tax code. However, the TCJA reduced compliance costs overall for individual filers, and allowing fundamental structural improvements to expire would make the tax code worse.
5 min read
Expanding User Fees for Transportation: Roads and Beyond
By 2034, the gas tax and other car-related excise taxes are projected to raise less than half of the Highway Trust Fund’s outlays. While broader tax and spending reforms are necessary for overall deficit reduction, improving transportation funding would be a crucial step forward.
34 min read
Frustrated with Tipping? No Tax on Tips Could Make It Worse
“No tax on tips” might be a catchy idea on the campaign trail. But it could create plenty of headaches, from figuring out tips on previously untipped services to an unexpectedly large loss of federal revenue.
6 min read
White House Right on Importance of Business Investment, Wrong on Relevant Policy
The Treasury Department recently touted strong business investment in the years following the pandemic-driven recession and pointed to the Biden administration’s industrial policies in the Inflation Reduction Act and CHIPS Act as key drivers.
7 min read
Details and Analysis of President Biden’s Fiscal Year 2025 Budget Proposal
President Biden is proposing extraordinarily large tax hikes on businesses and the top 1 percent of earners that would put the US in a distinctly uncompetitive international position and threaten the health of the US economy.
19 min read
How Did the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act Change Cost Recovery?
As lawmakers consider which policies to prioritize in the upcoming tax policy debates, better cost recovery for all investment should be top of mind.
7 min read