Section 179 Expensing: Good First Step?
The Small Business Jobs Act would improve the tax treatment of investment but the proposal stops short of full expensing, leaving room for improvement.
Alex Muresianu is a 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.
The Small Business Jobs Act would improve the tax treatment of investment but the proposal stops short of full expensing, leaving room for improvement.
Congress should reconsider key elements of the IRA, including the book minimum tax and the green energy credits, with an eye towards simplification and fiscal responsibility.
The federal tax code remains a major source of frustration and controversy for Americans, and a hindrance to economic growth and opportunity. Other countries, such as Estonia, have proven that sufficient tax revenue can be collected in a less frustrating and more efficient way.
Sens. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) and Christopher Coons (D-DE) have recently introduced a bill laying the groundwork for a possible solution to the problem: a tax on the carbon content of imports. But it falls short of the optimal approach in several ways.
The current tax treatment of R&D expenses is irrational, complicated, and counterproductive. Fortunately, fixing this problem is a bipartisan issue.
In our latest report, we consider several theoretical arguments for carbon taxes and the evidence from carbon taxes implemented around the world related to emissions, economic growth, distribution and revenue recycling options, other environmental taxes, green subsidies, and environmental regulations.
The distributed profits tax is a sounder approach to concerns about investment and stock buybacks than the existing policy approach.
Consistent principles ought to apply across the tax code. In the case of intangible drilling costs, companies should be able to claim full deductions for the costs they incur.
While the IRS hopes to increase revenue collection and minimize additional burdens on taxpayers, uncertainty remains regarding its ability to deliver, particularly on the latter. Furthermore, some concerns about the original funding package are already surfacing, specifically around insufficient funding for taxpayer services.
According to our analysis, President Biden’s budget would reduce long-run economic output by about 1.3 percent and eliminate 335,000 FTE jobs. See what tax policies the president is proposing.
When peeling back layers of the JCT report, it becomes clear that many tax expenditures are not “loopholes” or benefits for narrow special interests, but important structural elements of the tax code.
President Biden’s State of the Union Address outlined three tax proposals, including raising the tax on stock buybacks, imposing a billionaire minimum tax, and expanding the child tax credit.
A new tax expenditures report by the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) reveals two problematic developments: 1) policymakers have increasingly relied on the tax code to deliver benefits to individuals, and 2) the broad, neutral tax treatment of investment has shifted to targeted subsidies for businesses.
It’s Christmas time, and for millions of families around the country, that means revisiting some classic holiday movies. For some, that includes It’s a Wonderful Life and Home Alone. For others, that includes Die Hard.
If bonus depreciation is allowed to phase out, then the tax bias against capital investments will increase, discouraging firms from making otherwise profitable investments.
Lawmakers should recognize both the growing importance of business R&D and the need to support it through a commonsense tax policy, namely a return to full and immediate expensing for R&D.
The tax treatment of research and development (R&D) expenses is one of the biggest issues facing Congress as the year winds down.
Two weeks after the 2022 midterm elections, it’s becoming clearer where tax policy may be headed for the rest of the year and into 2023. In the short term, Congress must deal with tax extenders and expiring business tax provisions that may undermine the economy.
Policymakers face a difficult balancing act this year in what is likely to be an unusual tax extenders season.
the Inflation Reduction Act gives us a glimpse into a future where the U.S. and EU opt for protectionist tax and trade policies rather than implementing principled tax policies and reducing trade barriers between allies.