Erica York is Senior Economist and Research Manager with Tax Foundation’s Center for Federal Tax Policy. She previously worked as an auditor at a large community bank in Kansas and interned at Tax Foundation’s Center for State Tax Policy.
Her analysis has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Politico, and other national and international media outlets. She holds a master’s degree in Economics from Wichita State University and an undergraduate degree in Business Administration and Economics from Sterling (KS) College, where she is currently an adjunct professor. Erica lives in Kansas with her husband and their two children.
Now 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.
Policymakers at all levels of government should avoid the pitfalls of incentives. Instead, they should focus on creating a more efficient, neutral, and structurally sound tax code to the benefit of all types of business investment.
Politicians often bemoan the trade deficit, but their disdain for this economic statistic is largely misplaced. The trade deficit reflects deeper choices about how we use our money, and reducing it may require lowering our standard of living.
Former President Donald Trump’s proposed 10 percent tariff would raise taxes on American consumers by more than $300 billion a year—a tax increase rivaling the ones proposed by President Biden.
At least eight Republican presidential hopefuls will take the stage Wednesday night in the first presidential primary debate of the 2024 election cycle—and the future of the U.S. tax code should be one topic that takes center stage.
In tax year 2020, taxpayers claimed more than 159 million tax credits on their individual income tax returns worth a total of more than $277 billion. That was an increase of $35.3 billion from tax year 2019, largely due to an influx of pandemic relief administered through the tax code in 2020.
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.
As the TCJA expiration nears, lawmakers face difficult choices in reforming the CTC. While revenue, distributional and economic effects are important, lawmakers should also focus on simplifying the rules and reducing the administrative challenges.
Details and analysis of the latest House GOP tax plan, the American Families and Jobs Act. Learn more about the House Republican tax plan.
The Trump administration imposed nearly $80 billion worth of new taxes on Americans by levying tariffs on thousands of products, amounting to one of the largest tax increases in decades. The Biden administration has so far kept most of the Trump administration tariffs in place.
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.
Reviewing 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.
Rather than continue down the path of growing debt, lawmakers should craft a comprehensive solution. International experience cautions against tax-based fiscal consolidations, but modest tax increases may be part of a successful debt reduction package.
As policymakers look to tackle America’s debt and deficit crisis, they should consider international experiences on successful fiscal consolidations.
As predicted, the Inflation Reduction Act’s misguided price-setting policy is already discouraging drug development. Rather than double down on it, as President Biden proposes doing in his budget, lawmakers ought to restore incentives to invest in the United States.
The overall U.S. tax and transfer system is overwhelmingly progressive, and understanding the extent—and source—of that progressivity is essential for lawmakers considering the trade-offs associated with each tax policy decision.
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.
President Biden’s new budget proposal outlines several major tax increases targeted at businesses and high-income individuals that would bring U.S. income tax rates far out of step with international norms.
Instead of such a complex and inefficient system, policymakers should move to full expensing as part of the effort to build.
Adopting a distributed profits tax would greatly simplify U.S. business taxes, reduce marginal tax rates on investment, and renew our country’s commitment to pro-growth tax policy.