Expensing of Machinery and Equipment Should Be Made Permanent
Making expensing permanent is especially important now, when the economy is threatened with a recession and inflation remains high.
Expert
Stephen J. Entin
Senior Fellow Emeritus
Stephen J. Entin is a Senior Fellow Emeritus at the Tax Foundation.
Previously, he was President and Executive Director at the Institute for Research on the Economics of Taxation (IRET), a pro-free market economic public policy research organization based in Washington DC. He advised the National Commission on Economic Growth and Tax Reform (the Kemp Commission), assisted in the drafting of the Commission’s report, and was the author of several of its support documents.
Mr. Entin is a former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy at the Department of the Treasury. He joined the Treasury Department in 1981 with the incoming Reagan Administration. He participated in the preparation of economic forecasts for the President’s budgets, and the development of the 1981 tax cuts, including the “tax indexing” provision that keeps tax rates from rising due to inflation.
Mr. Entin represented the Treasury Department in the preparation of the Annual Reports of the Board of Trustees of the Social Security System, and conducted research into the long run outlook for the system. In his work in eight annual reports of the Board of Trustees of the Federal Old Age and Survivors Insurance and Disability Insurance Trust Funds, Mr. Entin was instrumental in revamping the reports to make their economic and demographic assumptions more realistic and to present their information in a more informative and understandable format. This information triggered several proposals in the Congress to adjust the formulas determining social security benefits in order to avoid future payroll tax increases.
Prior to joining Treasury, Mr. Entin was a staff economist with the Joint Economic Committee of the Congress, where he developed legislation for tax rate reduction and incentives to encourage saving.
Mr. Entin is a graduate of Dartmouth College and received his graduate training in economics at the University of Chicago, majoring in macroeconomics, monetary policy, and international economics.
Written Works
A Tale of Two Tax Plans in the United Kingdom
History is clear. Lowering budget deficits via spending restraint frees resources for additional private output and jobs. Lowering them by raising taxes on business investment and labor services makes it harder to dis-inflate without a recession.
Influential Tax Reformer Ernest S. Christian, Jr., Leaves Legacy—and Blueprint
Ernest S. Christian, Jr., (1937-2022) was one of the tax policy community’s most distinguished and influential experts, showing us how effective sound tax policy can be. He passed away on September 13th, leaving behind a legacy of tax reform.
The Legacy of Harvard Economist Dale Jorgenson
Dr. Jorgenson’s work has been instrumental in convincing many in the tax policy community to take seriously the need to factor in the economic effects of taxation on capital formation, productivity, wages, and employment in forecasting the welfare and federal budget consequences of changes in tax policy.
Tax Policy to Bridge the Coronavirus-Induced Economic Slowdown
Tax policy can help by giving businesses current access to future tax “assets”—deductions and credits the businesses will be allowed or owed over time any way under current law—instead of making them wait.
Getting “Real” by Indexing Capital Gains for Inflation
Many elements of the income tax are adjusted for inflation, such as tax brackets, but the purchase price of assets that are later sold for capital gains or losses is not. Here’s the case for changing that.
Trade and Capital Flow Consequences of Tax Reform: A Means to a Faster Expansion of U.S. Capital Formation and Employment
The tax bill will boost investment and incomes in the United States, and make the country a better place to locate production and hiring. There will be a transitory rise in the trade deficit, but in the context of a stronger, faster-growing economy.
Conference Report Limits on Interest Deductions
There is no good reason to eliminate interest deductions to permit expensing. Expensing is a key element of any tax system which seeks to put all economic activity on a level playing field.
Labor Bears Much of the Cost of the Corporate Tax
Recent empirical evidence shows that workers bear upwards of 70 percent of the corporate income tax burden, much more than popular tax models claim, which make errors in how they account for super-normal returns and the openness of our economy.
