Evaluating U.S. Tax Reform Options & Trade-Offs

The economic crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic poses a triple challenge for tax policy in the United States. Lawmakers are tasked with crafting a policy response that will accelerate the economic recovery, reduce the mounting deficit, and protect the most vulnerable.

To assist lawmakers in navigating the challenge, and to help the American public understand the tax changes being proposed, the Tax Foundation’s Center for Federal Tax Policy modeled how 70 potential changes to the tax code would affect the U.S. economy, distribution of the tax burden, and federal revenue.

In tax policy there is an ever-present trade-off among how much revenue a tax will raise, who bears the burden of a tax, and what impact a tax will have on economic growth. Armed with the information in our new book, Options for Reforming America’s Tax Code 2.0, policymakers can debate the relative merits and trade-offs of each option to improve the tax code in a post-pandemic world.

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Learning from the First Trade War: Retaliation Hurts US Exporters

As we learned in the first trade war, retaliation will exact harm on US exporters by lowering their export sales—and the US-imposed tariffs will directly harm exporters too. US-imposed tariffs can burden exporters by increasing input costs, which acts like a tax on exports.

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Picking the Right Budgetary Offsets Key to Tax Reform Success

In a perilous economic and fiscal environment, with instability created by Trump’s trade war and publicly held debt on track to surpass the highest levels ever recorded within five years, a lot rides on how Republicans navigate tax and spending reforms in reconciliation.

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New B2B and Digital Taxes Are on the Table in Maryland

While Governor Moore’s tax plan is still being fiercely debated in Maryland, legislators have introduced several additional proposals—mostly aimed at increasing taxes on businesses—to generate revenue and address the state’s chronic budget deficit.

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Minnesota Legislation Would Ease Burdens for Business Travelers

A recent proposal in Minnesota exempting certain nonresident workers from having to file and pay income taxes would reduce compliance costs for business travelers and their employers at limited cost to the state.

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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.

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The Latest on the Global Tax Agreement

The agreement represents a major change for tax competition, and many countries will be rethinking their tax policies for multinationals. If there is no agreement on changes to Pillar Two or digital services taxes, retaliatory American tariffs could be on the horizon.

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