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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.

PA tax reform including Pennsylvania corporate tax reform of corporate net income tax cnit

The Commonwealth’s Case for Corporate Tax Reforms

The Pennsylvania Senate Finance Committee recently advanced two bills, SB 345 and SB 346, that would build on last year’s historic corporate net income tax (CNIT) reform.

7 min read
Tackling US debt crisis requires Medicare reform and Social Security reform to reduce the deficit

Tackling America’s Debt and Deficit Crisis Requires Social Security and Medicare Reform

Any serious proposal to tackle the emerging debt and deficit crisis must also address our largest mandatory spending programs: Social Security and Medicare. Together, these two programs will be responsible for nearly 80 percent of the deficit’s rise between 2023 and 2032, according to Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projections.

8 min read
Details and Analysis of Canceling the Scheduled Tax Cuts and Jobs Act Business Tax Increases and tax changes including expirations

Does the Optimal Tax System Exist?

While research on optimal taxation often focuses on the pure economic implications, it rarely considers cultural and societal differences that can lead to very different outcomes when trying to implement an optimal tax system.

3 min read