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.

Full Expensing to Be Made Permanent in the United Kingdom
The policy will likely raise GDP by 0.9 percent, investment by 1.5 percent, and wages by 0.8 percent, relative to a return to the pre-2021 law.
4 min read
What’s Next for Tax Competition?
The rules of tax competition are changing with the recent agreement on a global minimum tax and other changes to tax rules around the world, but that does not mean the contest is over.
5 min read
Assessing the EU Tax Observatory’s View on Profit Shifting and the Global Minimum Tax
The EU Tax Observatory has taken an extreme view in assessing the global minimum tax. The rules were not meant to immediately reduce the stock of shifted profits or align profitability levels more closely with employment costs. The rules do change incentives for multinationals, but profits may continue to remain in low-tax jurisdictions for many years.
6 min read
Is EU VAT Compliance Actually Improving?
While the European Commission focuses on improving VAT compliance, policy is a major contributor to VAT revenue losses. The VAT actionable policy gap is 15.65 percent, more than triple the compliance gap.
5 min read
Dwindling Savings and Increasing Financial Stress Highlights Need for Tax Reforms
The uncertain future of American finances in a time of potential economic instability points to the need for tax reforms that encourage individuals to save and build financial security in a relatively simple way, such as through universal savings accounts.
6 min read
Movers and Shakers in the International Tax Competitiveness Index
The 2023 version of the International Tax Competitiveness Index is the 10th edition of the report. Let’s take a look back and see how country ranks have changed over time.
5 min read
Jeff Bezos’s Move Undercuts Proposed Washington State Wealth Tax
Whether tax savings motivated his move or not, the implications for Washington are very real, and serve to illustrate just how dangerous it can be to design tax systems that rely so overwhelmingly on a very small number of taxpayers choosing to stay put.
3 min read
New Study Finds TCJA Strongly Boosted Corporate Investment
The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) was the largest corporate tax reform in a generation, lowering the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent, temporarily allowing full expensing for short-lived assets (referred to as bonus depreciation), and overhauling the international tax code.
6 min read

Do People Really Move Because of Taxes?
What do The Rolling Stones, NFL star Tyreek Hill, and Maryland millionaires have in common? They all moved because of taxes.
4 min read
Californians Still Smoking Menthol after Ban: Evidence from a Discarded Pack Audit
It’s been almost a year since California banned the sale of all flavored tobacco products, and the big question is: did it work?
4 min read