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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According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the U.S. federal government is among the most indebted governments in the world.
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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.
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As Minnesota lawmakers consider making theirs the first state to mandate worldwide combined reporting, they are relying on a revenue estimate that is—this may not be the technical term—completely bogus.
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As policymakers look to tackle America’s debt and deficit crisis, they should consider international experiences on successful fiscal consolidations.
6 min readDo Consumption Taxes Do a Better Job of Taxing Criminals?
One of the arguments in favor of the FairTax is that it would do a better job of taxing the underground economy than the income tax it is intended to replace.
6 min readWhy the Estonian Tax System Would Remain Competitive after Tax Reform
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When it comes to EU-level tax policy ideas, competitiveness seems to be less of a priority than raising revenue or pursuing social objectives.
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