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.
Indiana Should Use Surplus to Expedite Rate Cuts, Index Exemptions for Inflation
Expediting income tax rate reductions and indexing major income tax provisions for inflation are two of the most important tax policy changes policymakers could make to provide meaningful tax relief to Hoosiers both now and in the years to come.
4 min readHealth-care Premiums Could Deter Canadians’ Upward Mobility
Canadian workers could face up to two important marginal tax rate spikes and lose 60 percent of additional earnings to the provincial health-care premium.
4 min readPush for Higher Taxes Is Misguided During a Time of Inflation and Looming Recession
Some 40 years ago, the U.S. dealt with high inflation and slow economic growth. Then as now, the solution is a long-term focus on stronger economic growth and sustainable federal budgets.
5 min readChips Are Down in Semiconductor Tax World
The Senate has begun debate on the so-called Chips bill, which would provide $52 billion in grants and $24 billion in tax credits to supposedly strengthen the production of semiconductors in the U.S.
3 min readNew Jersey’s Proposed Menthol Ban Is All Pain and No Gain
New Jersey lawmakers should be weary of flavor bans after seeing the results in Massachusetts.
3 min readNew Research Shows Positive Long-Run Effects from Corporate Tax Cuts
Policymakers should continue to focus on longer term impacts rather than emphasizing the short-term stimulus effects of tax cuts.
3 min readHow Tariffs and the Trade War Hurt U.S. Agriculture
With inflation continuing to skyrocket, especially for food, which reached 10.4 percent in June, it is worth examining how the ongoing U.S. trade war with China and U.S. tariff policy overall has impacted U.S. agriculture and food prices.
3 min readThree Questions on Pillar One
While the global minimum tax gets much attention in the media, there is another significant piece to the deal.
6 min readLithuanian Model Could Help French Workers’ Upward Mobility
Reshaping some of these policies to generate a smoother variation of marginal tax rates over different income levels would likely raise labor supply and encourage the upward mobility of workers and especially that of average-income workers.
5 min readBiden and OECD Tax Proposals Would Hurt FDI
Academic research indicates foreign direct investment (FDI) is highly responsive to the corporate effective tax rate (ETRs); that is, the tax rate after accounting for all deduction and credits available to corporations.
3 min read