New Directions in Tax Policy: Budgetary and Other Challenges of an Increasingly Complex Tax Code

On Thursday, April 10^th, the Tax Foundation, University of North Carolina Tax Center, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management are hosting a joint conference to discuss New Directions in Tax Policy: Budgetary and Other Challenges of an Increasingly Complex Tax Code.

This timely conference will provide members of Congress, the business community, and the American public with timely information regarding the challenges that Congress creates for itself when proposing policies with uncertain economic and budgetary impacts. With current debt and deficit levels, Congress should avoid policies that risk major costs. Recent history has shown that lawmakers have leaned into expensive policies, including major expansions of the child tax credit and renewable energy credits, without fully understanding long-run impacts. Additionally, lawmakers have implemented new business taxes, such as the corporate alternative minimum tax, that involve complex interactions between accounting and tax rules, introducing new challenges and uncertainties both for taxpayers and budget scorekeepers.

Speakers will include some of the country’s leading tax policy minds discussing these topics throughout the afternoon:

• Family Credits: Andrew Lautz of the Bipartisan Policy Center will moderate a discussion of child tax credits and other individual credits, with panelists David Splinter of the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT), Ernie Tedeschi of the Budget Lab at Yale, and Scott Winship of the American Enterprise Institute.
• Energy Credits: Jeff Hoopes of the University of North Carolina Kenan-Flagler Business School will moderate a discussion of energy credits, with panelists Gary Hecimovich of Deloitte Tax LLP, Will McBride of the Tax Foundation, and Catherine Wolfram of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Sloan School of Management.
• Accounting and Business Taxation: Michelle Hanlon, also of the Sloan School of Management, will moderate a discussion of accounting and business taxation, with panelists Alan Cole of the Tax Foundation, Paul Landefeld of the JCT, and Cathy Schultz of the Business Roundtable.

Keynote: Budget Discussions: The conference will close with a networking reception featuring keynote remarks by Douglas Holtz-Eakin, President of the American Action Forum and former Director of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

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