Short FormEconomics isn’t just a course with supply and demand graphs and a quirky usage of “guns and butter.” It’s a discipline focused on incentives and responses, and we can see its impact all around us, shaping our world and our choices.
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The Senate recently passed the Taxpayer Assistance and Service Act, which contains 65 provisions to improve tax administration and the IRS.
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A new paper shows raising top income tax rates on the current tax base may not yield as much revenue as previously estimated, due to opportunities to shift income to different tax bases within the tax code.
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While the government will never close the tax gap or fully eliminate tax fraud, lawmakers and the IRS can institute several reforms to reduce the gap, including simplifying the tax code, increasing third-party information reporting, and coordinating anti-fraud efforts.
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With Social Security insolvency rapidly approaching and policymakers exploring changes to benefits and taxation, Congress could look to base-broadening reforms like the ECT as a guide for how to think about taxing compensation and broadening the tax base.
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Under Spain’s current Social Democratic government, the country has fallen from 27th to 35th (out of 38 OECD countries) in the International Tax Competitiveness Index.
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Want to know how much you’ll owe during tax filing season? Then you need to know your taxable income.
While there are many factors that affect a country’s economic performance, taxes play an important role. A well-structured tax code is easy for taxpayers to comply with and can promote economic development while raising sufficient revenue for a government’s priorities.
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Wealth taxes have been a failure everywhere they’ve been tried, which may be why advocates for the California amendment are saying this is a new frontier. But the countries that have tried this gamble know the frontier well, and they’ve left it in the dust.
Washington’s new income tax on high earners doesn’t take effect until 2028, but it is already generating a lot of activity. A measure on the ballot this November, Initiative 645, would reverse the legislature’s decision, preventing the new tax from taking effect.
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The 2026 Regional Tax Competitiveness Index for Spain highlights a growing divergence between regions that have embraced tax reform and those whose tax systems have remained largely unchanged.
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The federal government’s debt burden and interest on the debt are near record levels and headed higher, raising legitimate concerns about an eventual debt crisis. Given the increasingly dysfunctional budget process, the most viable option on the table to stave off such a crisis is a statutory bipartisan fiscal commission with buy-in from leaders of both parties.
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What happens when voters decide tax policy directly? This November, roughly 40 tax measures are on the ballot across 17 states. Some states want higher taxes on top earners, others want to write low rates into their constitutions, and Missouri voters will decide whether to start a fund that could one day replace every state tax.
On Election Day, Coloradans will get to decide on two competing measures on income taxes: an initiated statute that would cap income taxes at the current 4.4 percent rate; and a constitutional amendment that would authorize a graduated-rate individual and corporate income tax, paired with an initiated statute setting new rates, with a top rate of 8.4 percent.
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Missing out on a tax rebate check is certainly disheartening, but New Jersey wallets are getting actively drained by an even bigger problem in the tax code: the state’s graduated-rate income tax thresholds don’t change with inflation, either.
The 2026 Spanish Regional Tax Competitiveness Index allows policymakers and taxpayers to evaluate and measure how their regions’ tax systems compare.
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Congress has passed some major simplifying reforms in recent years, but the tax code has still grown more complex over the past few decades. New carveouts, savings vehicles, and targeted tax increases would complicate it further.
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The proposed GROWTH Act would make the tax treatment of investment funds more consistent and improve the tax treatment of saving in the US by allowing investors to defer tax on qualifying reinvested capital gains distributions until they sell their fund shares.
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California’s billionaire tax is on the ballot this November, and it raises more questions than answers. From lost government revenue to legal battles that could drag on for years, what would this first-in-the-nation wealth tax actually do?
Americans will spend 6.9 billion hours complying with IRS tax filing and reporting requirements in 2026, costing about $387 billion in lost productivity. Including an additional $157 billion in out-of-pocket costs, complying with the federal tax code will cost Americans more than $544 billion this year, over 1.7 percent of GDP.
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