Raising taxes on stock-based compensation through a book income tax will disadvantage this form of compensation and produce more complexity in the tax system without providing benefits to workers.
One has to wonder how stable or sustainable the Democrats’ spending program can be if it must rely so heavily on the taxes paid by such a small number of taxpayers as in the top 1 percent.
Passage of Louisiana Amendments 1 and 2, which are aimed at the sales tax and individual and corporate income taxes, respectively, would substantially simplify the Pelican State’s tax code and provide tax relief in both the short and long term.
The Index provides lessons for policymakers when they are thinking of ways to remove distortions from their tax systems and remain competitive against their peers. The further up a country moves on the Index, the more likely it is to have broader tax bases, relatively lower rates, and policies that are less distortionary to individual or business decisions. Going the other way reveals a policy preference for narrow tax bases, special tax policy tools, and rules that make it difficult for compliance.
Reducing the tax gap is a good idea, but the reporting requirements for financial institutions could be better-targeted at the problem at hand.
President Biden expanded and fundamentally changed the Child Tax Credit (CTC) for one year in the American Rescue Plan (ARP) passed in March 2021. Policymakers are now deciding the future of the expansion as part of the proposed reconciliation package, but a wide range of estimates for the effects of a permanent expansion is confusing the debate.
Inflation is often called a hidden tax, but in many states it yields a far more literal tax increase as tax brackets fail to adjust for changes in consumer purchasing power.
A well-structured tax code (that’s both competitive and neutral) is easy for taxpayers to comply with and can promote economic development while raising sufficient revenue for a government’s priorities.