Stay informed with quick and accessible analysis of today's top tax policy topics. Read Tax Foundation's Tax Policy Blog for insight from our experts on tax policies across the US and abroad.
To find our most recent research papers and data, click the links below.
Rather than continuing the Trump administration’s tariff policy, policymakers should explore new solutions that can raise sustainable revenue with fewer distortions, like replacing the tariffs with a value-added tax.
5 min read
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.
6 min read
The Rental Housing Investment Act (RHIA) would remove much of that tax penalty by allowing developers of new rental housing to immediately deduct up to $150,000 of cost per unit.
7 min read
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.
8 min read
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.
6 min read
Studies have repeatedly shown that US businesses and consumers are bearing a disproportionate share of the tariff burden.
7 min read
Many states levy taxes on liquids on a per-barrel basis. However, some states define a “barrel” differently than the standard measurement. The landscape of unharmonious units creates complexity and compliance costs for businesses that must pay these taxes in multiple states.
5 min read
The European Union’s revised Tobacco Excise Directive (TED) is the latest proposal from Brussels that raises questions about the role that the EU plays in relation to the Member States.
7 min read
Expensing for capital investment is not a special tax break. Expensing aligns the timing of tax deductions with the timing of actual capital expenditures so that the tax code does not discourage marginal investment projects.
7 min read
The “no tax on” deductions show the drawbacks of using narrowly tailored provisions to provide tax relief.
6 min read
On September 15th, Canada announced that full expensing for machinery, equipment, and patent rights will be made permanent and broadened from around 15 percent to two thirds of business capital investment.
6 min read
Policymakers considering AI-specific token or compute taxes can learn from the “bit tax” proposals of the 1990s during the rise of the internet.
6 min read
At the Republican National Convention in Dallas, President Trump promised payments of $5,000 to every adult citizen in the US if the Republicans maintain control of the House and the Senate in the upcoming midterm elections. Vice President JD Vance later supported the idea, saying that the president’s new tariffs are generating a lot of revenue that can be shared with Americans.
3 min read
Jock taxes on highly paid athletes and entertainers are here to stay, but states could make life easier for the rest of us, at very little cost, by adopting reasonable nonresident filing and withholding thresholds for ordinary taxpayers.
5 min read
There is a real danger that the well-founded admiration of expensing can slip into the belief that rates will not matter if the business tax base is correctly designed. Avi-Yonah’s article is a recent and well-articulated version of this intellectual undercurrent.
7 min read
A Destination-Based Cash Flow Tax (DBCFT) reduces the tax code’s penalty on investment, narrows its bias toward debt over equity, and removes much of the incentive to shift profits abroad.
7 min read
Investment in digital assets, long thought of as a niche interest reserved for enthusiasts, has broken into the mainstream. In 2026, about one in five US adults report being invested in or using cryptocurrency.
5 min read
Economists and journalists have been pointing to a labor share of income series from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) as evidence that capital is taking an ever-increasing slice of the economic pie. But a closer look at the national income accounts shows a different story.
7 min read
Tax Foundation’s new resource, Options for Reforming America’s Tax Code 3.0, demonstrates that not all revenue-raising options are created equal—some do more harm to the economy than others for the same amount of revenue.
7 min read
A new paper finds that foreign exporters absorbed 47 percent of the tariff burden, passing on a smaller share to US importers than estimated by other studies.
6 min read