Lawmakers should prioritize creating a tax system that supports investment more broadly rather than subsidizing specific industries and allowing broad, neutral pro-investment provisions to expire.
3 min read
If tax increases are included in a package, international experience points toward raising consumption taxes, rationalizing tax expenditures, and broadening the tax base—not hiking income taxes.
6 min read
Now is the time for lawmakers to focus on long-term fiscal sustainability, as further delay will only make an eventual fiscal reckoning that much harder and more painful. Congressional leaders should follow through on convening a fiscal commission to deal with the long-term budgetary challenges facing the country.
35 min read
When peeling back layers of the JCT report, it becomes clear that many tax expenditures are not “loopholes” or benefits for narrow special interests, but important structural elements of the tax code.
6 min read
By reducing the tax code’s current barriers to investment and saving and simplifying its complex rules, lawmakers would greatly enhance the ability of Americans to pursue new ideas, create more opportunities, and build financial security for themselves and their families.
40 min read
Congress is debating new ways to raise revenue that would make the tax code more complex and more difficult to administer. The new proposals—imposing an alternative minimum tax on corporate book income, applying an excise tax on stock buybacks, and, at one point this week, a tax on unrealized capital gains for billionaires—are unreliable and highly complex ways to raise revenue.
10 min read
Last week, an analysis by Reuters suggested that U.S. firms pay less income tax than foreign competitors, in part because “the U.S. tax code is unusually generous with tax breaks and deductions,” also known as corporate tax expenditures. However, the Reuters analysis is at odds with other data and studies indicating that U.S. corporate tax expenditures and effective tax rates are about on par with those in peer countries in the OECD.
3 min read
In a new report, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analyzes federal policies that influence R&D spending in the pharmaceutical industry. The report highlights how taxes affect R&D investment incentives, underscoring the importance of structuring the tax code so that it is not biased against investment.
4 min read
Who are the workers, consumers, and shareholders who interact with businesses in the U.S.? What forms do these businesses take? How do business taxes impact people’s lives? It is essential we answer these questions in order to design a business tax system that is simple, efficient, and enables economic progress.
5 min read
The debate in Washington, D.C. often centers around tax expenditures, so-called corporate loopholes, in the tax code. But not all tax expenditures are created equal. Some represent neutral tax treatment and should be left alone, while others are distortionary and should be repealed. Understanding what a tax expenditure represents is essential for understanding how our tax code works for both businesses and individuals.
4 min read
The elimination of tax expenditures is a popular way to pay for tax reform, but not all tax expenditures are equally worthy of elimination. It is important to ask, for each expenditure, whether it serves a reasonable purpose and whether it accomplishes that purpose in a reasonable way.
23 min read