Neutral Cost Recovery Is Not a New Idea
As stated by Rep. Jack Kemp in 1985, “Neutral cost recovery is designed to provide the present value of investment expensing without some of its practical problems.”
5 min read
All Related Articles
Empirical Evidence Shows Expensing Leads to More Investment and Higher Employment
The Tax Foundation’s General Equilibrium Model suggests that allowing businesses to immediately deduct or “expense” their capital investments in the year in which they are purchased delivers the biggest bang for the buck in spurring economic growth and jobs compared to other tax policies.
7 min read
Options for Improving the Tax Treatment of Structures
Improving the tax treatment of structures is one of the most cost-effective tax policy changes available to lawmakers as they consider how to remove investment barriers in the tax code to hasten the economic recovery. Policymakers must weigh the trade-offs among long-run economic output goals, revenue constraints, and the existing stock of structures.
13 min read
Reducing the Bias Against Long-term Investments
Other countries have shown that providing deductions in line with invested capital costs can have positive impacts both on investment and on debt bias.
7 min read
White House Considers Neutral Cost Recovery for Structures
When considering long-term policies for increasing long-run levels of investment and economic growth, full expensing and neutral cost recovery are better targeted than policies like a capital gains cut.
6 min read
Reviewing the Economic and Revenue Implications of Cost Recovery Options
Permanent full expensing for all types of investment is an effective policy change lawmakers can use to encourage additional investment and economic growth.
9 min read
Reviewing the Benefits of Full Expensing for the Post-Pandemic Economic Recovery
One of the most cost-effective policy changes would be to make full expensing of machinery and equipment permanent and extend this important tax treatment to structures as well as for firms in a net operating loss position.
7 min read
Capital Cost Recovery across the OECD, 2020
Although sometimes overlooked in discussions about corporate taxation, capital cost recovery plays an important role in defining a business’s tax base and can impact investment decisions—with far-reaching economic consequences.
27 min readTax Policy to Bridge the Coronavirus-Induced Economic Slowdown
Tax policy can help by giving businesses current access to future tax “assets”—deductions and credits the businesses will be allowed or owed over time any way under current law—instead of making them wait.
5 min read
Toomey Introduces Legislation to Make Bonus Depreciation Permanent and Fix the Retail Glitch
Making 100 percent bonus depreciation permanent avoids the uncertainty associated with the phaseout of a powerful pro-growth policy and would provide a cost-effective boost to long-run economic output, wages, and employment in the United States.
2 min read
The White House Budget Highlights the Need to Extend Pro-Growth TCJA Business Tax Provisions
Full expensing, if made permanent, would be one of the most cost-effective ways to increase growth as it would produce about 4.5 times more GDP growth per dollar of revenue than making the law’s individual tax provisions permanent, according to our analysis.
3 min read
Economic and Budgetary Impact of Extending Full Expensing to Structures
Full expensing is one of the most powerful pro-growth policies in terms of revenue forgone. Given that structures comprise a large share of the private capital stock, improving their tax treatment would end a large bias against investment in the tax code.
14 min readGILTI and Other Conformity Issues Still Loom for States in 2020
Even two years after enactment of the federal Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), many states have yet to issue guidance explaining how they conform to key provisions of the law, particularly those pertaining to international income.
27 min read
Expensing Provisions Should Not Favor Physical Over Human Capital
Investments in worker training and education can increase productivity and economic output as growth in human capital accumulates, though the time horizon for these effects is longer than that of physical capital accumulation.
3 min read
Kansas Tax Modernization: A Framework for Stable, Fair, Pro-Growth Reform
Our new report outlines various policy recommendations for Kansas to consider in order to begin a robust and bipartisan conversation about modernizing the state’s tax code to suit a 21st century economy.
15 min read
Understanding Why Full Expensing Matters
Understanding the channel through which a tax policy change is expected to affect the economy is crucial. Absent this understanding, we are likely to reach the wrong conclusions on what sound tax policy looks like and what changes would improve the tax code.
4 min read
Carbon Tax and Revenue Recycling: Revenue, Economic, and Distributional Implications
In our new report, we explore the design implications of a carbon tax and provide estimates for revenue, economic, and distributional effects of three potential carbon tax and revenue recycling proposals. Each proposal faces different trade-offs and achieves different policy goals.
23 min read