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The major tax-related benefits in the $1.9 trillion economic relief plan are a third round of direct payments, extended unemployment insurance (UI) benefits and a $10,200 unemployment insurance income exemption for 2020, and an expansion of the Child Tax Credit.
Congress chose to exempt forgiven Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans from federal income taxation. Many states, however, remain on track to tax them by either treating forgiven loans as taxable income, denying the deduction for expenses paid for using forgiven loans, or both.
The American Rescue Plan Act’s restriction on states’ Fiscal Recovery Funds being used to directly or indirectly offset a net tax cut is vague and raises difficult questions of interpretation and application. A broad interpretation of this prohibition may be unconstitutional.
The government of Hartford County, Connecticut is in line to receive $173 million in local aid under the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). There’s only one problem: the government of Hartford County doesn’t exist, nor do any of Connecticut’s other counties have county-level government despite being allocated a collective $691 million under the bill.
State and local tax policy have always mattered, but the rise of remote work is bringing tax burdens and economic competitiveness to the forefront. It is a development that states cannot afford to ignore.
As the Biden administration and Congress consider making the expanded child tax credit permanent, a nearly $1.6 trillion expansion of tax code-administered benefits, they should consider financing it in a way that doesn’t create significant headwinds to economic recovery.
To address the more challenging parts of the budget, especially the unsustainable growth in mandatory spending, lawmakers should follow up on this debt ceiling agreement with a focus on long-term fiscal sustainability.
According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the U.S. federal government is among the most indebted governments in the world.
When it comes to EU-level tax policy ideas, competitiveness seems to be less of a priority than raising revenue or pursuing social objectives.
While some temporary policies can help in a crisis, policymakers should focus their efforts on sustainable policies that support growth and the resilience of businesses (and government coffers) over the long term.
If the EU wants to strategically compete with economic powers like the United States or China, it needs principled, pro-growth tax policy that prioritizes efficient ways to raise revenue over geopolitical ambitions.
At the end of 2022, prices were 14.6 percent higher than they were two years prior. That’s the fastest inflation rate over any two calendar years since the stagflation era of the late 1970s. State policymakers are understandably interested in bringing any tools at their disposal to bear on the problem. And many of them are reaching for tax policy solutions.
A combination of long-standing IRS operational deficiencies, the agency’s temporary closure due to the pandemic, and the now-expired pandemic relief produced a perfect recipe for a paper backlog.
Over the long run, tax policies that grow after-tax incomes and the economy do more to boost charitable giving than policies that try to incentivize people to be charitable.
Policymakers face a difficult balancing act this year in what is likely to be an unusual tax extenders season.
As we near this year’s “lame duck” session of Congress, there has been renewed interest in reforming the child tax credit as part of a tax deal. Our new analysis highlights the trade-offs that policymakers will face