FAQ: The One Big Beautiful Bill, Explained
Our experts explain how this major tax legislation may affect you and how policymakers can better improve the tax code.
24 min read
Featured Articles
One Big Beautiful Bill Does Better with Permanence, but Is Still Full of Temporary Provisions
Several major new tax breaks are scheduled to expire at the end of 2028, setting the stage for another tax fight to either extend them or allow them to expire.
5 min read
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act makes many of the individual tax cuts and reforms of the TCJA permanent. It improves upon the TCJA by making expensing for R&D and equipment permanent. However, for the most part, it does not include further structural reforms, and instead introduces many new, narrow tax breaks to the code, adding complexity and raising revenue costs.
7 min read
Budget Reconciliation: Tracking the 2025 Trump Tax Cuts
President Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act into law on July 4, 2025.
18 min read
Making the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act Permanent: Economic, Revenue, and Distributional Effects
Permanently extending the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act would boost long-run economic output by 1.1 percent, the capital stock by 0.7 percent, wages by 0.5 percent, and hours worked by 847,000 full-time equivalent jobs.
6 min read
Tax Calculator: How the TCJA’s Expiration Will Affect You
Unless Congress acts, Americans are in for a tax hike in 2026.
3 min read
Expiring TCJA Tax Provisions in 2026 Would Produce Substantial Tax Hike across the US
At the end of 2025, the individual tax provisions in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) expire all at once. Without congressional action, most taxpayers will see a notable tax increase relative to current policy in 2026.
4 min read
Options for Navigating the 2025 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act Expirations
Policymakers should have two priorities in the upcoming economic policy debates: a larger economy and fiscal responsibility. Principled, pro-growth tax policy can help accomplish both.
21 min read
How 2026 Tax Brackets Would Change if the TCJA Expires
If Congress allows the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) to expire as scheduled, most aspects of the individual income tax would undergo substantial changes, resulting in more than 62 percent of tax filers experiencing tax increases in 2026.
3 min read
Conference on Tax Cuts and Jobs Act’s Effects Shows Further Tax Reforms Needed in 2025
Lawmakers should see 2025 as an opportunity to consider more fundamental tax reforms. While the TCJA addressed some of the deficiencies of the tax code, it by no means addressed them all.
8 min read
Considering Tax Reform Options for 2025 (and Beyond)
Given that U.S. debt is roughly the size of our annual economic output, policymakers will face many tough fiscal choices in the coming years. The good news is there are policies that both support a larger economy and avoid adding to the debt.
6 min read
Another Huge Federal Deficit in Fiscal Year 2024 Despite Surging Corporate and Other Tax Collections
While federal tax collections—especially corporate taxes—have reached historically high levels, these gains have not kept pace with escalating spending, particularly on debt interest, leading to a substantial and concerning budget deficit in FY24.
6 min read
Why Are the Individual Tax Cuts Expiring?
The TCJA improved the U.S. tax code, but the meandering voyage of its passing and the compromises made to get it into law show the challenges of the legislative process.
6 min read
TCJA Family Provisions Offer Template for Tax Reform in 2025
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act’s changes to family tax policy serve as a reminder to avoid looking at tax reform provisions in a vacuum.
5 min read
How the TCJA Affected Legal Business Forms
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) significantly lowered the effective tax rates on business income, but the impact was not the same for C corporations and pass-through businesses.
6 min read
How Did the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act Change Cost Recovery?
As lawmakers consider which policies to prioritize in the upcoming tax policy debates, better cost recovery for all investment should be top of mind.
7 min read
Tax Reform Offsets Shouldn’t Offset Economic Growth
Pro-growth tax reform that does not add to the deficit will require tough choices, but whether to raise the corporate tax rate is not one of them. If lawmakers want to craft fiscally responsible and pro-growth tax reform, a higher corporate tax rate simply does not fit into the puzzle.
3 min read
New Study Finds TCJA Strongly Boosted Corporate Investment
The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) was the largest corporate tax reform in a generation, lowering the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent, temporarily allowing full expensing for short-lived assets (referred to as bonus depreciation), and overhauling the international tax code.
6 min read
How Have Federal Revenues Evolved since the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act?
As members of Congress prepare to address the expiration of the TCJA, they should appreciate how revenues have evolved since 2017.
4 min read
Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, Inflation Reduction Act, CHIPS Act: Comparing and Contrasting the New Industrial Policy
While the approaches differ, they share a reliance on similar linkages: new capital investment drives productivity growth, which grows the economy and raises wages for workers.
37 min read
The Impact of GILTI, FDII, and BEAT
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA) reformed the U.S. system for taxing international corporate income. Understanding the impact of TCJA’s international provisions thus far can help lawmakers consider how to approach international tax policy in the coming years.
30 min readAll Related Articles
Measuring Opportunity Zone Success
16 min read
Business in America
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
Not All Tax Expenditures Are Equal
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
What’s Going on With the Kiddie Tax?
2 min read
Depreciation Requires Businesses to Pay Tax on Income That Doesn’t Exist
While tax rates matter to businesses, so too does the measure of income to which those tax rates apply. The corporate income tax is a tax on profits, normally defined as revenue minus costs. However, under the current tax code, businesses are unable to deduct the full cost of certain expenses—their capital investments—meaning the tax code is not neutral and actually increases the cost of investment.
3 min read
Anti-Base Erosion Provisions and Territorial Tax Systems in OECD Countries
The U.S. decision to adopt a territorial tax system is certainly an improvement over having a worldwide system. However, in moving to a territorial system some of the new features created with the TCJA increased the complexity of the system.
38 min read
The First Filing Season under the TCJA
3 min read
What’s up with Being GILTI?
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act made significant changes to the way U.S. multinationals’ foreign profits are taxed. GILTI, or “Global Intangible Low Tax Income,” was introduced as an outbound anti-base erosion provision.
5 min read
Testimony: Temporary Policy in the Federal Tax Code
Tax policy can increase the size of the economy by having a positive impact on the incentives to work and invest. However, when tax policy is temporary or retroactive, these positive effects are muted, and policies do not effectively incentivize the intended activity.
Evaluating Education Tax Provisions
Research shows that the current menu of education-related tax benefits is not effectively promoting affordability or the decision to attend college. Lawmakers wishing to provide education assistance should reconsider whether the tax code is the best tool to achieve that goal.
21 min read
Don’t Judge Your Taxes by Your Refund
3 min read
Opportunity Zones: What We Know and What We Don’t
Research suggests place-based incentive programs redistribute rather than generate new economic activity, subsidize investments that would have occurred anyway, and displace low-income residents.
20 min read
