The early evidence indicates that making a “good return greater” through Opportunity Zone tax incentives is an ineffective and poorly targeted way to raise the living standards of low-income residents.
The federal tax code remains a major source of frustration and controversy for Americans, and a hindrance to economic growth and opportunity. Other countries, such as Estonia, have proven that sufficient tax revenue can be collected in a less frustrating and more efficient way.
Reviewing reported income helps to understand the composition of the federal government’s revenue base and how Americans earn their taxable income. The individual income tax, the federal government’s largest source of revenue, is largely a tax on labor.
Lawmakers should focus on simplifying the federal tax code, creating stability, and broadly improving economic incentives. There are incremental steps that can be made on the path to fundamental tax reform.
House Republicans are proposing to expand the Opportunity Zone program and alter its reporting requirements as part of a new suite of tax bills packaged as the American Families and Jobs Act.
In most European OECD countries, corporate income is taxed twice, once at the entity level and once at the shareholder level.
The distributed profits tax is a sounder approach to concerns about investment and stock buybacks than the existing policy approach.
Scandinavian countries are well known for their broad social safety net and their public funding of services such as universal health care, higher education, parental leave, and child and elderly care. So how do Scandinavian countries raise their tax revenues?