The Tax Foundation’s Center for Federal Tax Policy takes a quantitative approach to analyzing the economic, budgetary, and distributional impact of important campaign, legislative, and other popular tax proposals using our dynamic Taxes and Growth (TAG) macroeconomic model.
The mission of our economic and tax modeling program is to educate lawmakers and the public about the key trade-offs in tax policy, the real-world impact of those trade-offs on taxpayers and our economy, and the best options for achieving principled and pro-growth tax reform.
In an attempt to provide a realistic, data-driven analysis of federal tax policy, the Tax Foundation has developed a General Equilibrium Model to simulate the effects of tax policies on the economy and on government revenues and budgets.
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Lawmakers should use the most comprehensive analytical tools available to them—like dynamic scoring—to make informed decisions about policy changes.
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This tax reform plan would boost long-run GDP by 2.5%, grow wages by 1.4%, and add 1.3M jobs, all while collecting a similar amount of tax revenue as the current code and reducing the long-run debt burden.
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The business tax changes originally introduced in the TCJA are scheduled to increase tax burdens on businesses at a time when economic headwinds and broader uncertainty are higher than they have been in decades.
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According to our analysis, President Biden’s budget would reduce long-run economic output by about 1.3 percent and eliminate 335,000 FTE jobs. See what tax policies the president is proposing.
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A robust collection of 70 potential US tax reform changes and US tax reform options for reforming the tax code. See the comprehensive tax reform guide.
Universal savings accounts would boost savings for low-income households, allowing them to better withstand economic shocks, such as pandemics and recessions, and plan for major expenses, such as an expanded family, education, and housing needs.
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The Section 232 tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum raised the cost of production for manufacturers, reducing employment in those industries, raising prices for consumers, and hurting exports.
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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.
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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.
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From a revenue standpoint, about $9 billion of the $11.7 billion in lost revenue would accrue to joint filers earning more than $200,000.
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Examining the revenue, economic, and distributional effects of a hypothetical deal with permanent tax policy changes shows the longer-run trade-offs policymakers would face.
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The House Ways and Means Committee has advanced a tax deal to the House floor that would temporarily—and retroactively—restore two major business deductions for cost recovery and expand the child tax credit through 2025.
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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.
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Lawmakers should use the year ahead to thoroughly review and debate lasting, fundamental tax reform and prioritize policies that best boost work and investment incentives in a fiscally responsible manner.
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The fate of the $10,000 cap on state and local tax (SALT) deductions remains uncertain, with some policymakers pushing for an increase or repeal of the cap before its scheduled expiration in 2026.
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Lawmakers will have to weigh the economic, revenue, and distributional trade-offs of extending or making permanent the various provisions of the TCJA as they decide how to approach the upcoming expirations. A commitment to growth, opportunity, and fiscal responsibility should guide the approach.
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Income taxes impose steeper economic costs, and often steeper administrative and compliance costs, than consumption taxes. Moving to a consumption tax would end the tax bias against saving and investment and provide an opportunity to greatly simplify anti-poverty programs embedded in the tax code.
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Pillar Two implementation is underway in many jurisdictions, and many governments are aiming to get their proposals approved before the end of 2023. However, estimating Pillar Two’s impact on government revenue is proving difficult. As a result, only a few countries have publicly presented their findings.
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As increased political attention focuses on the state of the American worker, expect to see a resurgence of the argument that the labor share of income is in decline.
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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.
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A growing international tax agreement known as Pillar Two presents two new threats to the U.S. tax base: potential lost revenue and limitations on Congress’s ability to set its own tax policy.
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Details and analysis of the latest House GOP tax plan, the American Families and Jobs Act. Learn more about the House Republican tax plan.
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This tax reform plan would boost long-run GDP by 2.5%, grow wages by 1.4%, and add 1.3M jobs, all while collecting a similar amount of tax revenue as the current code and reducing the long-run debt burden.
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The price tag of the Inflation Reduction Act’s green energy tax credits is much higher than originally thought. Among other things, the updated analysis indicates the Inflation Reduction Act does not reduce deficits after all.
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Making expensing permanent is especially important now, when the economy is threatened with a recession and inflation remains high.
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