Our dedicated excise tax experts, Adam Hoffer and Jacob Macumber-Rosin, provide leading tax policy research, analysis, and commentary of the latest proposals and trends related to excise taxes. Explore the vast and changing world of excise taxation.
Retail prices make poor targets for excise tax policy, often reflecting factors that have little to do with the underlying reasons for which an excise tax is levied in the first place. Unfortunately, the World Health Organization (WHO) has a growing preference for using tax share of retail price (tax incidence) as a primary policy target.
6 min read
Policymakers are increasingly considering taxes on data processing and other businesses’ digital services, but these taxes increase costs at many stages of the production process for virtually all businesses, not just tech-oriented businesses.
7 min read
NYC’s congestion tolling has reduced congestion, raised money for the MTA, and sped up vehicles in the city. Its success has inspired proposals for congestion tolling in other major US cities, like Los Angeles and Washington, DC.
4 min read
Poland is currently moving forward with legislation aimed at introducing a windfall profits tax. In doing so, it is following a broader European trend of renewed interest in such taxes in response to rising fuel prices triggered by the conflict in the Middle East.
6 min read
As the alcohol industry innovates with newer products like high alcohol content beer or ready-to-drink cocktails, the efficacy of a categorical system continues to break down.
Short FormJust as many parts of American life have transformed over the past 250 years, so too has the federal tax system. While most taxes levied in the 18th century are still levied in some form today, the federal government’s reliance on them, the complexity of the tax code, and Americans’ overall tax burdens have shifted considerably.
5 min read
In recent years, several countries have taken measures to reduce carbon emissions, including instituting environmental regulations, emissions trading systems (ETSs), and carbon taxes.
5 min read
Short FormBritish taxation on the American colonies was a major catalyst for the American Revolution, but most of the tax revolts leading up to the war were in response to one tax type: excise taxes.
4 min read
Whether a sommelier or a casual enjoyer, wine drinkers may not be aware of just how much they are paying in taxes to uncork their drink of choice.
6 min read
Since digital services taxes generate little revenue, place the cost on European consumers and not on large digital companies as intended, and risk escalating trade disputes, policymakers should rethink their strategy.
14 min read
In the United States, taxes are the single most expensive ingredient in beer. The tax burden accounts for more of the final price of beer than labor and materials combined—the many different layers of applicable taxes combining to total as much as 40.8 percent of the retail price.
7 min read
Illinois plans to impose a complicated, legally fraught new social media tax based on a few pages of confused, contradictory, and almost laughably incomplete legislative text embedded in the new budget.
10 min read
Currently, the European Commission has plans to generate more tax revenue to fund the forthcoming MFF, the long-term budget running from 2028 to 2034. But the truth is, without serious reform, the EU isn’t ready for new taxation.
Oregon’s Extended Producer Responsibility program to incentivize recycling does so with a complicated and unprincipled series of regulations, including confidentially determined tax rates on various materials derived from a revenue goal.
8 min read
Alcohol taxes in Illinois have been broken for decades, and the state is now considering a “fix” that moves policy in the wrong direction.
6 min read
The significant disparity in tax rates across states underscores the complex tax and regulatory environment governing distilled spirits.
9 min read
Military action around the Strait of Hormuz has increased global oil prices. In response, policymakers around the world have put forward proposals targeting oil and gas producers who are seeing profits increase in the short run from the spike in prices.
5 min read
In response to surging gas prices, President Trump and several lawmakers have proposed suspending the federal gas tax via a gas tax holiday. Gas tax holidays have appeal across the political aisle, but suspending the federal gas tax is a uniquely ill-suited policy for addressing rising prices.
3 min read
Academic research has continually found that making alternative nicotine products to cigarettes more expensive results in fewer smokers switching to less harmful products.
7 min read
Tax collections vary widely by state, making per capita collections figures—a measure of collections per person—especially useful, as they allow comparisons across differences in tax rates and bases, economic capacities, and policy decisions that impact the size and scope of government.
5 min read