When peeling back layers of the JCT report, it becomes clear that many tax expenditures are not “loopholes” or benefits for narrow special interests, but important structural elements of the tax code.
6 min read
President Biden shared his policy aspirations during the State of the Union address, outlining three tax proposals in his remarks: quadrupling the brand-new excise tax on stock buybacks, instituting a “billionaire minimum tax,” and extending the now-lapsed expanded Child Tax Credit. We discuss the prospects of major tax changes becoming law in a divided government and what these proposals signal about how President Biden thinks about tax policy as he enters the latter half of his first term.
If your state issued tax rebates last year, you might have to pay federal income tax on the rebate you received. Maybe. Who knows? Unfortunately, not the IRS—at least not yet.
5 min read
President Biden’s State of the Union Address outlined three tax proposals, including raising the tax on stock buybacks, imposing a billionaire minimum tax, and expanding the child tax credit.
6 min read
A new tax expenditures report by the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) reveals two problematic developments: 1) policymakers have increasingly relied on the tax code to deliver benefits to individuals, and 2) the broad, neutral tax treatment of investment has shifted to targeted subsidies for businesses.
4 min read
While many factors influence business location and investment decisions, sales taxes are something within policymakers’ control that can have immediate impacts.
11 min read
Done responsibly, reducing income tax rates while consolidating brackets would return excess tax collections to taxpayers and promote long-term economic growth in Nebraska.
3 min read
Forty-three states adopted tax relief in 2021 or 2022—often in both years—and of those, 21 cut state income tax rates. It’s been a remarkable trend, driven by robust state revenues and an increasingly competitive tax environment.
4 min read
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.
7 min read
The latest IRS data shows that the U.S. federal individual income tax continued to be progressive, borne primarily by the highest income earners.
43 min read
Since 2021, 43 states have provided substantial tax relief for taxpayers and businesses. But this year, a new trend has emerged in the opposite direction: a push for states to tax investment. Jared Walczak joins Jesse to discuss how wealth tax proposals to higher capital gains income taxes would affect investment, job creation, and migration between states—and why they’re happening now.
The FairTax is a proposal to replace all major sources of the federal government’s revenue—the individual income tax, corporate income tax, estate and gift taxes, and payroll tax—with a national sales tax and rebate, abolishing the IRS in the process.
7 min read
Earlier this month, New York Governor Kathy Hochul (D) proposed increasing the state’s cigarette tax rate by $1.00 a pack, banning the sale of flavored vaping products, and ceasing the sale of all flavored tobacco products. If enacted, these policies would fuel black markets and create a fiscal hole for the state to fill, all while hurting New York businesses and consumers.
4 min read
West Virginia is one of only seven states that hasn’t offered any significant tax relief since 2021—and five of the other six forgo an individual income tax.
6 min read
On the heels of adopting one of the most comprehensive state tax reform packages in years, Iowa lawmakers are back in Des Moines with property tax relief in their sights. But while the issue is worthy of their attention, House File 1 (HF 1) as currently drafted misses the mark.
4 min read
Before EU policymakers rush to implement massive reforms, they should remember the goals of the Single Market, its international limitations, and the role of tax policy.
4 min read
By shifting to a flat income tax, Georgia has already made an important commitment to tax competitiveness. Although the state’s top rate threshold is already very low, a true single-rate income tax will help protect taxpayers from inflation-related tax increases and provide a buffer against rising tax rates in the future. To combine responsible rate reductions with these benefits, Georgia should create tax triggers that empower the state to keep pace with its competition.
3 min read
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.
4 min read
In a coordinated effort, lawmakers in seven states that collectively house about 60 percent of the nation’s wealth—California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, New York, and Washington—are introducing wealth tax legislation on Thursday.
7 min read
Lawmakers should use the most comprehensive analytical tools available to them—like dynamic scoring—to make informed decisions about policy changes.
5 min read