While there are many factors that affect a country’s economic performance, taxes play an important role. A well-structured tax code is easy for taxpayers to comply with and can promote economic development while raising sufficient revenue for a government’s priorities.
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If tax increases are included in a package, international experience points toward raising consumption taxes, rationalizing tax expenditures, and broadening the tax base—not hiking income taxes.
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Outside of the pandemic years, this year’s federal deficit is the highest in U.S. history. While tax revenue has increased about 28 percent since the pre-pandemic year 2019, spending has increased about 46 percent. Annual deficits are headed towards $3 trillion over the next few years.
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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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At the most recent Republican primary debate, former governor and United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley (R-SC) proposed eliminating the federal gas tax to lower fuel prices for consumers.
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Responsible pro-growth reforms to Arkansas’s tax code can help ensure that the Natural State is indeed a Land of Opportunity.
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The 2023 Spanish Regional Tax Competitiveness Index allows policymakers and taxpayers to evaluate and measure how their regions’ tax systems compare.
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In recent years, European countries have undertaken a series of tax reforms designed to maintain tax revenue levels while protecting households and businesses from high inflation.
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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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Any move to repeal the cap or enhance the deduction would disproportionately benefit higher earners, making the tax code more regressive.
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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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In tax year 2020, taxpayers claimed more than 159 million tax credits on their individual income tax returns worth a total of more than $277 billion. That was an increase of $35.3 billion from tax year 2019, largely due to an influx of pandemic relief administered through the tax code in 2020.
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In this lesson plan, students will understand the basics of taxation and its impact on their daily lives, learn about their state tax system, and be able to compare it to other states in the U.S.
Starting on September 1st, federal student loan payments will resume after a three-and-a-half-year pause on payments and accrued interest following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Given that wealth taxes collect little revenue and have the potential to disincentivize entrepreneurship and investment, perhaps European countries should repeal them rather than implement one across the continent.
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Short FormAs fans around the world anticipate the final adventure of Indiana Jones, let’s embark on our own excursion to unravel the mysteries of taxing treasure.
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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.
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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.
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At least 32 notable tax policy changes recently took effect across 18 states, including alterations to income taxes, payroll taxes, sales and use taxes, property taxes, and excise taxes. See if your state tax code changed.
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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.
26 min read