Excessive tax rates on cigarettes approach de facto prohibition in some states, inducing black and gray market movement of tobacco products into high-tax states from low-tax states or foreign sources.
7 min read
This comprehensive overview of the of the House Tax Cuts and Jobs Act includes a summary of its details and macroeconomic analysis of how it would impact federal revenue, wages, GDP, and after-tax incomes.
20 min read
Hampered by high marginal tax rates and complex business tax rules, the United States again ranks towards the bottom of the pack on our 2017 International Tax Competitiveness Index, placing 30 out of 35 OECD countries.
11 min read
When taking a closer look at the UK’s recent corporate tax reform experiment, it becomes clear that there was significantly more at work than just a simple rate cut. Increasing the effective marginal tax rate on new investments could have had a negative effect on wages, potentially offsetting the positive effects from the corporate rate cut.
4 min read
Recent empirical evidence shows that workers bear upwards of 70 percent of the corporate income tax burden, much more than popular tax models claim, which make errors in how they account for super-normal returns and the openness of our economy.
50 min readDue in part to historical accident and also to the proliferation of exemptions, the effectiveness of the state sales tax continues to erode. The median state sales tax, which should apply to all personal consumption, is nonly applied to 23 percent of personal consumption.
25 min read
For 15 years, our State Business Tax Climate Index has been the standard for legislators and taxpayers to understand how their state’s tax code compares and how it can be improved. Now, for the first time ever, you can explore our Index’s 100+ variables in an easy to use, interactive format.
16 min read
Instead of making expensing temporary, lawmakers could pursue other ways to speed up cost recovery with permanent economic gains and without drastically reducing revenue. One way to do that is by enacting “depreciation indexing.”
12 min read
The Ohio Commercial Activity Tax, a 0.26 percent tax on business gross receipts above $1 million, is a throwback to an earlier era of taxation, bringing back a tax type that had been in steady retreat for nearly a century.
34 min read
These four Tax Foundation tax plans demonstrate ways in which lawmakers could achieve permanent, pro-growth tax reform while keeping the level of federal revenue and the distribution of the tax burden roughly the same as current law.
25 min read
The elimination of tax expenditures is a popular way to pay for tax reform, but not all tax expenditures are equally worthy of elimination. It is important to ask, for each expenditure, whether it serves a reasonable purpose and whether it accomplishes that purpose in a reasonable way.
23 min read
Aside from hurting low-income earners, the poor revenue performance of Philadelphia’s soda tax, 24 times higher than the excise rate on beer, threatens the sustainability of the education programs it is intended to fund.
12 min read
A well-designed territorial tax system would reduce the incentive for companies to invert, encourage businesses to invest in and expand operations throughout the world, and allow capital to flow more freely back to the U.S., but would also come with some new challenges.
28 min read
Sales tax holidays have enjoyed political success, but rather than providing a valuable tax cut or a boost to the economy, they impose serious costs on consumers and businesses without providing offsetting benefits.
43 min readEstate and inheritance taxes reduce investment, discourage business expansion, and sometimes drive wealthy taxpayers out of state. It’s little wonder that states are under pressure to reduce or eliminate them.
44 min read
While most states enact tax changes at the beginning of the calendar year, a number of them implement changes at the beginning of the fiscal year. Eight states have tax changes that will take effect on July 1, 2017, the beginning of the 2018 fiscal year.
8 min read
Real tax reform should boost incomes for all. A corporate income tax cut could be a means to do that, but not if it’s temporary. A temporary cut is less likely to promote growth and less likely to benefit American workers.
14 min read
This new chart book cuts through the complexity and gives you a broad perspective of Ohio’s overall economy and tax system. The result is a powerful diagnostic tool you can use to identify your state’s unique strengths and weaknesses.