Privacy concerns are a primary driver of opposition to vehicle miles traveled (VMT) tax systems, but VMT taxes do not need to invade drivers’ privacy to efficiently fund the roads.
6 min read
The Maryland Tax Court has struck down the state’s digital advertising tax and ordered that refunds be paid to taxpayers for five and a half years’ worth of collections under the unconstitutional tax.
5 min read
In June, the Dominican Republic rushed through a package of tax legislation in seven days. International examples demonstrate that consultation, transparency, and clarity are key factors for successful tax reform.
5 min read
If Canada doesn’t make these provisions permanent, it will drop to 12th place in the capital cost recovery ranking once provisions expire in 2034.
5 min read
Poland taxes its individual business owners through alternative regimes and a series of thresholds, several of them sharp notches that imply significant tax costs for businesses crossing them.
11 min read
The highest state tax on cigarettes is levied by New York at $5.35 per pack of 20. The next highest tax jurisdiction is the District of Columbia at $5.07 per pack of cigarettes, followed closely by Maryland at $5.00 per pack, Rhode Island at $4.50 per pack, and Connecticut at $4.35 per pack.
6 min read
If voters approve Amendment 5 on the primary election ballot this August, Missouri policymakers must pass legislation to gradually phase out the state’s income tax while choosing how to pay for this goal.
The EU Tax Omnibus proposal would create an EU-wide minimum standard for full expensing, but it confines that standard to qualifying tangible assets used in research and development (R&D) rather than to broader asset classes.
16 min read
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
Because withholding taxes can create double taxation and administrative friction even where foreign tax credits are available, the European Commission’s 2026 Tax Omnibus proposal to eliminate them on dividend, interest, and royalty payments between EU companies regardless of holding percentage would foster stronger cross-border savings and investment.
6 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
If you want more energy production, taxing producers is the wrong place to start. And if you want to tax companies more if they’re making big profits, the corporate income tax already does that.
Introduced by Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Ron Wyden (D-OR), and Michael Bennet (D-CO), The Taxing Buybacks from Big Oil Windfalls Act would raise the stock buyback excise tax from 1 percent to 25 percent for large oil and gas companies.
4 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.
President Donald Trump has decided against a clean extension of the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), allowing the bloc of countries to enter a prolonged period of annual reviews, renegotiations, and, possibly, a shift to bilateral deals.
Digital services taxes address a real concern—the need to adapt taxation to the digital economy—but they are not the right solution. They raise limited revenue, are often passed on to consumers rather than large digital firms, create economic distortions, increase complexity and compliance costs, negatively impact innovation and competitiveness, and risk international retaliation.
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
Voters beware: lower property taxes may sound good, but they come with significant trade-offs.
Europe’s turn toward the UN is ultimately not a sign that governments are ready to resolve fundamental disputes over taxing rights. If anything, international cooperation on the goal that matters most—fair treatment of cross-border trade—is crumbling.