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It’s Time to Fix the Broken Mortgage Interest Tax Break
The mortgage interest deduction is one of the largest federal tax expenditures — it costs the federal government about $70 billion a year — yet it appears to do little to achieve the goal of expanding...
View ArticleA Closer Look at the President’s Budget
To complement our statement on the President’s fiscal year 2014 budget, we’ve issued a report on its key elements. Here’s the opening: The President’s 2014 budget is presented in two parts. One part...
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The Basics of Following the Money, Updated
As Tax Day approaches, we’ve updated three backgrounders that explain the sources of federal tax revenues and how we spend both federal and state tax dollars. Where Do Federal Tax Revenues Come From?...
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Tax Day Roundup
Here are the analyses and blog posts we’ve issued in the past few days on tax issues. Top 10 Federal Tax Charts Federal Income Taxes on Middle-Income Families Remain Near Historic Lows Where Do...
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New Renters’ Credit Should Complement Existing Housing Development Credit
The paper on tax reform options that the Senate Finance Committee issued yesterday includes CBPP’s proposal for a renters’ tax credit to help the poorest families afford housing. Such a credit would...
View ArticleCritics of Obama Tax Subsidy Proposal Miss Key Points
Some charities and state and local governments have raised concerns about the President’s proposal to cap, at 28 cents on the dollar, the tax subsidy that affluent Americans receive for tax deductions...
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CBO Highlights Three Good Reasons to Reform Tax Expenditures
A new Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report on major individual tax expenditures (the deductions, exclusions, and credits embedded in the tax code) shows why they are ripe for reform — a point that...
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Special Tax Breaks for Capital Gains and Dividends Strike Out
The new Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report on tax expenditures (credits, deductions, and other tax preferences) and a recent column by Bruce Bartlett, former adviser to presidents Reagan and...
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Three Reasons Why Obama’s Cigarette Tax Hike Makes Sense
President Obama’s proposal to raise the federal tobacco tax to pay for expanded early childhood education hasn’t gotten much attention but, as our new paper explains, it would cut the number of...
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ATR Ignores Main Point of Tobacco Taxes: Fewer Smoking Deaths
Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) took issue with our support for higher tobacco taxes, which we discussed in a new paper and a blog post earlier this week. ATR makes two primary substantive points:...
View ArticleThe Reality of Tax Reform Math
“Eliminating all tax preferences would allow for a top individual rate as low as 23 percent and a corporate rate of about 27 percent without increasing the deficit,” a new memo from the “Fix the Debt”...
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Tax Reform Offers Opportunity to Rebalance Housing Policy
Lawmakers considering federal tax reform proposals should take this opportunity to rebalance housing subsidies to better align spending with need, as I recently explained on the National Housing...
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House GOP’s IRS Budget Cuts: A Field Day for Tax Cheats
The IRS has absorbed big cuts in recent years that have weakened enforcement and damaged taxpayer service. The House Appropriations Committee passed a 2015 IRS budget that would cut the IRS even...
View ArticleChairman Camp’s Troubling Stand on Tax Compliance
The House voted this week to wipe out one quarter of the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) enforcement budget. This cut, which would dramatically worsen the hit that the IRS budget has taken since...
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House Should Reject Backwards Child Tax Credit Bill
The full House next week will consider the Ways and Means Committee’s recently passed Child Tax Credit (CTC) bill. A recent Tax Policy Center (TPC) analysis confirms our previous critical assessments...
View ArticlePlug the Inversion Loophole Now
The New York Times’ latest “Room for Debate” feature asks how the United States can stop corporations from moving their headquarters overseas — known as corporate “inversions” — to avoid taxes. In my...
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House GOP Follows Ryan Anti-Poverty Plan With Pro-Poverty Legislation
House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) extolled the anti-poverty effects of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and, in his new poverty proposal, wisely proposed expanding it for childless...
View ArticleKleinbard: “Competitiveness” Argument for Moving Firms’ Headquarters Overseas...
The claim that many U.S. companies are moving their headquarters overseas because U.S. corporate tax rates make them uncompetitive is “largely fact-free,” USC law professor and former Joint Tax...
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IRS Commissioner Confirms House-Passed Cuts to IRS Budget Could Be...
IRS Commissioner John Koskinen said, according to Tax Notes, that the effects of House-passed IRS budget cuts would be “very serious if not catastrophic” to the agency’s ability to collect revenue and...
View ArticleConsidering Tax Reform? Here’s a Must-Read
With leading members of both parties placing tax reform high on the agenda for next year, a new paper by William B. Gale, Co-Director of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center (TPC), and Andrew...
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