Moynihan's Last Senatorial Hurray?
Senior Fellow Eugene Steuerle offers retiring Senator Moynihan a suggestion for one last bill to propose: a simple requirement that the poor and middle class should pay no higher tax rate on their next...
View ArticleSummers on Social Tax Expenditures (Part 2 of 2) : Part Two: Where He's...
Senior Fellow Eugene Steuerle describes some concerns with social tax expenditures: they almost always violate principles of budget and tax policy; they lack transparency; the IRS lacks the...
View Article"Greenspanspeak" on Taxes
Senior Fellow Eugene Steuerle offers his interpretation of Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspans comments supporting a tax cut.
View ArticleAn Option to Increase Charitable Giving and Reduce Current Taxes
Senior Fellow Eugene Steuerle explains why it makes sense to extend the charitable deduction to the time of filing a tax return, in much the same way as applies to deposits to individual retirement...
View ArticleAmending a Chairman's Mark While Recognizing Tax Policy Principles
As tax bills go through Congress, Senior Fellow Eugene Steuerle describes how tax provisions can be targeted effectively and how legitimate tax policy principles be maintained, in spite of wide...
View ArticleTax Complexity and the Working Poor : Commentary
[National Public Radio (NPR)]Urban Institute Senior Fellow and former Treasury Deputy Assistant Secretary for Tax Analysis, Len Burman, expounds upon the earned income tax credit (EITC) as he recounts...
View ArticleThink FRED: Tax Cuts Just Add to Complexity : Commentary
[Houston Chronicle] Why is the tax code so complicated? Because whenever politicians face important tax policy choices, they always compromise with more complexity. That way they can avoid painful...
View ArticleWhat Next if Not Simplification?
Senior Fellow Eugene Steuerle argues for simplification as a main goal of tax reform.
View ArticleThe Merger of Tax & Expenditure Policy in the 2001 Tax Legislation (Part 1 of...
Senior Fellow Eugene Steuerle describes how tax legislation in 2001 brought to light the difficulty with trying to deal with only one side of the budget at a time, especially with regard to the...
View ArticleThe Merger of Tax & Expenditure Policy in the 2001 Tax Legislation (Part 2 of...
Senior Fellow Eugene Steuerle argues that in a world with multiple transfer and tax programs, one can't solve the issue of how to set tax rates unless the tax and spending sides of the budget are...
View ArticleNew Tax Laws A Bizarre and Confounding Mix
[Contra Costa Times] Economics can sometimes go round the bend. For instance, in theory, you could avoid the drawbacks of taxes - discouraging work and saving and encouraging tax shelters - by taxing...
View ArticleTax Simplification : Testimony before the United States' House of...
The 2001 tax act was only one in a long series of tax laws complicating an already byzantine tax system. Ever the bridesmaid, simplification seems never to get the attention it deserves, no matter...
View ArticleHow Complexity Arises for Low-Income Taxpayers
Senior Fellow Eugene Steuerle suggests a method to direct more refundable dollars to the working poor through simplifications to the Earned Income Tax Credit and other tax policies.
View ArticleAnalysis of GAO Study of EITC Eligibility and Participation
GAO released an analysis on January 11 of Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) eligibility and participation rates. The study estimates that one fourth of all eligible households do not claim the EITC....
View ArticleHow Marriage Penalties Change Under the 2001 Tax Bill
The Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 (EGTRRA) generally reduces marriage penalties for head of household filers marrying single filers, with combined incomes up to $80,000. The...
View ArticleThe 2001 Tax Cut: One Year Later
June's First Tuesday forum looked at the 2001 tax cut from the vantage point of one year later. Panelists examined the features and consequences of EGTRRA; discussed the effects that tax cuts have on...
View ArticleTax Sideshow Threatens to Become One-Ring Circus : Growth of AMT Raises...
The descendant of a 1969 tax designed to prevent 155 wealthy people from escaping federal tax liability will affect 36 million, mostly middle-class taxpayers by 2010, say researchers from the...
View ArticleThe Individual AMT: Problems and Potential Solutions
Originally targeted at high-income households, the individual alternative minimum tax (AMT) is now on the verge of switching from a "class" tax to a "mass" tax. Under current law, the AMT will encroach...
View ArticleThe AMT: Out of Control
The practice of requiring well-to-do Americans to pay a minimum tax was developed more than three decades ago. In January, 1969, then-Treasury Secretary Joseph W. Barr informed Congress that 155...
View Article
