The fate of The Temporary Payroll Tax Cut Continuation Act of 2011 remains uncertain. But thanks to a carefully crafted technical change to the current payroll tax cut, the Senate version prevents a handful of very high wage earners from potentially enjoying a huge windfall from the two-month tax break...

The year’s top story in state and local government was “hundreds of billions of dollars” in municipal bond defaults.  Oh wait, that didn’t happen.  It was “states coming to Congress as mendicants, seeking relief from the consequences of their choices.”  No, although the Dickensian imagery...

Sometime today, Congress will pass a bill to keep the government funded through September 2012. It will not reflect a careful and balanced assessment of the nation’s needs and priorities and how well government programs are meeting those needs. It will reflect the fact that government would shut...

On a day when Washington partisans couldn’t even figure out (yet again) how to keep the government running, Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) and House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) did a remarkable thing: They announced a bipartisan plan to fix Medicare, probably the most contentious of policy...

2011 was another active year for America’s tax and fiscal policy; thank you for sharing it with TaxVox. As we look forward to a busy 2012, we hope you’ll remember us in your end-of-year giving. By supporting the Tax Policy Center, you can help inform the debate about America’s fiscal future. Every...

Just when you thought you’ve heard it all, the Virginia General Assembly is about to consider a bill that would provide a tax subsidy to encourage people to be buried in space. Is buried the right verb? Republican Delegate Terry Kilgore has proposed a deduction of up to $8,000 for people who agree...

GOP Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich is proposing a massive tax cut aimed at the highest earning American households. Gingrich’s plan would add about $1 trillion to the federal deficit in a single year. And while most of the nation’s lowest income families would get no benefit from these tax...

When Congress finally extends the payroll tax cut that is due to expire in a few weeks, it may also be taking another step down the road to tax reform—and perhaps even to big Social Security changes as well. Why? Because without fundamental reform, it will be devilishly hard for Congress to ever get...

With congressional deficit reduction efforts largely collapsed, the question remains: What are we going to do about the nation’s long-term budget mess? Since any realistic deficit reduction plan will require significant new revenues, is a Value-Added Tax a sensible way for government to raise those...

Last December, Congress replaced the two-year-old Making Work Pay tax credit (MWP) with this year’s payroll tax cut. That change cut taxes for higher-income workers, raised taxes for some low-wage workers, and nearly doubled the amount of lost tax revenue. And it most likely provided less bang-for...