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Tax News
Another View of the Bush Tax Cuts
Adam Looney at the Brookings Institution has a nice new paper on the Bush tax cuts. It can be summarized in this picture: As Adam notes, the argument we are having is “whether to extend all of the tax cuts or merely to extend the vast majority.” Or, to put it a slightly different way: Do we wan...
More on Individual Tax Rates and Small Businesses
Howard Gleckman discussed some of the facts and issues regarding the role of small businesses in the debate on the expiring 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. Eric Toder expressed a strange sense of déjà vu. While everyone agrees that changes in the top two marginal tax rates would affect only a...
There is Nothing New about Families Paying No Income Tax
Following the flap over our Tax Policy Center colleague Bob Williams’s calculation that close to half of all families did not pay income tax in 2009, we thought it would be instructive to take a look at history. It turns out that over the past five decades, there have been other periods when famil...
Déjà vu All Over Again
Howard Gleckman’s August 4 TaxVox post on tax increases and small business reminds me of the debate over the <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Clinton deficit reduction proposals in 1993. Then, as now, a new Democratic President proposed t...
In Defense of Congressman Paul Ryan
Given that columnist Paul Krugman relied on Tax Policy Center estimates to level claims that Congressman Paul Ryan is a “flimflam man” and that Ryan’s plan to address our fiscal problems is a “fraud,” I think a defense of the Congressman is in order. <?xml:namespace prefix ...
The Bush Tax Cuts and Small Business: What We Know
Those who would extend all of the Bush tax cuts, including for the highest-earners, are zeroing in what would happen to small business if Congress lets those top tax rates rise. And they are not subtle. Allowing top rates to increase would be a “job-killing tax hike” says Senator Orrin Hatch (R...
Extend the Bush Tax Cuts? It’s the Wrong Question
Washington is about to spend months trying to answer the wrong question. Instead of reprising their partisan, tiresome, and largely unproductive argument about what to do with the Bush tax cuts, President Obama and Congress ought to be asking a very different question: How do we build a tax system c...
Congress, the Bush Tax Cuts, and the Perils of Pauline
If you think this year’s battles over health care, stimulus, climate change, and financial regulation have been nasty, just wait ‘til Washington tackles the Bush tax cuts. Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill say they will consider the fate of those tax cuts--due to expire at year's end--&nb...
Why The Heritage Foundation is Wrong About the CLASS Act
In a Washington Times column today, two Heritage Foundation researchers argue that the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) Act is a trillion dollar government bailout waiting to happen. The CLASS Act is a national voluntary long-term care insurance program that was included in...
Starving the Beast or Free Lunch?
Senator John Kyl’s (R-AZ) recent insistance that tax cuts should “never” be offset with tax increases got me thinking about the governing philosophy behind this argument. In part, it is based on the idea that tax cuts are always good for the economy while tax increases are always bad. I’ll l...