Last week I argued that budgeting for Medicare’s hospital insurance program is flawed. Today, I offer two ways to fix it (and reject a third). Medicare Part A is one of several federal programs that control spending through a “belt and suspenders” combination of regular program rules (the belt) and an overall limit (the suspenders). [...]
Archive for the ‘Taxes’ Category
Fixing Medicare’s Double-Counting Problem
Posted in Budget, Politics, Taxes, tagged Budget, Budget Process, Health, Politics, Taxes on May 18, 2012 | 1 Comment »
The Fight over Medicare Double Counting
Posted in Budget, Politics, Taxes, tagged Budget, Budget Process, Health, Medicare, Taxes on May 9, 2012 | 6 Comments »
The recent double-counting dispute isn’t just about politics; it also reveals a flaw in budgeting for Medicare Part A. Budget experts are waging a spirited battle over the Medicare changes that helped pay for 2010’s health reform. In April, Chuck Blahous, one of two public trustees of the program, released a study arguing that the [...]
Talking Tax Reform on the PBS Newshour
Posted in Taxes, tagged Taxes on April 19, 2012 | 3 Comments »
Here’s an interview that Alice Rivlin and I recently did with Jeffrey Brown on the PBS Newshour. Spoiler: Both Alice and I think the tax code needs to be fixed. P.S. Most TV interviews involve starting into a camera and listening to a voice in your ear. So this was a fun change with Alice, Jeff, and me [...]
The Federal Budget in One Picture
Posted in Budget, Taxes, tagged Budget, Taxes on April 18, 2012 | 3 Comments »
The Congressional Budget Office has assembled a great collection of infographics on the budget situation. Here’s an overview of the entire budget:
Should We Blame TurboTax for Tax Code Complexity?
Posted in Microeconomics, Taxes, tagged Microeconomics, Rebound Effect, Taxes on April 17, 2012 | 4 Comments »
After another grueling tax season, my colleague Howard Gleckman is understandably frustrated with America’s complex tax code. And with instructions like this, who can blame him?: Your ATNOL for a loss year is the excess of the deductions allowed for figuring the AMTI (excluding the ATNOLD) over the income included in the AMTI. Figure this [...]
How Big Are Tax Preferences?
Posted in Budget, Taxes, tagged Budget, Corporate Income Tax, Taxes on April 9, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
The tax code is chock full of credits, deductions, deferrals, exclusions, exemptions, and preferential rates. Taken together, such tax preferences will total almost $1.3 trillion this year. That’s a lot of money. But it doesn’t necessarily mean that $1.3 trillion is there for the picking in any upcoming deficit reduction or tax reform. In fact, [...]
Should High Heels Be Taxed?
Posted in Life, Microeconomics, Taxes, tagged Humor, Pigou, Taxes on April 5, 2012 | 10 Comments »
Among my idiosyncracies are two footwear anti-fetishes: I hate flip flops and high heels. I have never mastered the dark art of walking in flip flops, and I have always been troubled when women teeter at the edge of falling because of shoes designed for fashion (allegedly) rather than function. Nonetheless, I enjoyed Thursday’s Wall Street Journal piece about [...]
Public Service Announcement: There Is No Health Care Tax on Home Sales
Posted in Budget, Taxes, tagged Budget, Capital Gains, Housing, Taxes on April 2, 2012 | 3 Comments »
The 2010 health reform legislation introduced a new 3.8% tax on the net investment income of high-income taxpayers. That tax, which I suspect you will hear more about in coming months, goes into effect on January 1, 2013. This tax raises important policy issues, not least of which is whether Congress should give the name [...]
How Big Is the Federal Government?
Posted in Budget, Taxes, tagged Budget, Measurement, Taxes on March 28, 2012 | 6 Comments »
In a new paper, my Tax Policy Center colleague Eric Toder and I argue that the federal government is larger than conventional budget measures suggest. Why? Because many tax preferences are effectively spending programs. Adding these “spending-like tax preferences” back to federal spending and revenues gives a better picture, we think, of the federal government’s [...]
The Need for Corporate Tax Reform
Posted in Budget, Taxes, tagged Corporate Income Tax, Taxes on March 22, 2012 | 3 Comments »
My latest column at the Christian Science Monitor lays out the case for corporate tax reform: April 1 is often a day for pranks. In the tax world, however, it will mark something more serious. Barring another Fukushima Daiichi-like catastrophe (which delayed its plans last year), Japan will cut its corporate tax rate by five percentage points. That [...]
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Recent Posts
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- Fixing Medicare’s Double-Counting Problem
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- The Fight over Medicare Double Counting
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- The Federal Budget in One Picture
- Should We Blame TurboTax for Tax Code Complexity?
- How Big Are Tax Preferences?
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