My latest column at the Christian Science Monitor discusses the many fiscal pressures that will come to a head at the end of the year. Here’s an excerpt: Start with our tattered tax code, which now contains a six-pack of temporary tax cuts. The largest are the Bush-era cuts originally enacted in 2001 and 2003 [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Taxes’
The Coming Budget Showdown of 2012
Posted in Budget, Politics, tagged Budget, Politics, Taxes on February 27, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
Bruce Bartlett’s Excellent Guide to Tax Reform
Posted in Taxes, tagged Book, Book Review, Taxes on February 26, 2012 | 6 Comments »
The tax code is like a garden. Without regular attention, it grows weeds that will soon overwhelm the plants and flowers. Unfortunately, no serious weeding has been done to the tax code since 1986. In the meantime, many new plants and flowers have been added without regard to the overall aesthetic of the garden. The [...]
Playing Favorites in the Corporate Tax Code
Posted in Budget, Taxes, tagged Business, Corporate Income Tax, Obama, Taxes, Treasury on February 24, 2012 | 4 Comments »
The President’s new Framework for Business Tax Reform is two documents in one. The first diagnoses the many flaws in America’s business tax system, and the second offers a framework for fixing them. Much of the resulting commentary has focused on the policy recommendations. But I’d like to give a shout out to the diagnosis. [...]
Five Principles for Fixing America’s Tax System
Posted in Budget, Taxes, tagged Budget, Politics, Taxes on February 17, 2012 | 8 Comments »
The International Economy recently invited me to contribute to a forum on how best to fix America’s tax system. Here’s my piece; for eleven other views, check out the complete forum. America’s tax system is a mess. It’s needlessly complicated, economically harmful, and often unfair. And it doesn’t raise enough money to pay our bills. That’s why almost everyone agrees [...]
How Would the Buffett Rule Affect Marginal Tax Rates?
Posted in Budget, Taxes, tagged Taxes, Warren Buffett on February 15, 2012 | 2 Comments »
President Obama’s latest budget endorses a “Buffett rule” – a new floor on taxes paid by folks with very high incomes. His rule would require that “those making over $1 million should pay no less than 30 percent of their income in taxes.” The president didn’t offer many specifics about how the rule would actually work. Up on Capitol [...]
The 102% Tax Rate and Other Perils Measuring Tax Rates
Posted in Budget, Taxes, tagged Measurement, New York Times, Taxes on February 8, 2012 | 3 Comments »
Over at the Tax Policy Center’s blog, TaxVox, my colleague Roberton Williams examines the pitfalls that afflict some efforts to measure a person’s tax rate: Investment manager James Ross last week told New York Times columnist James Stewart that his combined federal, state, and local tax rate was 102 percent. No doubt, Ross did pay a lot [...]
Capital Gains Taxes Are Going Up
Posted in Budget, Taxes, tagged Budget, Capital Gains, Taxes on January 24, 2012 | 3 Comments »
The top tax rate on long-term capital gains is currently 15%. That’s why Mitt Romney is spending so much time talking about his tax returns. That revelation has set off a familiar debate about whether that low rate is appropriate. Often overlooked in these discussions, however, is the fact that the days of the 15% [...]
Time’s Almost Up for $152 Billion in Expiring Provisions
Posted in Budget, Taxes, tagged Budget, Taxes on December 12, 2011 | 2 Comments »
America is increasingly governed by temporary policies. The 2001/2003/2010 tax cuts get most of the attention, but they are hardly the only ones. There are also a host of other semi-permanent provisions like patching the alternative minimum tax (AMT), avoiding big cuts to what Medicare pays doctors (the “doc fix”), and a plethora of miscellaneous [...]
Our Ever-Changing Tax Code
Posted in Budget, Politics, tagged Taxes on November 28, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Graphic by Wesley Bedrosian as part of the Wall Street Journal’s weekend article on tax planning. After all, who doesn’t want to spend Thanksgiving weekend thinking about taxes?
Sign Your Tax Return in Blue Ink
Posted in Life, tagged Taxes on November 22, 2011 | 5 Comments »
Esther and I got a scary piece of mail yesterday. The fine folks at the Internal Revenue Service sent our entire tax return back to us. Minus the accompanying check, of course. A cover sheet said we had failed to sign the return, which we filed on a timely basis in October. That sounds easy to fix, except for [...]
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