The least popular Congress in memory is back.  I, personally, am thrilled. After a year in which lawmakers did almost nothing besides (barely) keeping the government running, this session promises hardly more.  Tax policy will be at the center of much of the partisan squabbling, but it is hard to imagine Congress achieving more than a temporary [...]

After much anguish, Congress finally extended this year’s payroll tax cut for two more months. The final bill passed in nearly empty chambers a couple of days before Christmas. But this version differed in an important way from the measure passed by the Senate just a few days earlier. The final bill removed a cap [...]

House Republicans are right about one thing at least: Extending this year’s payroll tax cut for two months is ridiculous. The trouble is they are largely to blame for the very policy they are criticizing. Congress got itself in this mess because a few dozen self-styled tea partiers have refused since last summer to helo build a [...]

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 legislation would cut the [...]

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 rid [...]

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-the-buck economic stimulus than the credit it replaced. Since [...]

Should Congress extend and expand the payroll tax cut it first passed a year ago? In a bizarre but not unexpected role reversal, Democrats insist that at a time of economic uncertainty, Congress must not only extend this tax cut but make it even more generous. And Republicans seem to have somehow discovered a tax break [...]

When you get right down to it, the jobs plan President Obama proposed before a joint session of Congress last night was built on three elements:  A large payroll tax cut, lots of new spending on public infrastructure, and a promise that its $447 billion cost would be paid for with yet-to-be disclosed tax hikes and [...]

After I wrote last week about Warren Buffett’s New York Times op-ed on the low tax rates paid by wealthy investors, Tax Policy Center visiting scholar Brian Galle pointed out that my graph showing the maximum tax rates Americans could pay was misleading. Actual tax rates, he noted, are much lower than what the graph [...]

When Warren Buffett called for higher taxes on the wealthy in a New York Times op-ed last week, the billionaire investor argued that he and wealthy people like him face lower federal rates than the rest of us. Low rates on long-term capital gains and qualified dividends and limited exposure to payroll taxes mean low [...]