My Tax Policy Center colleague Eric Toder and I are mystified by how unRepublican the House GOP’s Small Business Tax Cut Act really is. Sure, cutting taxes for businesses and high-income individuals is very much part of the Republican playbook these days. But the mechanics of this one seem to fly in the face of [...]

The new 2013 budget unveiled by President Obama on Monday again contains the Automatic IRA, which was developed by Brookings’ Retirement Security Project in conjunction with The Heritage Foundation. This year’s  version includes an important change that will also encourage more employers to offer a 401(k) account to their workers. However, important changes to the [...]

In the politics of taxation, nothing may be more controversial than the hot-button issue of small business. But important new research by career staffers at the Treasury Department concludes that there are lots fewer of these firms than many think, they account for only about 17 percent of total business income, and  hire many fewer [...]

 We’ve all heard the allegation: President Obama wants to raise taxes on “small business.”  But buried in that claim is a massive amount of confusion about just what businesses we are talking about, what they do, and how they operate. Fortunately, we may soon get some new information to help sort it out.  My Tax [...]

This morning I appeared at hearing of the Select Revenue Measures Subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee on “Small Businesses and Tax Reform.” My full testimony, “Tax Policy and Small Business,” is available here. My opening statement: America’s tax system is needlessly complex, economically harmful, and often unfair. Because of a plethora of [...]

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-Utah).