The president’s FY 2014 Budget would limit tax benefits for workers with high-balance retirement saving accounts. Although critics call the plan a blow to workers’ retirement saving, I consider the plan a smart way to roll back the billions in tax breaks that go to investors who don’t need tax incentives to save for retirement. [...]

From the start of his 2008 campaign, President Obama has called for raising taxes on the rich. He got much but not all that he wanted in the American Taxpayer Relief Act (ATRA) earlier this year. Now his FY2014 budget takes another couple of bites at that apple. The first repeats his proposal to cap [...]

The White House has put out the word that President Obama’s budget will propose changing the way government adjusts benefits for Social Security and other programs (as well as the income tax). Liberal Social Security advocates are furious. By shifting to a measure called the chained Consumer Price Index, the retirement system would boost benefits [...]

It is an article of faith at the White House and among some congressional Republicans that while individual tax reform may be off the table this year, corporate reform remains a reachable goal. Rewriting the corporate income tax, goes the theory, is easier because there is a consensus within the business community to lower rates [...]

Finland’s government recently announced a broad fiscal reform package that cuts corporate tax rates—financed in part by higher taxes on corporate dividends. The plan makes sense for Finland and is worth considering here at home. Finland will lower the corporate rate to 20 percent in 2014, down from the current rate of 24.5 percent (and [...]

Housing industry lobbyists often make the case that, whatever you think of the mortgage interest deduction, now would be a terrible time to eliminate or restructure the subsidy. After all, they say, the housing market remains so shaky that ending the deduction would send home prices back into a tailspin. However, there is a contrary [...]

The annual income tax season is no fun for any of us but it can be a lot worse for same-sex couples in California, Nevada, and Washington. Those three states follow community property law and recognize either same-sex marriages or domestic partnerships. The combination makes tax filing an even bigger hassle than the rest of us [...]

Automatic enrollment is slowly gaining steam as the choice strategy to encourage retirement saving.  A bold plan in California would eventually make the practice widespread and could revolutionize the state’s saving landscape. Last September, the California legislature approved a framework for automatically enrolling private-sector workers in a retirement savings plan.  Employers with more than five [...]

Those of us who have spent much of our careers in Federal tax policy offices have reason this week to feel vindicated. While the two political parties could not be further apart in their ideologies and their views about the proper role of government, the budget resolutions in both the Republican House and the Democratic [...]

If you’re discussing tax policy with someone who asserts that his or her point is “just common sense,” this could indicate one of two things: Either no deep thought is required—as the person would have you believe. Or no deep thought has been applied. The “common sense” notion that capital income taxes hinder growth seems [...]