Sellers of stocks and other assets have always had to calculate their cost basis (generally, what they paid for the investment) in order to figure their taxable capital gains. In the past, this was often a hit-or-miss experience that required lots of tedious research (occasionally with help from brokers) and more than a bit of [...]
A House panel today began what could be the beginning of a remarkable exercise: It is reviewing the merits of dozens of expiring tax provisions that litter the Revenue Code. I hesitate to say so, but this could be a case of Congress doing its actual job. By the Joint Committee on Taxation’s count, [...]
By now, many readers of TaxVox know how much Barack Obama and Mitt Romney pay in taxes. But true tax wonks are more interested in why the candidates paid what they paid. A new infographic from the Tax Policy Center tells that story. The interactive display of the president’s and Romney’s (preliminary) 2011 tax returns [...]
In testimony before the Senate Committee on Finance this morning, I discussed what federal tax reform would mean for state and local governments and how Congress could help by coordinating tax law across states. Here are my opening remarks. You can find my full testimony here. With increasing concerns about the federal deficit, fairness, and the [...]
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 [...]
It has sometimes been said, even by me, that the easiest way for Congress and the White House to fix the deficit is to do… nothing. Allow the 2001/2003/2010 tax cuts to expire as scheduled in eight months, let the automatic spending cuts enacted in 2011 kick in as planned and, voila, the short-term fiscal [...]
When the president first announced his Buffett Rule–that millionaires should pay at least 30 percent of their income in tax–in the State of the Union address in January, I had a strong sense of déjà vu. It is another alternative minimum tax, and its provenance is very similar. Congress created a minimum tax back in [...]
Like many of you, I just finished my 2011 tax return. Counting worksheets, it was 59 pages long. It occurs to me that our current insanely complex tax rules are made possible by technology. Yes, computer software makes filing easier (both for professionals and civilians). But that may be the problem. The relative ease of filing, [...]
This afternoon, I moderated an interesting Tax Policy Center panel on taxing the rich. With the Senate about to debate a Buffett tax on millionaires, the timing couldn’t be better. Unfortunately for the White House, about the only thing the panelists agreed upon was that the Buffett tax is a terrible idea. My fellow [...]
In a new study, Chuck Blahous, who is a public trustee for Medicare and Social Security, concludes that the 2010 health law will add at least $340 billion to the federal deficit from 2012-2021. This is contrary to the official estimates by the Congressional Budget Office, which initially figured the Affordable Care Act would reduce the [...]