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 [...]

2013 is a tough year if you owe payroll tax, as most of us do. Not only did the 2010 payroll tax cut die at the end of 2012, but high-income workers now owe an extra 0.9 percent, thanks to the Affordable Care Act. Economists worry about what the combined new taxes will mean for [...]

Just as Congress allowed the 2011-12 payroll tax cut to expire, new research by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York suggests that such tax breaks may significantly boost consumer spending. As a result, raising workers’ take-home pay this way might play a bigger role than many thought in reversing economic slumps. The study by [...]

After all the promises and finger-pointing, the presidential campaign is nearly over. But since the race has shed more heat than light on how each of the candidates would govern, I thought it would be useful to describe exactly what Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have pledged to do on tax policy if elected on [...]

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 [...]

The other day, I criticized the unwillingness of Congress to finance the latest extension of the payroll tax cut. Since that blog, the Congressional Budget Office released its estimates of the cost of the entire mini-stimulus, including the so-called “doc fix” and changes in unemployment compensation. And the games were even worse than I feared. [...]

The 2-percentage-point payroll tax cut extended by Congress in December and again last week will save workers a total of $114 billion this year, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation. Spread over nearly 160 million workers, that’s an average tax cut of $714. Yet the typical news report says “the average worker earning $50,000 [...]

Welcome to Tax Vox’s fifth annual Lump of Coal Award recognizing 2011’s ten worst moments in fiscal policy. It is hard to imagine so much ugliness crammed into a mere 12 months. But after much thought and debate, the winners are: 10. The rating agency Standard & Poor’s for downgrading U.S. debt based upon a [...]

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 [...]

In a couple of weeks, President Obama will ask Congress to extend this year’s payroll tax cut. It will surely become a classic Washington double-reverse rhetorical moment. I can’t wait to hear Obama lift some of House Speaker John Boehner’s (R-OH) best lines about the folly of raising taxes in the midst of an economic [...]