In the strange alchemy of Washington, Congress can magically turn a tax increase into a tax cut.  And to make it happen, all it has to do is…nothing.      Yesterday, Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) told an audience at the Brookings Institution that she would prefer to let the government tumble over the fiscal cliff at [...]

Yesterday, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT), who rarely gives public speeches, laid out his agenda for tax reform. Just for fun, I compared what Baucus told the Bipartisan Policy Center to a speech House Ways & Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI) delivered just three weeks ago to a group of Washington lobbyists. [...]

Today I had the chance to testify before the Select Revenue Measures Subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee about a perennial challenge, the “tax extenders,” which really ought to be known as the “tax expirers.” Here are my opening remarks. You can find my full testimony here. As you know, the United States [...]

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, [...]

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 [...]

In two days, 53 targeted tax breaks will, officially at least, die. By the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation’s count, that’s the number of temporary tax subsidies that are due to expire on December 31. They’ve become known as the extenders, which sounds like the name of a wonky rock band but isn’t. They got [...]