Federal Tax

After an unpredictable legislative journey, the European Union has entered the final stage of negotiations on the world’s first carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM). It would appear that some in the United States Congress are paying attention. On June 8th, the European Parliament rejected a proposal to reform the EU’s Emissions Trading System (ETS) which

The Biden administration has put forward significant plans for changing tax policy, including tax changes that would impact workers. While the administration is trying to narrowly target tax hikes to individuals who earn more than $400,000 and provide tax relief to families, it is helpful to understand what the tax burden looks like for workers outside of

Key Findings By driving changes to the climate, carbon emissions will impose major long-term economic costs, both here in the U.S. and around the world. Carbon taxes are an option to make the market reflect future costs of carbon emissions, discouraging emissions and incentivizing development and implementation of clean technology. Carbon taxes also come with

The Biden administration has offered several proposals to reform the taxation of U.S. multinationals, addressing profit shifting as well as a broader view that offshoring is bad for the U.S. economy and firms should be encouraged to “reshore” as much activity to the United Sates as possible. Contrary to the Biden administration’s claims, raising taxes

Noted economist Dale W. Jorgenson, the Samuel W. Morris University Professor at Harvard University, passed away on June 8. He was 89. Dr. Jorgenson’s insights and analytical approach have enormously improved the understanding by the economics community of the effect of taxation on capital formation. He developed the concept of the cost of capital, the

The Republican Study Committee (RSC) released its FY 2023 budget today, led by Budget and Spending Task Force Chair Rep. Kevin Hern (R-OK) and RSC Chairman Jim Banks (R-IN), and prescribes several pro-growth tax reforms that would simplify the tax code and encourage business investment. Among the most impactful reforms are permanence for the Tax

This week, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will testify before the Senate Finance Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee on President Biden’s Fiscal Year 2023 Budget Proposals. Combined with the tax increases in the Build Back Better Act (BBBA), which the budget assumes becomes law, President Biden would raise revenues by $4 trillion on

Last week, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its long overdue report on the nation’s budget and economic outlook for the years 2022 through 2032. Normally published at the beginning of the year, the delayed report reflects higher-than-anticipated inflation, tax revenues, deficits, and debt since the previous update CBO published nearly a year ago in

Starting this year, firms must amortize their research and development (R&D) expenses over five years rather than immediately deduct them from taxable income, a policy change designed to raise federal tax revenue in the short term. As policymakers consider the future of the R&D tax change, one option on the table is to delay the

The Tax Foundation respectfully submits comment on the state tax and revenue implications of the proposed tobacco product standard for menthol in cigarettes. Alongside the intended consequence of limiting sales of menthol cigarettes, menthol cigarette prohibition will have a significant impact on state revenue collections, in excess of the losses associated with individuals who respond

Congress is hammering out the details of legislation designed to make the U.S. more competitive with China. Any package to incentivize further R&D should begin by ending the current tax penalty against it.   While the House and Senate-passed versions of the competitiveness legislation differ, they would support American semiconductor manufacturing, increase public funding for

In light of high inflation and rising prices, the Biden administration announced it’s considering dropping its current tariffs on Chinese imports to ease inflationary pressures. The tariffs have indeed hurt both U.S. industry and workers. Another consequence of the U.S. imposed tariffs is that they invited retaliatory tariffs, primarily from China, on U.S. exports. Retaliatory

Key Findings Federal policymakers are debating a legislative package focused on boosting U.S. competitiveness vis-a-vis China; however, it currently contains little to no improvements to the U.S. tax code. The existing U.S. tax code is biased against capital investment and it is scheduled to worsen over the next decade. The tax bias against domestic investment

Tax Day came and went on April 18th with the regular tax filing deadline, and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is facing difficulties. It struggled to manage a deluge of 282 million calls made in fiscal year 2021, only answering 11 percent, and a backlog of several million returns from 2021 were left to be

Among the many achievements in the illustrious career of former Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), who passed away Saturday at 88, was his commitment to tax reform. The longest-serving Republican senator in history helped shepherd passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, when he was chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. The Tax

A centerpiece of the Build Back Better Act (BBBA) as passed by the House last year was drug pricing legislation, which could be included in the next version of the BBBA, now rebranded as an inflation-control, climate, and deficit-reduction bill. While headline inflation is at an alarming rate, with the most recent 12-month reading at

After corporate tax revenue came in at a record high of $372 billion in fiscal year 2021, we have been eagerly awaiting the forecast for fiscal year 2022, which the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) normally publishes in January but now plans for the week of May 23rd. The White House has included a forecast in

As part of President Biden’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2023, the White House has once again endorsed a major tax increase on accumulated wealth, adding up to a 61 percent tax on wealth of high-earning taxpayers. Biden’s latest budget includes two major tax increases on accumulated wealth originally proposed in last year’s American Families

Over the course of the last year, it has become clear that Democratic lawmakers want to change U.S. international tax rules. However, as proposals have been debated in recent months, there are clear divides between U.S. proposals and the global minimum tax rules. While President Biden has led an effort on global negotiations over minimum

Key Findings The Trump administration imposed nearly $80 billion worth of new taxes on Americans by levying tariffs on thousands of products, which is equivalent to one of the largest tax increases in decades. Based on 2021 import levels and country exemptions, the tariffs amounted to a $52.6 billion tax increase in 2021. We estimate