The Coming AMT Debacle
The Tax Policy Center (TPC) has estimated that going over the fiscal cliff will raise taxes on average by about $3,500 per household in tax year 2013, compared with extension of 2011 tax law. But tens...
View ArticlePaying 2013 Dividends in 2012 May Save on Taxes but Not for Everyone
Regardless of the outcome of the fiscal cliff negotiations, taxes on dividends will be higher in 2013 than in 2012. As a result, companies can save some shareholders plenty of taxes by paying some of...
View ArticleGive Now or Pay Later: The Ever-Changing Estate and Gift Tax
For over a decade, the federal estate and gift tax has been in constant flux with its exemption rising, its rates falling, and its near-death experience in 2010 followed by resurrection in a reduced...
View ArticleWhy the Senate’s Tax Bill is No Way Out of the Fiscal Impasse
With fiscal cliff talks seemingly stalled (at least today) , there has been growing talk that House Republicans would call President Obama’s bluff and simply pass the Middle-class Tax Cut Act approved...
View ArticlePaying Taxes on Capital Gains Early: How Investors are Avoiding Tax Hikes
Normally, at the end of each year, investors sell stock (and other assets) to recognize losses to offset gains recognized earlier in the year. Sometimes they do it the other way around, harvesting...
View ArticleWhat Adjusting the Price Index Would Mean for Taxpayers
President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner may be close to agreeing on a plan that, among other things, would revise the way government programs are adjusted for inflation. Most attention is...
View ArticleToppling Over the Fiscal Cliff Could Cost Low-Income Families $1,000 in...
The 2001-10 tax cuts placed substantial emphasis on “pro-family” tax reform. The more prominent features favoring families with children included a doubling of the Child Tax Credit (CTC) to $1,000 per...
View ArticleShould Working Class Families Pay Higher Tax so High Income People Can Pay Less?
Somehow, the fiscal cliff tax debate has taken a truly weird turn. No, not the politics, which long ago became a parody of Washington deal-making at its worst. It is the policy that has gotten strange:...
View Article2013 May Be the Year of Perpetual Fiscal Crisis
If 2012 was the year of modest economic recovery and surprising Democratic election success, 2013 may be the year of perpetual fiscal policy crisis. After watching the still-unresolved partisan battle...
View ArticleCongress Kicks the Fiscal Can off the Front Stoop
In the end, it looks like Congress isn’t even going to kick the fiscal can down the road. Assuming the House passes the deal agreed to by the Senate on New Year’s Eve, lawmakers will barely get that...
View ArticleWhat the Fiscal Cliff Deal Really Means for Taxes and Spending
Everyone trying to sort out the fiscal cliff deal is getting hopelessly tangled in budget baselines. Are taxes going up? Or are they going down? There is an easier way: Forget the multiple baselines....
View ArticleTPC Tax Calculator Shows What Avoiding Fiscal Cliff Means for Taxpayers
Following Congress’s last minute passage of legislation averting a plunge off the fiscal cliff, TPC has released a new Tax Calculator that lets users examine the effects of the American Taxpayer Relief...
View ArticleNo, Ari, The Cliff Deal Will Raise The Economic Incentive To Give To Charity
Huffington Post reports on this tweet/warning from former Bush press secretary, Ari Fleischer: I increased donations to charity in 2012. This deal limits my deductions so I, & many others, will...
View ArticleWhat the Fiscal Cliff Deal Means for the States
The fiscal cliff deal is done and the question on everyone’s mind: What about the states? Okay, so only a handful of us are actually asking this question. But there are some important provisions that...
View ArticleA Budget Deal is Staring Them in the Face, But Here’s Why Lawmakers Won’t...
There is an obvious solution to Washington’s perpetual budget crisis. But it is unlikely to happen because all the incentives—both political and economic—are completely wrong. First, the solution: The...
View ArticleA Tiny Little Blog Post on a Tiny Little Tax Bracket
Weird Tax Fact of the Day: The fiscal cliff deal (aka the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012) created what may be the world’s tiniest tax bracket. Under the new law, singles face a rate of 35 percent...
View ArticleDeficits After ATRA
The American Taxpayer Relief Act (ATRA), the New Year’s legislation that effectively forestalled the bulk of the January 2013 fiscal cliff, probably staved off a recession. But compared to doing...
View ArticleThe Risks of Dumbing Down Fiscal Goals
In one of the more dangerous fiscal developments of recent months, some on the left are defining successful deficit reduction as merely stabilizing the federal debt at about 70 percent of Gross...
View ArticleWhat You Should Know About the Budget Outlook
The Congressional Budget Office released its latest Budget and Economic Outlook earlier this week. As always, the Outlook provides insight into the fiscal status of the federal government. My three...
View ArticleFive reasons Why the Sequester’s Automatic Spending Cuts are Bad Policy
In two weeks, about $1 trillion in automatic spending cuts will begin to kick in, a testament to the inability of policymakers to reach a grand fiscal bargain. Allowing these cuts to happen would be...
View ArticleTime to Fix the Budget Process
Congressional negotiators are trying to craft a budget deal by mid-December. Fareed Zakaria’s Global Public Square asked twelve experts what they hoped that deal would include. My suggestion: it’s time...
View ArticleThe Year in Taxes: From the Fiscal Cliff to Tax Reform Talks
The year in taxes started with the nation toppling, briefly, over the fiscal cliff. And it ended with some interesting policy proposals on tax reform though little political progress. Remember the...
View ArticleState Taxes and the April Surprise
In recent months, several governors have complained about the April, 2014, surprise in state tax revenues. They say they were shocked when personal income tax payments fell far below expectations. They...
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