The Democrat’s Millionaire Tax: Smart Politics, Awful Policy
Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid’s plan to fund a $445 billion stimulus, err, jobs bill with a 5.6 percent surtax on millionaires is not all bad. After all, Tax the Rich does make a nice campaign...
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Tax Policy in Margaritaville: The Buffett Rule
I’m trying a new thing in the blog–imagining a debate between a smart conservative and liberal economist on a contentious tax policy issue. Here liberal economist Keynes and conservative economist...
View ArticleWhy Do U.S. Investment Funds Operate in Tax Havens?
Mitt Romney’s holdings in the Cayman Islands have generated lots of interest in investment funds that are managed from the U.S. but incorporated in foreign jurisdictions. But taxable U.S. investors...
View ArticleRomney’s Tax Plan Really Does Favor the Rich
Despite evidence to the contrary, there is a lingering view that Mitt Romney’s tax plan would primarily help middle-income households and not favor the rich. Yet TPC’s analysis of the plan clearly...
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No Obvious Relationship between Capital Gains Tax Rates and Economic Growth
If you read the editorial page of financial newspapers, you might conclude that no aspect of tax policy is more important for economic growth than the way we tax capital gains. You’d be wrong. The...
View ArticleFive Challenges for the IRS’s New Capital Gains Reporting Rules
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...
View ArticleUnderstanding TPC’s Analysis of Governor Romney’s Tax Plan
The Tax Policy Center’s latest research report went viral last week, drawing attention in the presidential campaign and sparking a constructive discussion of the practical challenges of tax reform....
View ArticleChairman Camp Agrees: Too Many Choices Burden our Tax System
Last week’s draft plan by House Ways & Means Committee Chair Dave Camp (R-MI) to reform the taxation of financial products includes two key changes that would simplify rules, reduce manipulation,...
View ArticleCamp’s Investment Tax Plan: Implications for Lower Rates on Capital Gains?
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI) has proposed requiring most derivatives investors to pay tax on their annual returns even if they don’t realize their gains by selling their...
View ArticleWhy the IRS Should be Taxing the Profits of Private Equity Funds as Ordinary...
For years, the battle over carried interest has focused on how to tax the compensation of private equity managers. But a careful reading of the law suggests that all the business profits of these...
View Article“Common Sense” Aside, What Do We Really Know About Capital Income Taxes and...
If you’re discussing tax policy with someone who asserts that his or her point is “just common sense,” this could indicate one of two things: Either no deep thought is required—as the person would have...
View ArticleCarry Me Back to Old Greenwich
There has been talk in recent days that the congressional effort to raise taxes on the earnings of private equity managers has been killed. Don’t believe it. The Washington Post’s Jeff Birnbaum...
View ArticlePay Go, Pay Gone: AMT Drives Senate Dems to Blink
To the surprise of no-one, the Senate has blinked in the stand-off over whether Congress will pay for the cost of patching the Alternative Minimum Tax for another year. The question now: Will House...
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The Worst Tax Holiday Idea Ever
We had fun ridiculing the idea of suspending the gasoline tax for the summer, but the gas tax holiday was minor mischief compared with the newest idea for dealing with the financial market meltdown: a...
View ArticleThe Bailout and Capital Gains Taxes
Whatever its ultimate fate, the $700 billion financial market bailout has me thinking about how events of the past few months have fundamentally changed the nature of economic risk in the U.S. And,...
View ArticleMcCain and Obama Stimulus Plans: The Good, Bad, and Ugly
Both Barack Obama and John McCain have rolled out new economic stimulus plans. Each is a hodgepodge of some good ideas, some not-so-good, and some potentially awful. Obama says his new ideas would cost...
View ArticleThe McCain and Obama Stimulus Plans: An Update
TPC's Katherine Lim has crunched some numbers on John McCain's proposal to temporarily cut capital gains tax rates from 15 percent 7.5 percent. In 2009, under a plan that lowers taxes on both gains and...
View ArticleWhat Will the Capital Gains Rate Be in 2013?
My best guess is that the top tax rate on capital gains and dividends in 2013 will be almost 24 percent—a significant increase over today’s 15 percent rate. As a result, the decade-long tax holiday for...
View ArticleEstate Taxes, Capital Gains, and Paperwork
The one-year lapse of the federal estate tax this year came with the unwelcome requirement that heirs assume their benefactors’ bases for some assets they inherit in 2010, as Howard Gleckman explained...
View ArticleDeficit Plans Cut Marginal Tax Rates, But Raise Average Rates, for High Earners
Liberal critics of the deficit reduction and tax reform plans that surfaced over the past couple of weeks have been blasting them for the sin of cutting tax rates for the rich at the same time they’d...
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