This paper discusses how state income taxes and sales taxes affect the working poor. While some states impose substantial burdens through income taxes with low thresholds and/or sales taxes that do not exempt necessities, others provide generous subsidies through refundable earned income tax...
Senior Fellow discusses a major dilemma facing the nation: best described as the lack of fiscal slack -- the inability to shift resources either to the greatest needs of society, reflected in no small part by the proportion of government revenues available for new domestic initiatives that...
Senior Fellow Euegene Steuerle discusses the sensibility of the Schedule 5500 EZ, a form used by so-called "one-participant retirement plans." The taxpayers involved are self-employed, with no employees or leased employees.
Like Rip Van Winkle, baby boomers have awoken to find that they have aged. Their retirement is looming, and now it seems that everyone is worried about saving for it. The popular press, with the assistance of the financial services industry, has made saving for retirement a trendy topic....
Senior Fellow Eugene Steuerle gives the Treasury Department tips on how to make the most of their final months before the 2000 election and prepare the Treasury for the future.
Senior Fellow Eugene Steuerle gives the Treasury Department tips on how to make the most of their final months before the 2000 election--specifically with regard to Social Security.
The use of tax incentives instead of direct spending to promote social and economic goals is growing. This paper considers whether it matters if fiscal interventions take the form of direct spending or tax breaks. Tax breaks can, and increasingly do, replace spending programs with the same...
Senior Fellow Eugene Steuerle discusses the need for marriage penalty relief in the tax code, concluding that a tax world in which single filing is available to all who share resources and even beds but not to those who happen to believe in marriage vows is too capricious and arbitrary to remain...
Senior Fellow Eugene Steuerle suggests that there are three major features of the U.S. multi-tiered tax structure that together reveal a fundamental distrust of "bigness:" (1) the graduated rate structure in the individual income tax; (2) the corporate income tax; and (3) the estate and gift tax...
In this essay Senior Fellow Eugene Steuerle offers reasons to support a more unified structure for administering the EITC, child credit, and dependent exemption.
The New Federalism and State Tax Policies Toward the Working Poor
This paper discusses how state income taxes and sales taxes affect the working poor. While some states impose substantial burdens through income taxes with low thresholds and/or sales taxes that do not exempt necessities, others provide generous subsidies through refundable earned income tax...
Fiscal Slack (Part 1 of 2)
Senior Fellow discusses a major dilemma facing the nation: best described as the lack of fiscal slack -- the inability to shift resources either to the greatest needs of society, reflected in no small part by the proportion of government revenues available for new domestic initiatives that...
5500 Not-So-EZ, The
Senior Fellow Euegene Steuerle discusses the sensibility of the Schedule 5500 EZ, a form used by so-called "one-participant retirement plans." The taxpayers involved are self-employed, with no employees or leased employees.
The Limits of Saving
Like Rip Van Winkle, baby boomers have awoken to find that they have aged. Their retirement is looming, and now it seems that everyone is worried about saving for it. The popular press, with the assistance of the financial services industry, has made saving for retirement a trendy topic....
Summers' Time: Preparing Treasury for the Future (Part 5 of 5)
Senior Fellow Eugene Steuerle gives the Treasury Department tips on how to make the most of their final months before the 2000 election and prepare the Treasury for the future.
Summers' Time: The Social Security Opportunity (Part 4 of 5)
Senior Fellow Eugene Steuerle gives the Treasury Department tips on how to make the most of their final months before the 2000 election--specifically with regard to Social Security.
Tax Cuts or Spending - Does it Make a Difference?
The use of tax incentives instead of direct spending to promote social and economic goals is growing. This paper considers whether it matters if fiscal interventions take the form of direct spending or tax breaks. Tax breaks can, and increasingly do, replace spending programs with the same...
How De Facto Optional Filing Demands Marriage Penalty Relief
Senior Fellow Eugene Steuerle discusses the need for marriage penalty relief in the tax code, concluding that a tax world in which single filing is available to all who share resources and even beds but not to those who happen to believe in marriage vows is too capricious and arbitrary to remain...
Taxing 'Bigness'
Senior Fellow Eugene Steuerle suggests that there are three major features of the U.S. multi-tiered tax structure that together reveal a fundamental distrust of "bigness:" (1) the graduated rate structure in the individual income tax; (2) the corporate income tax; and (3) the estate and gift tax...
Combining Child Credits, the EITC, and the Dependent Exemption (Part 2 of 2)
In this essay Senior Fellow Eugene Steuerle offers reasons to support a more unified structure for administering the EITC, child credit, and dependent exemption.