Distribution of individual tax expenditures

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recently released a report - The Distribution of Major Tax Expenditures in the Individual Income Tax S...

Romney's "Bucket" Idea

In a Fox News interview before the first presidential debate, Governor Romney referred to a "$17,000 bucket" as part of his tax re...

Equity, improve investment and reduce the mortgage interest deduction

This is a follow up on my post of 8/23/12 on various reasons to reform (and reduce) the mortgage interest deduction. In June 2012, the OECD ...

Who Pays Taxes in California?

In April 2012, the California Budget Project released a report - Who Pays Taxes In California? It is a reminder that while we sometimes he...

Cleaning up the tax mess - PBS show

On March 9, 2012, PBS had four commentators, including Bruce Bartlett, address the issue - "Cleaning up the tax mess."  It is post...

Taxing the rich - interesting article in Christian Science Monitor

Saturday's Christian Science Monitor had an extensive story on the current news item about President Obama's proposal on increasin...

Tax System Equity and Tax Expenditures .. and Stanley Surrey Explanation

On October 11, 2010, the Washington Post ran an editorial entitled " The Current U.S. Tax System Is Tilted Toward the Haves ." It...

Do 97% of Individuals Warrant the Same Tax Cut?

A recent Rasmussen survey asked people what income category they thought they belonged to (" The Working Poor " 8/14/10). The resp...

Targeted tax measures rather than across the board cuts

A tax system most likely to meet principles of good tax policy has a broad base (few, if any, deductions) and low rates. Our current federa...

Exemptions that are too broad

An article in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on June 2 - " Tax breaks for seniors: Can counties afford them ?" caught my attent...