Increasing tax compliance is a major part of the Biden administration proposal to raise revenue for physical and social infrastructure. Reducing the tax gap—the difference between taxes owed and taxes paid—is a good way to raise revenue, but it doesn’t come without trade-offs, and it’s important to go about it in the right way. Point […]
Recent Biden administration proposals rely heavily on revenue from better Internal Revenue Service (IRS) tax collections to fund spending initiatives. The American Families Plan uses several avenues to reduce the tax gap (or the difference between taxes paid and taxes owed), from increasing the IRS’s tax enforcement budget to improving information technology and expanding reporting […]
One of the proposals in Congress’ eclectic grab-bag of payfors in the bipartisan infrastructure package is an effort to curb tax evasion in cryptocurrency by imposing a series of reporting requirements on the industry. While it makes sense to ensure cryptocurrency transactions are treated similarly to other financial assets, the nature of these requirements as […]
Binyamin Applebaum of The New York Times recently authored an op-ed calling for the adoption of return-free filing. Under return-free filing, many taxpayers would receive an already-completed return that they could amend. It’s an appealing idea, but for it to deliver its promised benefits, the U.S. tax code would have to be much simpler. The […]
Table of Contents Key Findings The tax gap is the gap between what taxpayers owe the U.S. government, and what the government actually collects from taxpayers. Tax compliance efforts ensure that tax law applies evenly to all taxpayers. At the same time, we would like to avoid placing undue compliance burdens on taxpayers. Reducing the […]
While high top tax rates may provide “sticker shock” for corporations looking for a state to call home, they are just one of several important drivers of businesses’ tax burdens and tax compliance costs. The tax base, and more broadly, the structure of the tax code, play a large role in business taxes and, in […]
A temporary gas shortage, caused by a hack attack, on much of the East Coast last month and fear of rising inflation have led some people to wonder if the 1970s are back. The Bureau of Economic Analysis report released last week did little to settle this fear, finding that the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) […]
It took until the last day of the session, but Louisiana lawmakers succeeded in passing a tax reform package Thursday that would simplify a complicated tax code and make the state more economically competitive. Because these measures are reliant on constitutional amendments, voters will ultimately decide the success of the plan in October. However, if […]
A new report from ProPublica argues that wealthy taxpayers face low effective tax rates as a portion of their wealth and mentions taxing unrealized capital gains or imposing a wealth tax. However, a better approach to raising the tax burden on the wealthy would be to pursue progressive consumption taxes as they have fewer administrative […]
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