Taxes

The latest version of the Biden administration’s Build Back Better reconciliation package reintroduces a policy that has been tried before—and abandoned: a corporate alternative minimum tax (AMT). It would be a mistake to revive this complex and poorly designed policy. Instead, lawmakers should consider directly reducing corporate tax expenditures. The corporate alternative minimum tax was first introduced…

As the U.S. Senate races to consider the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), a centerpiece of the proposed tax increases is the 15 percent minimum book tax on corporate income for firms earning over $1 billion, making up about 60 percent of the net revenue in the IRA. The minimum book tax puts one of the…

In the rush to pass the Inflation Reduction Act, which features an ill-conceived tax on the book income of U.S. corporations, it is worth reminding policymakers of a well-established finding in the economic literature: that among all the major ways to raise revenue, increasing the corporate tax is the most economically destructive due to its…

The current version of the reconciliation bill—the Build Back Better Act—attempts to walk a fine (politically imposed) line: raising hundreds of billions of dollars from higher corporate taxes without raising the corporate tax rate. The centerpiece of this effort is the book minimum tax, a new alternative minimum tax applied to the financial statement income…

High inflation got your stress levels up? Here are some savings and investment strategies you can use as an inflation hedge to protect your money’s value as prices soar. Inflation calculator Calculate the spending power of in Year Compared to Year It would be Calculate What is inflation? As many of us have experienced firsthand…

Preliminary Revenue and Economic Estimates Net Revenue Long-run GDP Wages FTE Jobs Source: Tax Foundation General Equilibrium Model, July 2022. Last-week’s Democrat-sponsored Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), successor to the House-passed Build Back Better Act of late 2021, has been touted by President Biden to, among other things, help reduce the country’s crippling inflation. Using the…

Key Findings Seventeen states will hold a sales tax holiday in 2022, down from a peak of 19 in 2010 and unchanged from last year. Sales tax holidays do not promote economic growth or significantly increase consumer purchases; the evidence (including a 2017 study by Federal Reserve researchers) shows that they simply shift the timing…

If making money with minimal effort is a financial goal of yours, passive income just might be the answer. But what exactly counts as a passive activity from a tax standpoint? Let’s look at the different ways the IRS says you can earn passive activity income and how it affects your taxes. What is passive…

’Tis the season to crack open a cold one. Ahead of International Beer Day on August 5th, let’s take a minute to discover how much of your cash is actually going toward the cost of a brew with this week’s tax map, which explores excise duties on beer. EU law requires every EU country to…

When thinking about tax policy, economists typically distinguish between the short run and long run. While there might be temporary boosts to the economy in the short term from a tax cut due to increased incomes, changes in tax policy alter the incentives to work, save, and invest, which can produce benefits to economic growth…

As the reality of a second quarter of negative economic growth settles in Washington, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its own sobering report on the government’s long-term finances. The CBO long-term budget outlook report shows widening deficits over the next three decades as both federal spending and tax revenues are expected to rise above…

With the Indiana General Assembly gaveled in this week for a special session called by Gov. Eric Holcomb (R), one of the issues is how to allocate portions of the $6.1 billion budget surplus for the fiscal year that ended June 30. The House, Senate, and governor agree that some of the extra revenue should…