All Tax VOX

In much public discourse, direct government aid for the poor is easily dismissed by the pejorative “welfare,” Gleckman writes, but spending-like subsidies administered through the revenue code provoke far less outrage.

Making the tax code less complicated and more efficient may not achieve the rate-cutting, base-broadening reform many want, Gleckman writes, but it can have important consequences for real people.

The Bowles-Simpson framework seems a plausible alternative to the current game of sequester-and-gridlock, Gleckman writes.

Republicans and Democrats have signed on to legislation that would allow states to collect taxes on what consumers buy over the Internet. The measure would finally resolve a decades-old dispute over whether states can collect sales taxes on mail-order and online purchases, Francis writes.

New Medicare payroll tax could cost high income couples as much as $1,350 in extra tax. But some couples will get a tax break.

Spending cuts will begin to automatically take effect in two weeks, Harris writes, and allowing the sequester's automatic spending cuts to happen would be terrible policy.

Food stamps, welfare, Medicaid and other tax and transfer systems can sometimes penalize people for earning that extra dollar of income, Steuerle writes.

Just in time for Valentine’s Day, the Tax Policy Center has updated its marriage bonus and penalty calculator to reflect the provisions of the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012. Williams discusses three tax provisions that will increase marriage penalties a lot in 2013 for many high-income couples.

In his State of the Union address Tuesday, Obama continued to express a willingness to slow the growth of Medicare, but only around the edges, Gleckman writes. 

President Barack Obama's State of the Union address will likely touch on tax reform, Gleckman writes, but it remains to be seen whether even corporate reform is possible in 2013.

Gale offers three reactions to the Congressional Budget Office's latest Budget and Economic Outlook. While we do not face an imminent budget crisis, Gale writes, the data in the Outlook imply that we are not out of the woods.

The federal estate tax is finally permanent, Williams writes, although fewer than one in 700 estates will owe estate tax in 2013.

Work and family tax credits are needlessly complex for immigrant families whose children's legal status and residency determine their eligibility those credits, Maag writes.

The income tax’s ever-narrowing base simply cannot support the nation’s spending demands, Gleckman writes.

With Washington apparently stuck in gear on taxes, it may be tempting to see the states as leading a way to reform, Gordon writes, but the idea of states as laboratories for federal tax reform is fundamentally flawed. 

Business profits should be taxed as ordinary income, Rosenthal writes, and private equity funds are the same as other businesses, in that they deploy capital, labor, and other inputs to make their profits.

Some on the left are defining successful deficit reduction too modestly, Penner writes, threatening to leave future fiscal policy perilously constrained.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp's investment tax plan implicitly challenges our most basic and firmly held beliefs about why we tax investment gains the way we do, Sanchirico writes.

Payroll tax cuts might play a bigger role than many thought in reversing economic slumps, Gleckman writes, according to new research by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

The current taxation of derivatives is complicated and inconsistent, Rosenthal writes. Investors often use these tax differences to manipulate the character, timing, or source of their income to reduce their tax liability, he adds.