All Tax VOX

State competition to provide tax breaks to older residents, especially wealthy seniors, is similar to the way states use tax subsidies to woo businesses. It may not make much sense, but it sure is trendy.  

Is  a 102 percent tax rate really possible? On taxable income, yes. On all income, no.

Congress could go a long way towards fixing the federal system without destroying state revenue codes—but only if reform is done carefully.

Our tax system is a mess and unless we send a clear signal to Congress to do something about it, it’s just going to get messier and messier.

The charade of annual or biennial debate about perpetually “expiring” tax provisions is terrible tax policy and a symbol of our failure to come to terms with budget reality.

A well-designed Value-Added Tax, a national consumption levy that would tax household purchases of all goods and services, could simplify the tax code for most households and finance significant reductions in corporate and individual income tax rates without adding to the budget deficit.

Romney's tax plan is not for the middle class. In fact, high-income households would win big and poor families would actually fare worse.

The Romney and Gingrich returns tell us a lot about the way those with incomes of $1 million or more are taxed, and how they structure their lives to minimize taxes. But mostly, they tell us that all those who make $1 million-a-year are not alike. Most of them are surprisingly like the rest of us, only more so. 

In his State of the Union address, President Obama offered a laundry list of new tax subsidies but said almost nothing about a top-to-bottom rewrite of the Tax Code.

If we really are going to reduce the federal deficit, new tax revenues must be part of the solution.

Mitt Romney's holdings in the Cayman Islands have generated lots of interest in investment funds that are managed from the U.S. but incorporated in foreign jurisdictions. The real winners in these arrangements are U.S. tax-exempt entities, not Mitt Romney and the investors themselves.

Santorum would cut taxes for nearly all households making $40,000 or more. But the impact on the deficit would be enormous: Santorum would cut taxes by roughly $1 trillion in 2015 alone.

If states were characters from Aesop’s Fables, they’d be more grasshopper than ant. With a little help from the federal government, maybe more states could find their inner ant.

The least popular Congress in recent memory is back for another year of squabbling over tax policy. Will lawmakers finally reach an agreement over last year's unfinished business?

Thanks to the Bain Capital controversy and compensation details from the Carlyle group,  the battle over how to tax the compensation of private equity managers may be on again

While lower-wage workers get less of a tax benefit than their higher-paid colleagues, their wages fall by much less for every dollar their employer contributes to their retirement plan.

Mitt Romney’s tax plan would cut taxes for millions of households but bestow most of its benefits on those with the highest incomes. At the same time, it would significantly cut corporate taxes and add hundreds of billions of dollars to the deficit.

 Rick Santorum's tax agenda would lower rates for individuals and corporations, substantially cut taxes on capital, and increase the personal exemption for dependent children. Like those of his GOP rivals, Rick Santorum's plan would likely add trillions to the federal deficit.