News
Roll Call | Division Over Payroll Tax Widens
Top Senate Democrats on Tuesday called for a package of tax extenders to be included in payroll tax cut conference committee discussions, adding yet another hurdle to the already arduous path to a bipartisan deal.
NY Times | Two Sides Far Apart on Payroll Tax Cut
Presidential politics and a push by both sides to include pet measures could turn negotiations over the extension of President Obama’s payroll tax cut into the next partisan donnybrook on Capitol Hill, lawmakers made clear on Tuesday.
Econ Comments & Analysis
Heritage Foundation | Tax To-Do List for 2012 for the President and Congress: Focus on Growth
As more government spending has failed to create that growth, the President and Congress should turn to removing the obstacles that Washington policies are placing in the way of economic expansion. They should start with taxes.
WSJ | Romney's Fair Share
If Mitt Romney's 2010 tax bill were merely his pretax income, he'd still be a member of the 1%—in other words, the government takes more of his wealth every year than 99% of Americans earn. But what the world really learned from the tax returns the GOP candidate released yesterday is that he is a walking argument for pro-growth tax reform.
Blogs
CATO | U.S. Dividend Taxes Too High
The release of Mitt Romney’s tax returns is generating debate about the federal tax rates on capital gains and dividends of 15 percent. Great, let’s have a debate about why it’s both fair and good policy that these rates were cut in 2003.
Tax Foundation | Even at 14%, Romney Pays a Higher Rate than 97% of His Fellow Americans
The release of Mitt Romney's tax returns, which indicate that he paid an average tax rate of 14 percent after deductions, has once again prompted a great deal of confusion over marginal and average tax rates.
The American | Actually, the capital gains tax is heading to a de facto rate of 60 percent!
One widely cited study estimates a 6.4 percent gain in long‐run output from the adoption of an X tax, which could result in a full percentage point gain—as a share of GDP—to government revenue.
Tax Foundation | State Sales Taxes on Clothing
sales tax that best minimizes economic distortions is one that taxes all final retail sales once and only once. However, most states depart from this by not taxing services while taxing business inputs
Neighborhood Effects | Why Are Cell Phone Taxes So High?
Nationwide, combined federal, state, and local taxes on cell phone services average more than 16 percent. That makes a cell phone one of the highest taxed goods around.
