Taxes

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

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

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

Imagine a worker who gets a raise and ends up paying in tax more than 50 percent of that raise. This is the case for a Canadian worker who earns CAD 48,124. With an increase in pay of CAD 822, he would face a 59 percent marginal tax rate. This Canadian worker will end up

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

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

New Jersey’s proposed ban on the sale of menthol cigarettes (Assembly Bill 1989) would reduce excise and sales tax collections by as much as $243 million per year. And with the significant revenue loss, smoking rates are unlikely to decline. New Jersey lawmakers should look to the recent Massachusetts experiment to see what to expect

Efforts to raise taxes on corporations and high-income earners recently hit a brick wall when U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) once again expressed concerns about inflation and a potential recession. That would seem to be the end of the story, as there is no reason to think inflation will be going away anytime soon and

The Senate has begun debate on the so-called Chips bill, which would provide $52 billion in grants and $24 billion in tax credits to supposedly strengthen the production of semiconductors in the U.S. If this measure passes, U.S. semiconductors will join wool, mohair, helium, soybeans, ethanol, steel, credit unions, and Amtrak as industries thought to

Key Findings Over the past two years, a wave of tax reform has swept the country, with a historic number of states improving their tax competitiveness by reducing income tax rates and enacting flatter structures. Since 2019, Wisconsin has made improvements to its three lowest marginal individual income tax rates, but its top marginal rate

Student debt forgiveness has been at the forefront of recent federal policy discussions, with President Biden exploring using executive action to cancel up to $10,000 in student loan debt per borrower. Under current law, the tax code handles debt forgiveness differently depending on the borrower’s repayment plan—canceling student loan debt would have new, potentially complicated

Table of Contents Key Findings Forty-five states and the District of Columbia collect statewide sales taxes. Local sales taxes are collected in 38 states. In some cases, they can rival or even exceed state rates. The five states with the highest average combined state and local sales tax rates are Louisiana (9.55 percent), Tennessee (9.547