The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) of 2017 is the most extensive overhaul of the U.S. income tax code since the Tax Reform Act of 1986. Existing estimates of TCJA’s economic impact are based on economic projections using pre-TCJA estimates of tax effects. I exploit plausibly exogenous...

This testimony makes three main points. First, income volatility, especially when it involves income declines, imposes significant hardships on American families. It heightens stress about finances and may increase household living expenses. These hardships are most pronounced for middle-and...

The federal government supports the provision of employee benefits through preferential tax treatment in the Internal Revenue Code. The Congressional Budget Act of 1974 (P.L. 93-344) requires that a list of “tax expenditures” (federal tax revenue forgone due to preferential provisions) be...

Since 2003 American political leaders and lawmakers have been committed to the simultaneous pursuit of tax cuts and military excursions abroad. Just a few decades ago, when military hawks were also deficit hawks, such a position would have seemed incongruous. This essay reviews, War and Taxes, a...

This note provides a chronology of major tax events that involved changes in federal taxes on individual and corporate income from 1948 to 2006. For each event, the note provides background and policy motivation, major provisions, legislative timeline, and estimated revenue changes. As most tax...

It comes as no surprise to any observant person in this country that there is a wide disparity in our federal income tax treatment of persons who have differing incomes and financial resources. But while much has been written on tax law complexity and inefficiency, little or nothing has been...

The federal tax system, and the income tax in particular, is often held out as a key — perhaps the key tool — for combatting income inequality. Especially given the rapid rise in inequality seen over the last 30 years, it is natural to look to the tax code and ask what can be done in...

How important is the enforcement of political rights in new democracies? We use the enfranchisement of the emancipated slaves following the American Civil War to study this question. Critical to our strategy, black suffrage was externally enforced by the U.S. Army in ten Southern states during...

This paper documents the first empirical evidence on how corporate tax policy affects monetary policy outcomes. Using exogenous marginal tax reforms in the US, I show that the average impact of monetary policy differs based on the tax treatments firms receive. Specifically, I find that monetary...

This paper uses a Dynamic General Equilibrium model that incorporates a detailed fiscal policy structure to examine how changes in the tax mix influence economic activity and welfare in the Greek economy. The results suggest that tax reforms that reduce the labour and capital income tax rates...