Taxes

CBO Offers 121 Ways to Shrink the Deficit

By The Fiscal Times Staff

The Congressional Budget Office has released a 326-page guide that describes dozens of ways the federal government could reduce its large and growing budget deficit. The 121 policy options included...
Boxed In by Trump, GOP Hurtles Toward a Shutdown

By Michael Rainey

House Republicans considered moving forward with a bill that would have given President Trump the $5 billion he has demanded for border wall construction, but it looks like they’re leaving town...
Marco Rubio’s Surprise Critique of the GOP Tax Bill

By Michael Rainey

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) tackled the decline of the American dream in an essay published by The Atlantic Thursday, and in doing so offered some sharp criticism of the 2017 Republican tax overhaul – a...
Moody’s Warns of Declining US Fiscal Strength

By The Fiscal Times Staff

Trump’s tax cuts combined with a slowing economy will diminish the United States’ “fiscal strength” over the next 10 years, Moody’s Investor Service said Wednesday. The gradual decline could pressure...
Inside the Remarkable — and Costly — Decline of the IRS

By Michael Rainey

Weighed down by budget cuts and staff reductions, the number of audits performed by the Internal Revenue Service has been dropping for years. A new report from ProPublica and The Atlantic takes a...

Taking the Sting Out of a New Tax on Nonprofits

By Michael Rainey

Under the 2017 tax law, some churches, charities and other nonprofit organizations are being hit with a new tax on the value of transportation benefits provided to employees, including free parking...
The 3 False Claims Trump Repeats Most

By Michael Rainey

Washington Post fact checker Glenn Kessler analyzed President Trump’s voluminous record of false claims to determine which specific issues crop up most frequently. The top three have a strong fiscal...
Poll of the Day: Paying More, Less or the Same After the New Tax Law?

By Yuval Rosenberg

A new poll from The Economist and YouGov finds a sizable partisan divide in American’s perception of how the new tax law will affect their finances, with 67 percent of Democrats saying they expect to...
How Congress Got So Broken

By Yuval Rosenberg

More than 50 House members chose not to seek re-election in 2018, and a new report from nonprofit groups Issue One and the R Street Institute examines what drove so many to that decision. The report...
A Plea from the Left and the Right to End ‘Temporary’ Tax Breaks

By Michael Rainey

There aren’t many issues that the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute and the right-libertarian, Koch-funded Freedom Partners can agree upon, but putting an end to Washington’s annual ritual of...

5 Tax and Spending Takeaways from the Midterm Elections

By Michael Rainey

Tuesday’s election results changed the outlook for some key tax and spending proposals. Here are 5 takeaways from the midterm vote: 1. The GOP’s “tax cuts 2.0” effort is dead. The Republican plan to...
3 Ways Democrats Could Roll Back Trump’s Tax Cuts

By Michael Rainey

With President Trump in office until at least 2020, Democrats won’t have the opportunity to enact their own tax legislation for several years, but party leaders are already talking about their...
How Congress Got So Broken

By Yuval Rosenberg

The founders of the United States envisioned Congress as a co-equal branch of government, but that model of government “is effectively dead,” a new analysis by The Washington Post and ProPublica...
What Democrats Could Do on Taxes if They Win the House

By Michael Rainey

Don’t expect major changes to the tax code if Democrats win control of the House in the midterm elections next week, says The Wall Street Journal’s tax expert, Richard Rubin. “The parties are too far...
Visualizing the ‘Great Decoupling’

By Michael Rainey

The Washington Post’s Catherine Rampell asked economist and data visualization specialist Jonathan Schwabish of the Urban Institute to create a chart that shows how unusual the large and growing...