Individuals and Families
Results per page: 50 | 100
Results by year: 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006
-
Contrary to Claims, Allowing Estate Tax to Expire Would Make Family Farms and Small Businesses Worse off Overall
December 17, 2009
While estate-tax opponents have held up family-owned farms and small businesses as “poster children” for the benefits of repealing the tax, such estates would be worse off, on balance, if Congress allows estate tax repeal and related tax changes to take effect on January 1, as now seems likely. The estate tax is irrelevant to the … -
Statement: Chuck Marr, Director of Federal Tax Policy, on the Senate Debate on the Federal Estate Tax
December 16, 2009
Today’s Senate debate over whether to extend the federal estate tax or let it expire for next year is a study in irony. Under current law, the estate tax, which has been reduced very significantly since 2001 and now only affects the biggest 1 of every 500 estates in America, will expire next … -
With Fully Offset Tax Extender Bill, House Advances Important Fiscal Principle; Senate Should Follow
December 9, 2009
The House tax extender bill represents a step forward in the important effort to reinstate a pay-as-you-go norm to federal legislation — a norm that played a key role in enabling the White House and Congress to turn large deficits into substantial surpluses in the 1990s The nation is on an unsustainable fiscal path, and … -
House Health Bill’s High-Income Surcharge is Sound and Well Targeted
Updated November 23, 2009
A 5.4 percent surcharge on couples with incomes over $1 million, a key financing feature of the House health reform bill, is sound and well targeted. It would affect just a fraction of 1 percent of taxpayers, a group whose incomes have soared and tax burdens have fallen in recent years, and would have only a modest impact on small businesses. … -
Increasing Medicare Tax on High-Wage Earners Could Help Pay for Health Reform and Strengthen Medicare’s Finances
November 13, 2009
Increasing the Medicare payroll tax on high-wage earners would represent a sound and well-targeted way of paying for health reform. It would also improve the solvency of Medicare’s Hospital Insurance (HI) trust fund and thereby strengthen this critical program, which provides health coverage for 46 million seniors and persons with disabilities. … -
Coalition Makes Flawed Arguments Against Proposal to Help Finance Health Reform by Maintaining Current Value of Itemized Deductions for Wealthy Households
Revised October 13, 2009
A coalition consisting of several trade associations for foundations and some nonprofit organizations along with a number of large charities has raised objections to a proposal that would help finance improved health coverage for low- and moderate-income people by maintaining the value of itemized deductions for wealthy Americans at its current … -
House Health Bill’s High-Income Surcharge: A Reasonable Approach
Revised July 30, 2009
Reforming the health care system to provide universal health coverage is an urgent priority. But, facing huge projected budget deficits that have the nation on an unsustainable fiscal path, the White House and Congress must enact a health reform plan that is also fully financed and that reduces the growth rate of health care … -
Curbing Flexible Spending Accounts Could Help Pay For Health Care Reform
Revised June 10, 2009
Congress should consider scaling back or eliminating health care flexible spending accounts (FSAs) [1] as part of its effort to pay for health care reform. This paper, which is part of a series of papers on proposals to help pay for health reform, outlines several ways in which Congress could curtail FSAs. FSAs are designed to allow employees to pay … -
Maintaining Current Value of Itemized Deductions For High-Income Taxpayers Could Help Pay For Health Care Reform
June 10, 2009
If Congress rejects the President’s proposal to help pay for health care reform by limiting the value of itemized deductions for high-income filers, it should at least prevent those subsidies from expanding in 2011, as they would under current law. Simply keeping the value of itemized deductions for filers in the top two brackets at … -
Limiting the Tax Exclusion for Employer-Sponsored Insurance Can Help Pay for Health Reform
Revised June 4, 2009
Limiting the tax exclusion for employer-sponsored health insurance could provide significant revenues for health reform without eroding employer-sponsored insurance or causing other undesirable side effects — if the cap and the rest of the health reform legislation are well designed and contain several key features that past proposals have lacked. … -
Video: Robert Greenstein Discusses the President's Budget on Washington Journal
May 8, 2009
-
A Brief Analysis of the Congressional Budget Plan
May 4, 2009
The budget resolution Congress adopted last week for fiscal year 2010[1] largely reflects the proposals in the preliminary budget President Obama submitted to Congress in February. Under the budget resolution: Deficits will be very high by historical standards in the next several years … -
Federal Tax Burdens for Most Near Their Lowest Levels in Decades
Updated April 14, 2009
With April 15 approaching and many people focusing on what they owe in taxes, Americans may be surprised to learn that federal tax burdens for most income groups, particularly middle-income households, are near their lowest levels in decades — and were low by historical standards even before the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. Most income … -
House Republican Budget Would Aid Wealthy Individuals and Corporations, Cut Public Services, Slow Economic Recovery
April 2, 2009
The House Republican budget, introduced April 1 by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), calls for a massive transfer of resources from the broad majority of Americans to the nation’s wealthiest individuals and corporations.[1] It provides the richest households with a new round of very costly tax reductions by extending the Bush high-income tax cuts and adding another set of tax cuts that … -
An Analysis of the House and Senate Budget Plans
April 1, 2009
The congressional budget resolutions that the House and Senate are considering this week are essentially consistent with the budget blueprint that President Obama submitted to the Congress in February.[1] The President’s budget and the House and Senate plans (which their … -
Tax Foundation Figures Do Not Represent Typical Households’ Tax Burdens
March 31, 2009
Each year, the Tax Foundation releases a report projecting “Tax Freedom Day,” which it describes as the day when Americans will have “earned enough money to pay this year’s tax obligations at the federal, state, and local levels.” [1] The Tax Foundation’s “Tax … -
High-Income Households Would Face Lower Tax Burden under Obama Budget than In Clinton Years, When Economy Performed Well
March 26, 2009
Despite claims that President Obama would impose a massive, damaging tax increase on wealthy Americans, the top 1 percent of Americans would actually pay a slightly smaller share of their income in federal taxes under the President’s proposals than during the Clinton Administration, when the economy grew strongly. Specifically, the top … -
History Contradicts Claim That President’s Budget Would Harm Small Business Job Creation
March 26, 2009
Critics have claimed that President Obama’s proposal to roll back tax cuts for families with incomes above $250,000 would kill job growth in the small business sector. But under the Clinton Administration, when the tax treatment of high-income families was very similar to what President Obama has proposed, small businesses … -
Testimony: Robert Greenstein on Tax Proposals in the President's Budget before the Senate Committee on Finance
March 26, 2009
I appreciate the invitation to appear before the Committee today. I am Robert Greenstein, Executive Director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a policy institute that focuses on fiscal policy issues and issues affecting low- and moderate-income families. This testimony makes the following points: As the Congressional … -
Limiting Itemized Deductions for Upper-Income Taxpayers Would Have Little Effect on Small Business, Charities, Housing
March 12, 2009
Despite persistent claims to the contrary, the President’s proposal to cap the value of itemized deductions at 28 percent would have only small effects on small business, charitable giving, and homeownership. That’s because the proposal, which would save $318 billion over the next ten years to help finance health care reform, would affect only those tax … -
Policy Basics: The 2001 and 2003 Tax Cuts
March 5, 2009
Note: This Policy Basics does not reflect tax changes made in the American Taxpayers Relief Act, or ATRA, passed in January 2013. The biggest changes in tax policy enacted under President George W. Bush were the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, often referred to as the “Bush tax cuts” but … -
Podcast: Examining the Administration's 2010 Budget
February 27, 2009
This podcast discusses the President’s budget outline for fiscal year 2010.
Robert Greenstein discusses the priorities in the budget, as well as specific initiatives in major areas such as health care, taxes, and climate change. They also examine the budget’s implications for the federal deficit and debt and fiscal responsibility, and evaluate whether the budget’s numbers are honest or rely on gimmicks.
Duration: 20:54
-
Tax Aid in Recovery Package Would Reach Large Numbers of Workers in Every State
Updated February 26, 2009
Tax credits in the economic recovery package provide tax relief to most workers. The centerpiece of the tax relief is a new Making Work Pay Credit of up to $400 per worker. The credit phases in at the same rate as Social Security taxes and is available to all workers (except those claimed as another taxpayer's dependent) earning up to $95,000 and … -
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009: State-By-State Estimates of Key Provisions Affecting Low- and Moderate-Income Individuals
Updated February 25, 2009
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 is designed to boost employment and the economy. It contains a number of spending and tax measures crafted to inject more aggregate demand into the sagging economy. This paper provides state-by-state estimates for a number of the major spending and tax provisions that will affect low- and … -
New Analysis Shows "Tax Expenditures" Overall Are Costly and Regressive
February 23, 2009
“Tax expenditures” for individuals totaled about $760.5 billion in 2007, topping what the federal government spent on either national defense or all non-defense discretionary programs, a new analysis by the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center (TPC) shows.[1] In most cases, these tax expenditures are also regressive — that is, they benefit … -
Recovery Agreement Temporarily Expands Child Tax Credit for Large Numbers of Children in Every State
February 12, 2009
The economic recovery plan that a congressional conference committee has approved will expand the Child Tax Credit for 13 million children in low-income working families. Under the agreement, the child credit will reach 2.9 million new children and will provide another 10 million children with a larger credit than they would have received … -
Senate Changes Make Recovery Package Less Effective
February 10, 2009
The Senate today passed a version of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (H.R. 1) that makes a number of changes in the House-passed bill. Contrary to their proponents' claim, these changes — in Senate committees and on the floor last week, as well as by a group of Senators led by Ben Nelson and Susan Collins — have reduced … -
The High Cost of Estate Tax Repeal
Revised January 28, 2009
View more up-to-date data: Policy Basics: The Estate Tax June 14, 2010 Making permanent the repeal of the estate tax after 2010 — repeatedly proposed by President Bush— would add almost $1.3 trillion to the deficit between fiscal years 2012 and 2021, the first ten years in which the full costs of extending repeal would be reflected in …
