Taxes

Kudlow Says the Party's Just Getting Started, but Is the Economy Headed for a Hangover?

By Michael Rainey

Senior White economic advisor Larry Kudlow touted the Trump economy Friday, telling CNBC that “[w]e're in a hot economic boom. There's no end in sight." As a result, the stock market should “get back...
Mnuchin Spins a False Claim About Tax Cuts and the Deficit

By Yuval Rosenberg

The Congressional Budget Office projected last week that the federal government’s fiscal 2018 deficit would total $782 billion. The final numbers will be released by the Treasury Department, but...
A Fiscal Hawk’s New Plan to ‘Avert a Debt Crisis’

By Yuval Rosenberg

The national debt rose by more than $1 trillion in fiscal 2018, and yet lawmakers have evinced little concern about it ahead of this year’s elections, instead pushing tax cuts and spending increases...
How GOP Rhetoric on Entitlements Has Changed

By The Fiscal Times Staff

The Washington Post’s David Weigel describes how Republicans have changed their tune on Medicare and, for this year at least, largely abandoned the idea of entitlement reform: “[O]ver eight years,...
The Trump Tax Cuts Still Aren't Popular

By Yuval Rosenberg

With less than a month to go before the midterm elections, Americans still tend to disapprove of the Republican tax law passed last year — and still say that they haven’t seen an increase in their...

Killing Three Birds with One Stone: A Defense of the Carbon Tax

By Michael Rainey

Yale professor William Nordhaus won the Nobel Prize in Economics this week, prompting Howard Gleckman of the Tax Policy Center to review one of Nordhaus’s most well-known ideas: a tax on carbon fuels...
Big Changes Ahead for Key Tax-Writing Committee

By Yuval Rosenberg

No matter what happens in November’s elections, the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee will see some big changes, Politico’s Morning Tax says: “Four committee members are retiring, three ran...
529 Plans Are Growing — and So Is Their Cost to the Government

By Yuval Rosenberg

Education savings accounts called 529 plans have grown dramatically since 2010, both in terms of the number of accounts and total assets, according to research by The Pew Charitable Trusts . And they...
The Post-Election Outlook: ‘Debt, Debt and More Debt’

By Yuval Rosenberg

The 2018 elections are looking like a lose-lose proposition for the U.S. bond market, according to Bloomberg’s Liz McCormick and Alex Harris : “If Democrats take the House, it raises the odds that...
Deficit Jumped to $782 Billion in 2018 – and It’s Only Going to Get Bigger

By Michael Rainey

You might have missed this with everything else going on in the world, but the Congressional Budget Office said Friday that the deficit for fiscal year 2018 rose to $782 billion, a big jump from the...

It’s a Great Time to Be a Tax Cheat

By Michael Rainey

With a reduced staff and a shift in focus away from basic fraud, the IRS is pursuing fewer tax evasion cases than it did 10 years ago, according to an analysis released Monday by ProPublica and The...
What’s in Trump’s New NAFTA?

By Michael Rainey

President Trump announced a new trade deal with Canada and Mexico Monday that is intended to replace NAFTA, the 24-year-old trade agreement that regulates roughly $1.2 trillion worth of trade between...
There’s No Such Thing as a Free Lunch, but Half Off Isn’t Bad

By Michael Rainey

Taking clients out for a meal has long been a foundational perk in the business world, and the Internal Revenue Service blessed the practice with a 50 percent deduction of qualified expenses. But the...
Tax Reform 2.0 Is Done: Passed by House, Likely Going Nowhere in the Senate

By Yuval Rosenberg

The House on Friday passed a bill to make permanent the individual and small business tax cuts that had been set to expire after 2025 as part of the overhaul enacted late last year. The bill, passed...
Despite Trump’s Tax Cuts, Economists Still See Slowdown Ahead

By Yuval Rosenberg

Trump administration officials such as Kevin Hassett, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, insist that their tax cuts will provide more than just a short-term sugar rush for the economy. “It...