corporate business tax
Tax Policy Center: Corporate, Business Taxation
Tax Policy Center reports on: Corporate, Business Taxation - The Tax Policy Center is a joint venture of the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution. The Center is comprised of nationally recognized experts in tax, budget, and social policy who have served at the highest levels of government.
- The Distribution of Federal Taxes, 2008-11
Overall, the federal tax system is highly progressive. On average, households with higher incomes pay taxes that are a larger share of their income. The tax cuts passed since 2001 have reduced progressivity with the notable exception of the 2008 stimulus package. Almost all provisions of the tax cuts are set to expire by the end of 2010. Barring legislative action, effective tax rates will rise across the income spectrum in 2011 with the largest increases in the upper income classes. This paper summarizes the Tax Policy Center's latest estimates of the distribution of federal taxes for 2008 through 2011. - Does the Federal Income Tax Favor Small Business?
Small business is the source of our entrepreneurial genius, creativity, and productivity. Nonetheless, a substantial portion of our economic activity occurs within large corporations, non-profits and public enterprises. This paper discusses how the federal income tax treats firms of different sizes. It reviews specific provisions favoring small businesses and more general aspects of the federal income tax that may differentially affect firms of different sizes and also discusses how opportunities for tax avoidance and costs of complying with the tax law affect businesses of different size. - Emerging State Business Tax Policy : More of the Same, or Fundamental Change?
Much of the state tax policy discussion during the past decade has centered on the performance of corporate income taxes and ways to restructure them. This report focuses on state responses to the weak corporate tax collections during the 2000-2003 period as well as to the revenue performance during the years immediately preceding and following the recession. The report is not an attempt to argue that the corporate income tax is an important component of good state tax policy. Instead, our focus is on identifying state tactics to maintain or change the tax, determining whether those strategies are good tax policy, and evaluating whether they are working to achieve the basic goals of the states. - Fewer Businesses Are Organized As Taxable Corporations
Corporations that are taxed under subchapter C of the Internal Revenue Code pay a separate entity-level tax on their income (the corporate income tax) and their owners pay additional tax on corporate dividends and capital gains on sales of corporate shares. Other businesses are taxed as flow-through entities; they file tax returns and report their income but do not pay an entity-level tax. This article discusses the decline in both the share of businesses organized as C corporations and their share of business receipts between 1994 and 2004. - Eliminating Tax Expenditures with Adverse Environmental Effects
Tax expenditures are provisions in the U.S. federal tax code that provide special tax benefits for selected economic activities or taxpayers. A number of tax expenditures add to greenhouse gas emissions by encouraging production and consumption of fossil fuels. This policy brief examines four tax expenditures that increase consumption of fossil fuels. Eliminating or scaling back these and other tax expenditures that promote production and consumption of fossil fuels would reduce the budget deficit, promote economic efficiency, and be a first step toward making the tax law more environmentally friendly. However, the effects of the proposed tax reforms on greenhouse gas emissions would be smallso addressing tax expenditures can be only one part of a broader strategy to reduce climate change. - Energy Taxation: Principles and Interests
Energy policy is an important subject these days, as Americans become increasingly aware of the costs of what President Bush has called "our addiction to oil" and the environmental costs of growing world consumption of fossil fuels. Although some foreign oil comes from friendly and politically stable countries, the world price of oil depends heavily on output in potentially hostile, war-torn, and politically unstable regions. Policy changes can help us adjust over time to an economy that uses less oil and generates less greenhouse gas emissions. This article discusses some tax policies, including energy taxes and energy tax incentives, that can be crucial components of an energy policy that addresses global warming and energy security concerns. - The Recent Surge in Corporate Profits and Tax Revenue
Before-tax corporate profits of nonfinancial corporations surged to 7.8 percent of net national product in the second quarter of 2006, having risen steadily from a post-war low of 3.6 percent, in the fourth quarter of 2001, after a stock market plunge. We find that the income of corporate capital owners of nonfinancial corporations, net corporate tax, has remained much steadier than corporate profits. - Tax Incentives for Energy Production
There are numerous tax incentives for the oil and gas industry, many of which are designed to encourage exploration and energy production. Both the amount and the value of the incentives have increased in recent years. Economists believe it is generally bad policy to favor one industry or one type of production over another because it distorts investment and production decisions away from a more efficient allocation. - Transforming the Tax Code: An Examination of the President's Tax Reform Panel Recommendations : Statement of Leonard E. Burman before the Subcommittees on Tax, Finance, and Exports, and Rural Enterprises, Agriculture, and Technology, House Committee on Small Business
This Congressional testimony by Leonard Burman examines how the plans put forth by the President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform would affect small businesses, focusing particularly on the effect of: adopting a national retail sales tax on small business and the viability of federal and state tax systems; the effect on small business health insurance and retirement coverage; the effect of disallowing state and local tax deductions for businesses; and the effect of certain simplification proposals. - Taxing Capital Income : Do We? Should We? Can We? Can We Not?
The Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, American Tax Policy Institute, and Tax Analysts cosponsored a conference entitled Taxing Capital Income: Do we? Should we? Can we? (Can we not?). The one-day conference brought together leading economists, lawyers and accountants from across the political spectrum to discuss issues surrounding the choice of income or consumption as a tax base. Sessions addressed each question in the title. Douglas Holtz-Eakin, Director of the Congressional Budget Office, presented the luncheon address, and a wrap-up panel featured Henry Aaron, Leonard Burman and Dan Halperin. Drafts of the conference papers are available at the ATPI website, http://www.americantaxpolicyinstitute.org/. - Deficits, Interest Rates, and the User Cost of Capital : A Reconsideration of the Effects of Tax Policy on Investment
Under traditional formulations, lower capital income tax rates reduce the user cost of capital and stimulate investment. The traditional approach, however, implicitly or explicitly considers a revenue-neutral reduction in capital income taxation. We extend the traditional approach by considering a reduction in taxes that generates an increase in the budget deficit; the expanded budget deficit may raise interest rates and the opportunity cost of investment. This provides a mechanism through which tax cuts can raise the cost of capital. Representative calculations show that making the administration's recent tax cuts permanent would be to raise the user cost of capital. - USDA Not Allowing Free Markets to Decide about Mad Cow Disease Testing
In this commentary for Marketplace, Len Burman argues t