Does “starve the beast” work (would raising taxes just increase spending)? Dynamic scoring Should official scorekeepers account for macroeconomic effects in their revenue estimates? Issues Permanent versus temporary tax cuts Taxes and the recession/economic stimulus Taxes and small business Taxes and Social Policy; Marriage Penalties; Charitable Contributions [Friday, 1/6, 10am] (Sammartino, Toder, and Maag; TIA 46-50; Burman and Slemrod, “My Weekend with Nick and Adam”; Wood; CBO, “For Better or Worse” (skim)) Elaine Maag, Tax Policy Center/ Urban Institute, Running social policy through the tax code Tax policy as social welfare program Tax policy as replacement for government programs Increasing importance of federal tax credits Phase-ins and outs and marginal tax rates Marriage (and divorce) penalties The Parable of the AMT; Environmental Tax; Sin Taxes and “Corrective Taxes” [Monday, 1/9, 10am] (Burman, “The Alternative Minimum Tax”; Tax Policy Center, “Baseline AMT Tables” (skim); Morris and Mathur; McKibbon and Wilcoxen; Morris) Speaker: Adele Morris, Tax Policy Center/Brookings Institution (11:15) Environmental taxation Carbon tax, gas tax, cap and trade Environmental politics Transition issues Tax incentives for innovation Environmental tax breaks How a fuel efficient car tax credit could have discouraged purchase of fuel efficient cars Chicken poop tax credit AMT: poster child for pointless tax complexity Social Security Reform [Monday, 1/9, 1:30pm] (Diamond and Orszag; Biggs) Speaker: Melissa Favreault, Urban Institute; Nancy Altman, Social Security Works
Leonard E. Burman, “A Blueprint for Tax Reform and Health Reform,” Virginia Tax Review, 28:287-323. 2009. Leonard E. Burman, , , Robert Williams, and , “An Analysis of the 2008 Presidential Candidates' Tax Tax Policy Center, September 12, 2008. Leonard E. Burman, Eric Toder and Christopher Geissler, “How Big are Total Individual Tax Expenditures and Who Benefits From Them?” Tax Policy Center Discussion Paper Number 31, December 2008. Leonard Burman and Joel Slemrod, “My Weekend with Nick and Adam: Tax Policy and Other Willful Misperceptions,” . Robert Carroll, Alan D. Viard, and Scott Ganz, “The X Tax: The Progressive Consumption Tax America Needs?”, American Enterprise Institute, Tax Policy Outlook No. 4, December 2008. CBO, For Better or for Worse: Marriage and the Federal Income Tax. 1997. Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, “Policy Basics: Introduction to the Federal Budget Process,” 2011. . Concord Coalition, “New House Rules Clear Path for New Deficits,” . Peter A. Diamond and Peter R. Orszag, “Reforming Social Security: A Balanced Plan,” Brookings Policy Brief #126, December 2003. . Martin Feldstein, "The Uncounted Trillions in the Inequality Debate," Wall Street Journal, December 13, 2015. (On Blackboard) Jason Fichtner, "A Comparison of Tax Distribution Tables," Tax Notes, December 20, 2004. (On Blackboard) Elizabeth Garrett and Adrian Vermeule, “Transparency in the Budget Process” Jonathan Gruber, “The Tax Exclusion for Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance,” NBER Working Paper No. 15766. Thomas L. Hungerford, The Economic Effects of Capital Gains Taxation, Congressional Research Service, March 4, 2009. Rachel M. Johnson, Jim Nunns, Jeff Rohaly, Eric Toder, Roberton Williams, “Why Some Tax Units Pay No Income Tax,” Tax Policy Center, Philip Joyce, “The Costs of Budget Uncertainty: Analyzing the Impact of Late Appropriations,” IBM Center for the Business of Government, 2012. (On Blackboard) Kaiser Family Foundation, . (Tons of resources and information) Katherine Lim and Jeff Rohaly, “The Individual Alternative Minimum Tax: Historical Data and