As U.S. obesity rates continue to climb, policymakers debate whether federal food assistance funds should be used to buy candy and soda. The author examines both sides of the issue.
The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Acts offers a starting point for compromise to revitalize the corporate income tax, fellows Jorge Barro and Joyce Beebe write in this issue brief.
Corruption is a complex social, political and institutional problem that is difficult to define. This brief describes the challenges involved in defining, understanding and measuring corruption and evaluates the case study of Mexico, where corruption has increased in recent years, to illustrate these complexities.
Fellow Joyce Beebe examines the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2018 ruling that opens the door for states to collect sales taxes from remote sellers that do not have a physical presence in the state.
This issue brief presents the results of a dynamic model similar in nature to the macroeconomic models used by the Congressional Budget Office and Joint Committee on Taxation in evaluating the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. The model shows a modest decline in wealth inequality due to the corporate tax cuts in the TCJA.
Fellow Joyce Beebe analyzes how changes to the exclusion limits for estate taxes passed under the 2017 tax reform will impact taxpayers and state and federal governments.
At least four states are currently considering a gross receipts tax (GRT) to improve revenues, yet Texas legislators have made attempts to repeal its franchise tax, a form of the GRT. Fellow Joyce Beebe examines this apparent conflict.
While academic and popular debates tend to focus on differential benefits and costs of trade across countries or industries, this brief highlights winners and losers at the level of individual firms. The authors demonstrate that preferential liberalization produces concentrated benefits among a relatively small number of very large and productive firms.
Pablo M. Pinto, Leonardo Baccini, Stephen WeymouthNovember 21, 2017
Public finance fellow Joyce Beebe discusses state and federal legislation aimed at granting states greater authority to collect sales taxes on remote online sales, as well as obstacles to those efforts.