The Heartland Institute

The power to tax is the most ubiquitous of all government powers. It reaches directly or indirectly to all classes of people, all industries, all elements of society. Taxes always place at least some burdens on business, individuals, and the economy. They are a necessary evil. However, citizens should tolerate only those taxes ...

Introduction The debate over taxing high-income families to fund the expansion of health care coverage in America has renewed the broader question of government's role in redistributing income through tax and spending policies. What is missing from this debate is some hard numbers on how much current tax and spending policies ...

Tax holidays rarely confer the full value of the tax cut to consumers, says Jonathan Williams, an economist and director of the Tax and Fiscal Policy Task Force of the American Legislative Exchange Council, a nonpartisan organization whose membership includes more than 2,000 state lawmakers. Instead, said Williams, during tax ...

For the first time since 1986, the stars may be aligning for a grand bipartisan compromise on fundamental federal tax reform. Regardless of who wins in November, the next president and Congress will have to deal with the collision of two cataclysmic tax events: The 2011 expiration of the Bush tax cuts and the growing ...

The proposal A Roadmap for America’s Future achieves three key objectives: Health and Retirement Security. It assures universal access to health insurance, and rescues and strengthens Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security – allowing them to fulfill their missions and making them permanently solvent. Lift the Debt Burden ...

Congress passed legislation to create incentive stock options (ISOs) in 1981 to provide entrepreneurial companies that must conserve cash a way to attract and retain top talent with an alternative form of compensation. ISOs give employees a stake in the company's success, providing a non-cash incentive to work hard and build ...

The federal government should more than double gasoline taxes in the next five years to subsidize light-rail systems and pay for highway improvements, a panel chaired by the U.S. Secretary of Transportation has decided. Under such a plan, spending would rise by $225 billion to $340 billion per year, an amount larger than ...

Congress is finishing work begun in 2006 to remedy an unintended consequence of the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT)--the treatment of a form of employee compensation called incentive stock options (ISOs). (See "Taxpayers Cry Foul as AMT Affects Millions of Americans," Budget & Tax News , May 2007.) The proposed legislation would ...

Based on the results of the November election, 2007 may go down in history as a year of mini-tax revolt in Washington State. Not only were a majority of the local tax increases on the ballot rejected, voters also: turned down a huge transportation tax increase; rejected an effort to make it easier to raise school ...

Two tax reform plans with sharply different views of where federal income tax policy should head have been introduced in Congress, one by Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) and the other by a fellow member of the House Ways and Means Committee Rangel chairs, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI). Political analysts say neither plan has a chance ...

The November 6 election results show a clear tilt toward limited government, according to an analysis by the National Taxpayers Union (NTU). Tax increases failed in all of the states where fiscal policy issues were considered, while proposals to limit taxes scored victories in places as diverse as Texas and Washington. "Whether ...

On June 22, Rep. Sander Levin (D-MI) introduced a bill (HR 2834) that would drastically alter the taxation of carried interests held by managers of investment funds and real estate ventures. These people often earn a significant portion of their returns through such carried interests, and some analysts fear the bill, if ...

The U.S. Treasury Department held a conference July 26 regarding the growing uncompetitiveness of the U.S. corporate tax system. Scholars and heads of large corporations have been pointing out the serious problems with the U.S. corporate tax for more than 15 years. There is now a growing consensus that the complex and high ...

The politics behind the farm bill came into full view August 2, when the electronic scoreboard in the House showed a vote of 215-213 and the word FINAL in favor of a motion to deny illegal aliens benefits in the agriculture bill. The presiding officer, Rep. Mike McNulty (D-NY), interrupted as the clerk began to announce ...

The rise in world fuel prices since 2005 has made many motorists uneasy about proposals to increase gasoline taxes. But this has not stopped a handful of distinguished economists and pundits from calling for large gas tax hikes. One is N. Gregory Mankiw, a Harvard University professor and former chairman of the Council ...

The U.S. Senate and House of Representatives are at odds over the outlines of a comprehensive farm bill, and an extension of the five-year-old law currently in effect may be necessary. Earlier this year, the Democrat-controlled House passed a $284 billion, five-year farm bill on a largely party-line vote, 231-191. More than ...

A group of free-market advocates and experts in tobacco and health issues has sent the following letter to Sens. Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA) and Michael B. Enzi (R-WY) regarding the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act. These experts fear the act, now under consideration in the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and ...

March 19, 2007 The Honorable Henry M. Paulson, Jr. Secretary Department of the Treasury 1500 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, D.C. 20220 Dear Secretary Paulson: We are writing to express our concern about two Senate proposals that would undermine American competitiveness, discriminate against developing nations, and ...

Tax Me More accounts, also known as voluntary contribution accounts, have brought in precious little revenue to date, vividly demonstrating the hypocrisy behind many calls for higher taxes. "Setting up a Tax Me More fund is like putting bacteria under a microscope to see how it really behaves," said Grover Norquist, president ...

The alternative minimum tax (AMT) is a federal income tax imposed on top of the basic income tax. The two income taxes have different deductions, exemptions, and tax rates. Unlike the basic income tax, the AMT is not indexed for inflation, with the result that its burden is expected to grow rapidly in coming years. Without ...