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Energy Tax Policy: History and Current Issues
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Gasoline Excise Tax – Historical Revenues: Fact Sheet
This report provides a fact sheet about the Gasoline Excise Tax - Historical Revenues. The gas tax was regarded as a user tax where the federal government has imposed a gasoline excise tax with the passage of the revenue act in 1932.
1099 Information Reporting Requirements and Penalties as Modified by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the Small Business Jobs Act of 2010
This report discuses the 2010 expansion of reporting requirements listed in IRC (Internal Revenue Code) 6041. The controversy in these expansions lies in the burden the expansion imposes on small businesses. The report also describes the pieces of legislation that have amended IRC 6041, and the implications of that legislation along with the consequences of IRC 6041.
Federal Aviation Administration Reauthorization: An Overview of Selected Provisions in Proposed Legislation
No Description Available.
Federal Deductibility of State and Local Taxes
No Description Available.
Additional Standard Tax Deduction for the Elderly: A Description and Assessment
This report briefly summarizes the history, reasoning, and current tax deductions (as of May 7th 2008) for the elderly. The report suggests that the current tax deduction for both the elderly and the blind will result in the loss of 9 billion in tax revenue. Moreover, the report suggests that corrections could be made with alternative solutions.
1099 Information Reporting Requirements and Penalties as Modified by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the Small Business Jobs Act of 2010
This report discuses the 2010 expansion of reporting requirements listed in IRC (Internal Revenue Code) 6041. The controversy in these expansions lies in the burden the expansion imposes on small businesses. The report also describes the pieces of legislation that have amended IRC 6041, and the implications of that legislation along with the consequences of IRC 6041.
Energy Tax Policy
This report brief discusses the history, current posture, and outlook for federal energy tax policy.
An Introduction to the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit
This report discusses the low-income housing tax credit (LIHTC) program, which is one of the federal government’s primary policy tools for encouraging the development and rehabilitation of affordable rental housing. These non-refundable federal housing tax credits are awarded to developers of qualified rental projects via a competitive application process administered by state housing finance authorities.
Federal Deductibility of State and Local Taxes
This report addresses the potential impact of changing the status of federal deductibility on state and local government tax systems, individual taxpayers, and the federal budget.
The Federal Rulemaking Process: An Overview
No Description Available.
The Alternative Minimum Tax for Individuals: Legislative Initiatives and Their Revenue Effects
This report describes the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), specifically revenue effects of modifying AMT and Legislative Initiatives.
ACA: A Brief Overview of the Law, Implementation, and Legal Challenges
This report summarizes the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the legal challenges it has faced. The report contains information on various lawsuits due to the ACA and provides the reasoning behind them as Congress violating its enumerated powers in the constitution. Moreover, the report covers the challenges of implementing the law.
Taxation of Unemployment Benefits
Unemployment compensation (UC) benefits have been fully subject to the federal income tax since the passage of the Tax Reform Act of 1986 (P.L. 99-514). Individuals who receive UC benefits during a year may elect to have the federal (and in some cases state) income tax withheld from their benefits. H.R. 6844 would provide a two-year suspension of the taxation of UC benefits. This report provides an overview of the taxation of UC benefits and legislation related to taxing UC benefits.
Adjustment of Civil Monetary Penalties for Inflation
This report summarizes and discusses potential adjustments in civil monetary penalties. The report covers the history of both legislation and enforcement on this issue which is central to the deciding how to enforce civil monetary penalties. The report identifies three courses of action that include either maintaining the status quo, adjusting civil monetary penalty maximums through legislation, or implementing some of the recommendations in the General Accounting Office's (GAO) report.
Blue-Slipping: The Origination Clause in the House of Representatives
This report presents the The Origination Clause in the House of Representatives through the House's primary method known as Blue-Slipping.
The Alternative Minimum Tax for Individuals: Legislative Initiatives in the 109th Congress
This report describes the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), specifically revenue effects of modifying the AMT and Legislative Initiatives.
Lobbying Regulations on Non-Profit Organizations
This report is intended to provide a brief overview of the various potential restrictions or regulations on lobbying activities of non-profit organizations. Public charities, social welfare organizations, religious groups, and other non-profit, tax-exempt organizations are not generally prohibited from engaging in all lobbying or public policy advocacy merely because of their tax-exempt status.
Energy Tax Policy: History and Current Issues
No Description Available.
Taxation of Unemployment Benefits
Unemployment compensation (UC) benefits have been fully subject to the federal income tax since the passage of the Tax Reform Act of 1986 (P.L. 99-514). Individuals who receive UC benefits during a year may elect to have the federal (and in some cases state) income tax withheld from their benefits. This report provides an overview of the taxation of UC benefits and legislation related to taxing UC benefits.
Estate Tax Options
After a brief description of the estate and gift tax and of options, this report compares the alternatives, focusing largely on a $1 million exemption and 55% rate, a $3.5 million exemption and a 45% rate, and a $5 million exemption and a 35% rate. Several policy effects and issues are analyzed: the share of decedents subject to tax, revenue effects, distributional effects, and effects on savings, charitable contributions, and compliance and administration. The report also considers other aspects of the proposals, such as whether the exemptions are indexed for inflation, a proposed inheritance of the exemption for spouses, and proposals to address perceived abuses.
Dependent Care: Current Tax Benefits and Legislative Issues
This report discusses current tax treatment of dependent care expenses under those two provisions and options for changing those policies. Two income tax provisions help taxpayers pay for the costs of caring for children and older dependents who cannot care for themselves.
Increasing the Social Security Payroll Tax Base: Options and Effects on Tax Burdens
This report provides information on the options and effects of increasing the social security payroll tax.
Increasing the Social Security Payroll Tax Base: Options and Effects on Tax Burdens
This report provides information on the options and effects of increasing the social security payroll tax.
Lobbying Regulations on Non-Profit Organizations
This report is intended to provide a brief overview of the various potential restrictions, rules or regulations upon lobbying activities of non-profit organizations.
Medicare: History of Insolvency Projections
This Congressional Research Service Report for Congress details Medicare Hospital Insurance (HI) financing as well as history of solvency and current insolvency projections. Updated June 1, 2011.
Improving Access to Long-Term Care Act of2002
No Description Available.
Medicare: History of Insolvency Projections
This Congressional Research Service Report for Congress details Medicare Hospital Insurance (HI) financing as well as history of solvency and current insolvency projections.
Individual Retirement Accounts and 401(k) Plans: Early Withdrawals and Required Distributions
This report summarizes the provisions of law that govern the taxes applicable to pre-retirement distributions from retirement accounts, and the situations in which distributions must be taken from a plan in order to avoid a tax penalty.
The Internet Tax Freedom Act: In Brief
This report discusses the Internet Tax Freedom Act (ITFA; P.L. 105-277), which enacted in 1998, implemented a three-year moratorium preventing state and local governments from taxing Internet access, or imposing multiple or discriminatory taxes on electronic commerce.
Individual Retirement Accounts: A Fact Sheet
This report discusses general information about individual retirement accounts (IRAs), established by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (P.L. 93-406) to promote retirement saving; the accounts were limited at first to workers (and spouses) who lacked employer pension coverage.
Federal Deductibility of State and Local Taxes
This report provides a brief history of deductible state and local taxes, and discusses deduction for real estate property taxes, deductions for income, sales, and use taxes. The report also discusses policy alternatives and current legislation.
Tax Issues Relating to Charitable Contributions and Organizations
This report focuses on deductions for charitable contributions, and on institutions that are generally eligible for deductible charitable contributions, such as social welfare organizations, educational institutions, nonprofit hospitals, and churches, along with conduits to those institutions such as private foundations, donor-advised funds, and supporting organizations.
The Effect of Base-Broadening Measures on Labor Supply and Investment: Considerations for Tax Reform
This report attempts to show how options to broaden the tax base by placing limitations on itemized deductions can potentially work against the expansionary effects of reducing marginal tax rates. The report also addresses other common base-broadening provisions that increase the effective marginal tax rate on the return to capital.
Analysis of the Tax Exclusion for Canceled Mortgage Debt Income
This report begins with an overview and analysis of the historical tax treatment of canceled debt income. Next, the changes enacted by recent legislation are reviewed. A discussion of policy options concludes.
Using Business Tax Cuts to Stimulate the Economy
This report discusses issues associated with the use of business tax subsidies. First, is fiscal policy appropriate? Second, how successful are subsidies likely to be and what form might they take to be most effective? Finally, what other consequences might flow from the use of business tax subsidies, especially if they are to be permanent?
The Economic Effects of Capital Gains Taxation
This report discusses tax policy in relation to capital gains. Proposals dealing with the taxation of capital gains have ranged from the outright elimination of capital gains taxation to the reduction of capital gains tax rates for certain classes of taxpayers to the elimination of the preferential tax treatment.
The Excise Tax on High-Cost Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance: Estimated Economic and Market Effects
This report examines several issues: it evaluates the potential of the Cadillac tax to affect health insurance coverage (and, therefore, the health market), and examines the expected incidence (burden) of the tax--that is, which group will pay the price of the tax.
The Excise Tax on High-Cost Employer-Sponsored Health Coverage: Background and Economic Analysis
This report gives a brief description of the excise tax on high-cost employer-sponsored coverage, commonly referred to as the Cadillac tax, including the legislative origins of the tax and an analysis of the revenue effects of the tax. It also analyzes the Cadillac tax using standard economic criteria of efficiency, equity, and administrative simplicity as well as an analysis of health insurance premium data to provide insights into what share of health insurance plans could exceed the Cadillac tax threshold and how the threshold could affect more health plans over time.
Tax-Exempt Organizations: Political Activity Restrictions and Disclosure Requirements
This report examines the limitations that the Internal Revenue Code places on political activity -- including lobbying and campaign intervention -- by tax-exempt organizations.
Tax Expenditures and the Federal Budget
This report discusses tax expenditures, the federal budget and the reform of the federal tax system and provides tax expenditure analysis. The perception that the federal tax system is too complex and unfair could lead to public support for tax reform. Past efforts to reform the federal tax system have included policies to rein in the use and expense of tax expenditures--the special deductions, exclusions, exemptions, and credits resulting in revenue losses.
The Foreign Tax Credit's Interest Allocation Rules
This report discusses the foreign tax credit's interest allocation rules, which alleviate the double-taxation that would result if U.S. investors' overseas income were to be taxed by both the United States and a foreign country.
Tax Provisions that Expired in 2014 ("Tax Extenders")
This report provides a broad overview of tax extenders -- a collective of temporary tax provisions for which measures have regularly extended the provisions when expired or expiring. Fifty-two temporary tax provisions expired at the end of 2014.
The Foreign Tax Credit's Interest Allocation Rules
This report discusses the "worldwide" allocation of interest rule, which was a provision of the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004 (P.L. 108-357; the Jobs Act). The provision relates to the taxation of multi-national corporations and allows more generous rules for multinationals to use in allocating interest expense for purposes of the U.S. foreign tax credit.
Selected Recently Expired Individual Tax Provisions ("Tax Extenders"): In Brief
This report briefly summarizes and discusses four items categorized as individual tax provisions that are regularly extended for one or two years (tax extenders). These items include deductions for elementary and secondary school teachers, deductions for state and local taxes, deductions for tuition and related expenses, and exclusions for employer-provided transit and parking benefits.
Corporate Tax Reform: Issues for Congress
This report provides an overview of corporate tax issues and discusses potential reforms in the context of these issues, with particular attention to some of the recent research concerning large behavioral responses and their implications for revenue and distribution.
Tax Reform: An Overview of Proposals in the 111th Congress
This report examines three main categories of tax reform: fundamental tax reform, tax reform based on the elimination of the individual alternative minimum tax (AMT), and proposals for reforming the corporate income tax in the 111th Congress.
The First-Time Homebuyer Tax Credit: An Economic Analysis
This report analyzes the ability of the first-time homebuyer tax credit to stimulate home buying and stabilize home prices. It includes information about current economic conditions, the tax credit with an economic analysis, marginal first-time home buyers, the cost of home ownership, the influence of the economy, and information about policy options and specific ways to adjust the tax credit.
PILT (Payments in Lieu of Taxes): Somewhat Simplified
This report explains Payments in Lieu of Taxes (PILT), with an analysis of the five major factors affecting the calculation of a payment to a given county. It also describes the effects of recent legislative changes to PILT.
The Federal Tax Treatment of Married Same- Sex Couples
This report provides an overview of the federal tax treatment of same-sex married couples, with a focus on the federal income tax.
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