Taxes

Inheritance tax dates to the Roman Empire, which collected 5 percent of inherited property to pay soldiers’ pensions. Today, the practice of inheritance tax is widespread. The majority of European countries covered in today’s map currently levy estate, inheritance, or gift taxes. These countries are Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany,

Updated for tax year 2021. You have plenty of expenses while your children are young. Fortunately, some of those expenses can directly or indirectly turn into tax credits and exemptions that may mean big savings on your tax bill. Take a look at the following tax benefits to see which ones could be beneficial for

Congress is hammering out the details of legislation designed to make the U.S. more competitive with China. Any package to incentivize further R&D should begin by ending the current tax penalty against it.   While the House and Senate-passed versions of the competitiveness legislation differ, they would support American semiconductor manufacturing, increase public funding for

In light of high inflation and rising prices, the Biden administration announced it’s considering dropping its current tariffs on Chinese imports to ease inflationary pressures. The tariffs have indeed hurt both U.S. industry and workers. Another consequence of the U.S. imposed tariffs is that they invited retaliatory tariffs, primarily from China, on U.S. exports. Retaliatory

Wyoming is, without question, a low tax state, with the nation’s second-lowest overall tax burdens on residents[1] and highly competitive taxes for many businesses. Residents benefit from the high exportability of state taxes, particularly those on extractive industries. Taxes on oil, gas, coal, and other industries are borne by investors and consumers across the country

Today’s map shows states’ rankings on the property tax component of our 2022 State Business Tax Climate Index. The Index’s property tax component evaluates state and local taxes on real and personal property, net worth, and asset transfers. The property tax component accounts for 14.4 percent of each state’s overall Index score. Property taxes matter to businesses for several reasons. First, businesses own a

At a moment when we are seeing clear weaknesses in supply chains and needs for gearing production toward more environmentally friendly approaches, capital investment is critical. Policymakers have an opportunity to change a coming decline in investment incentives by adopting permanent policies to support growth. Expiring tax policies in major economies could create a setback

Key Findings Sales taxes account for 29.52 percent of state tax revenue, but most sales taxes are imposed on narrow—and still-narrowing—bases, with average sales tax breadth of only 29.71 percent and a median of 35.72 percent. Sales tax bases range from 19.32 percent of personal income in Massachusetts to 93.89 percent in Hawaii; the Massachusetts

Key Findings Federal policymakers are debating a legislative package focused on boosting U.S. competitiveness vis-a-vis China; however, it currently contains little to no improvements to the U.S. tax code. The existing U.S. tax code is biased against capital investment and it is scheduled to worsen over the next decade. The tax bias against domestic investment

Among the many achievements in the illustrious career of former Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), who passed away Saturday at 88, was his commitment to tax reform. The longest-serving Republican senator in history helped shepherd passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, when he was chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. The Tax

Key Findings A capital allowance is the amount of capital investment costs a business can deduct from its revenue through the tax code via depreciation. Ideally, countries should provide higher capital allowances, as they can boost business investment which, in turn, spurs economic growth. The average of OECD countries’ capital allowances gradually decreased between 2000

Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) unveiled long-anticipated proposed regulations banning the sale of menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars, part of ongoing efforts to support smoking cessation. Critics doubt, however, whether banning mentholated cigarettes will reduce smoking or instead simply channel menthol smokers toward other tobacco products—or smuggled menthols. And states have yet

Tax Day came and went on April 18th with the regular tax filing deadline, and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is facing difficulties. It struggled to manage a deluge of 282 million calls made in fiscal year 2021, only answering 11 percent, and a backlog of several million returns from 2021 were left to be

In more than a century of state income taxes, only four states have ever transitioned from a graduated-rate income tax to a flat tax. Another four may adopt legislation doing so this year. In what is already a year of significant bipartisan focus on tax relief, 2022 is also launching something of a flat tax

Today’s map examines another major component of our 2022 State Business Tax Climate Index: unemployment insurance (UI) taxes. Compared to individual, corporate, sales, and property taxes, UI taxes are less widely understood, but they have important implications for a state’s business climate. A state’s performance on the UI tax component accounts for 9.8 percent of that

“New own resources should fulfil the criteria of simplicity, transparency, predictability, and fairness.” One would think that the above recommendation came from a Tax Foundation report on principled EU own resources policy. While we would like to claim credit, the recommendation, rather, comes from the EU’s own 2016 Monti report and more recently, the EU’s

This legislative session, the sales tax on food has garnered a great deal of attention in Kansas, with policymakers on both sides of the aisle proposing the removal of groceries from the sales tax base. While this issue has long been a subject of debate in Kansas, it has gained increased attention this year in

The second round of voting in the French presidential election will be 24 April between incumbent Emmanuel Macron and National Rally candidate Marine Le Pen. Although tax policy has not been a central theme of the campaign due to the war in Ukraine, immigration debates, and cost of living issues, the winner’s policy preferences over

A centerpiece of the Build Back Better Act (BBBA) as passed by the House last year was drug pricing legislation, which could be included in the next version of the BBBA, now rebranded as an inflation-control, climate, and deficit-reduction bill. While headline inflation is at an alarming rate, with the most recent 12-month reading at

Tax reform has become a major focus for state legislatures this session, and Missouri lawmakers are tuned in to the action: after adjusting individual income tax triggers in 2021, the legislature is exploring further tax reform options. Senate Bill 739 would create an additional tax trigger mechanism for the individual income tax, while SB 701