On July 1, the state of Vermont is set to impose a $1,000 per day per product fine on any food manufacturer who fails to disclose on the product label if any ingredients contain genetically modified organisms (GMOs). The effect of the new law will be to reduce choices for consumers, limit supply, and increase food prices. And these consequences will be felt far beyond the tiny state’s borders.
DetailsIn an event following the release of FDA’s May 2016 “deeming rule,” which applied tobacco regulations to e-cigarettes, Alex Brill examined Congressional aspects of public policy related to the deeming rule and to e-cigarettes more broadly. Specifically, he looked at what Congress intends to do about e-cigarettes, focusing on three questions: First, what are congressional attitudes about the deeming rule and e-cigarette regulation generally? Second, is it a partisan issue? And third, looking beyond the deeming rule, how will Congress affect e-cigarette use more broadly in the future? “I think that the next battle that Congress will look to tackle with respect to e-cig products is the tax question,” said Brill.
DetailsDonald Trump’s proposal to build a wall between the United States and Mexico has been widely criticized. But the Obama administration is building its own wall around the United States. The Obama wall is built of rules that inhibit U.S. firms from pursuing inversions to escape the punishingly high US corporate tax rate. Both walls will harm Americans.
DetailsS ESOPs, which are defined contribution retirement plans that allow employees to become owners, are increasingly popular in the US…. S ESOPs exist across a wide spectrum of industries and include a meaningful number of US employees. As the US seeks to rebound from a period of tepid productivity growth, tools such as S ESOPs can improve worker commitment, reduce worker turnover, and lower production costs.
Details“Using…open-source models, Brill found that doubling the standard deduction and expanding the 10 percent rate would each result in a tax cut for about 75 million middle-class Americans. Expanding the 15 percent rate would give about 30 million of them a tax cut. That’s a big gap. Expanding the 15 percent bracket, though, would deliver more than twice the added economic growth of the other options, Brill’s models projected, by incentivizing far more additional work and investment in the economy.”
DetailsMiddle-class tax relief has widespread support across the political spectrum, but the consequences of different strategies for achieving this goal are not well understood. The analysis finds that either doubling the standard deduction or expanding the brackets for the 10 or 15 percent tax rates have quite different effects both within the middle class and across the aggregate economy.
DetailsIn January 2015, CMS launched a star-rating system for U.S. dialysis facilities. This article analyzes nearly 6,000 U.S. dialysis facilities and explores trends and variations in star-rating scores based on facility characteristics and local demographic factors. Statistical tests show variation across states and by demographic factors.
DetailsThe Maryland income tax scheme at issue here is as discriminatory as any tariff. Its discriminatory nature does not arise, as the Maryland Court of Appeals reasoned, from the risk that it may combine with some other state’s tax system to tax the same income twice.
DetailsAs you carefully define in the document setting forth this hearing, “tax extenders” are a subset of the tax provisions extended by Title VII of the “Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010” (Public Law No. 111-312), as well as a number of other tax provisions that have expired or will expire this year.
DetailsAs my testimony will describe, the recent improvement in payrolls and the unemployment rate are welcome news, but the plight of the long-term unemployed in the United States is considerable. The policies that have been executed since mid-2008 to foster an economic recovery have failed to deliver measurable results, and those most hurt by the current downturn are often the long-term unemployed. In fact, some policy actions taken by Congress and the Administration have likely exacerbated the duration of unemployment for some workers, the consequences of which are significant fiscal, economic, and social costs.
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