Alex Brill Testifies Before Senate Committee on Finance on Tax Treatment of Energy

Filed Under: Testimony

On Tuesday, American Enterprise Institute resident fellow and MGA founder and CEO Alex Brill testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance. The topic of the hearing was the tax treatment of energy. Brill spoke of the criticality of a “broad, efficient, technology-neutral tax policy geared toward encouraging less energy consumption and more renewable energy production” to working toward a reduction in U.S. reliance on fossil fuels—and ensuring a reduction in CO2 emissions.

Brief of Brill, Knoll, Mason, and Viard as Amici Curiae in Support of Petitioner in South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc.

Filed Under: Testimony

The passage of time and changing circumstances have rendered the physical-presence requirement articulated in National Bellas Hess, Inc. v. Department of Revenue, 386 U.S. 753, 758 (1967), and Quill Corporation v. North Dakota, 504 U.S. 298, 324-15 (1992), a harmful anachronism. Standard tools of economic analysis that the Court considered in Comptroller of the Treasury v. Wynne reveal that South Dakota’s sales and use tax regime, as amended by S.B. 106, promotes neutral treatment of in-state and interstate commerce. By contrast, the bright-line physical-presence requirement set forth in Bellas Hess and Quill forces states to extend what is in practice a discriminatory subsidy in favor of a specific class of out-of-state sellers, namely, those sellers who lack a physical presence within the state. On the facts of the challenged statute, there is no valid economic reason to mandate such a discriminatory subsidy.

A Letter to the FDA Regarding iQOS, a Less Harmful Alternative to Cigarettes

Filed Under: Testimony

We are scholars at the American Enterprise Institute, a nonpartisan, nonprofit policy research entity. Dr. Satel is a practicing psychiatrist who has studied and researched a broad range of matters related to mental health policy and addiction, including tobacco harm reduction. Mr. Brill is an expert in public finance and health economics, with a concentration in the economic and public health implications of smoking and its alternatives. The views expressed here are ours alone and may or may not reflect the views of our colleagues.

Testimony: The Opportunities for Individual Tax Reform

Filed Under: Testimony

The opportunity for fundamental and comprehensive tax reform is before this Committee for the first time in many decades. As every Member of this Committee well knows, the tax code has frequently and sometimes significantly changed over the last 30 years, but not since 1986 has it been truly reformed in a manner that sought to broaden the base – that is, eliminate special deductions, credits, and exclusions– while lowering statutory tax rates. As Senators Hatch, Wyden, Roberts, and Grassley know firsthand, that legislative process was arduous and sometimes controversial, but the 1986 Tax Reform Act did result in a simpler income tax code with a broader tax base and significantly lower statutory tax rates.

S is for Savings: Pro-Growth Benefits of Employee-Owned S Corporations

Filed Under: Testimony

S 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.

Framework for Evaluating Tax Extenders

Filed Under: Testimony

As 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.

Tales From the Unemployment Line: Barriers Facing the Long-Term Unemployed

Filed Under: Testimony

As 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.