NEWS
MGA’s Alex Brill Serves as a Panelist for C-SPAN’s “Tax Policy & The Economy”
Alex Brill discussed the Earned Income Tax Credit: “One of the things I note when I think about the federal income tax with respect to low and moderate income workers in the disparity to which the tax code affects different people within that population differently. That’s always true across the income spectrum but it’s particularly true among low and middle income families and households.”
Carbon Tax Policy: A Conservative Dialogue on Pro-Growth Opportunities
Conservatives generally agree on the need for policies that promote economic growth and improve the efficiency of the economy. When it comes to clean energy and carbon pollution, conservatives must find pro-growth solutions or risk ceding these areas to others. We can’t simply disengage on these issues, or our nation’s prosperity will suffer. Fortunately, there is momentum among voters to pursue conservative ideas for reducing carbon emissions. This book is intended to be a resource in that endeavor.
Tax on E-Cigs Should be Zero
“[Alex] Brill said that the good news was that the clinical evidence clearly indicated that e-cigarettes were less risky substitutes for conventional cigarettes.
‘Given that a core objective of the European Commission Tobacco Products Directive is to ensure “a high level of health protection for European citizens”, the proper tax to levy on e-cigarettes should be self-evident: none,’ he wrote.”
Don’t Thwart an Ally in the War on Tobacco
As cigarette use decreases, it may be tempting to supplement declining tobacco tax revenues with a tax on e-cigarettes — a relatively new, less risky alternative to traditional cigarettes. Following actions by some European nations, the European Commission is now contemplating the proper tax treatment of e-cigarettes and has just finalised a public consultation on the topic. Taxing e-cigarettes would have a negative effect on nascent, but important, public health gains.
Trump vs. House GOP: Whose Plan Is More Pro-Growth?
Talk last week about President Trump’s tax reform plan had two themes: The plan is too vague, and it is too costly. In other words, we don’t know what it is, but we know what it costs.
Despite Congress and President Trump needing to fill in many blanks, it is possible to analyze the economic effects of the elements that have been announced. And it is worthwhile to compare these effects to both current law and the more detailed House Republican tax plan.
Running for Your Life? Not So Much
The New York Times, Runner’s World, and a host of other media outlets recently hyped a new study published in Progress in Cardiovascular Diseases on the benefits of running. The study asserts that running, if performed regularly, leads to 3.2 additional years of life.
Alex Brill on CNN’s ‘CNN Newsroom with John Berman and Poppy Harlow’
“Well, the corporate tax is probably the most distortionary and harmful tax in the whole system. It raises about 10 percent of the revenues that are collected come from the corporate tax. As we just heard, it’s the highest in the — one of the highest in the world. It not only hurts businesses and their profits, but it hurts workers, the people who work at those companies.”
Investing in Tax Reform Today will Yield a Strong Economy Tomorrow
With tax reform hopefully next on the GOP’s agenda, it is important for lawmakers to think about its revenue effects in a sensible way: focus on the long-run budget impact, not the 10-year horizon embedded in congressional rules.
MGA’s Alex Brill on CNBC’s Squawk Box
“The fundamental idea is that owners of capital are going to put that capital at risk for an investment, and they’re going to be asking the question, “What rate of return am I going to get on that investment after I pay taxes?” They’re not curious what their pre-tax rate of return is. They’re curious about their after-tax rate of return.”
Who Would Win a UK-Spain War?
While the UK is generally regarded as having a larger military and is certainly understood to have a larger economy from which to finance its military, its advantage on at least some common sense metrics is modest and its demands greater; the UK has more geopolitical interests around the globe to defend. Spain, on the other hand, while somewhat less equipped would have a proximity advantage in any armed conflict over Gibraltar. In short, the winner from such a hypothetical encounter is far from obvious to a casual observer.
MGA’s Alex Brill on “Rush to Reason” on Denver’s KLZ-560 AM
“What are we going to do about health care? Well, it seems at the moment we’re not doing much of anything because the lawmakers in Washington can’t decide the answer to that question. My view is that Republicans have spent a long time talking about what they don’t want in health care. They’ve run for seven years against Obamacare. I think that’s reasonable because there are a lot of flaws in that program. But they’ve spent almost no time clearly defining what it is that they want. And that’s in part why they faulted last Friday and couldn’t get a bill passed out of the House of Representatives.”
Repeal and Replace May Have Failed Anyway
Pundits have posited every imaginable reason for the failure of the GOP to get their health care reform bill through the first big hurdle: passage on the House floor. As we all know too well, Speaker Ryan pulled the bill just minutes before a vote was scheduled, when it was absolutely clear that a majority of support could not be reached. But would success have ushered in a new health care paradigm? I doubt it.
Trump and House Tax Plans Have One Thing in Common: They Likely Hit Nonprofits Hard
“If the tax incentive [for charitable giving] goes away, people will still undoubtedly give to charity, said Alex Brill, research fellow at AEI who published the findings. The AEI model accounts for it. But gifts from wealthy donors could decrease significantly. ‘There’s consensus that the tax break definitely matters. People are always going to quibble about the exact magnitude of the impact,’ Brill said, citing end-of-the-year giving as one example.
‘Ambitious’ and ‘Aggressive’ Timing for Mnuchin’s Tax Plan May Not Play Out, Experts Say
“The Trump administration could face some trouble getting its tax reform through by August, [said] Alex Brill…. ‘There’s only so much that Congress can process at the same time. I was very pleased to hear [Treasury Secretary Mnuchin] put an emphasis and a priority on tax reform, an aggressive schedule of a bill signing in August, but we do need to recognize that there’s a whole other conversation in Washington about [Affordable Care Act] repeal, repeal and replace, or repeal and repair that is potentially in conflict,’ simply due to time constraints, Brill said.”
MGA’s Alex Brill on CNBC’s Squawk Box
“Tax reform is by definition a game about winners and losers. If there aren’t winners and losers, it’s not tax reform. So there should be no surprise that there are people who are upset about the things that are being discussed, but that doesn’t make it a bad idea…. The idea…is to create a level playing field. There are winners and losers today as a result of the tax code, and if we can clean that system up, we can create fairness between debt and equity, between corporate and non-corporate, between domestically domiciled corporations and foreign competitors.”
- Economics of “Delinking” Are Still Not Good
- The Child Tax Credit: Tradeoffs and Preferences
- Oregon’s Measure 118: The Turnover Tax Is the Worst
- Dueling Child Tax Credit Proposals: Harris vs. Vance
- Trump Proposes Bringing Back the Deduction for Auto Loan Interest
- Overtime Income Tax Break: Not Illogical, Just Costly and Complicated
- Presidential Candidates’ Dueling Child Credit Expansions Explained
- A Tip Exemption Is Not Sound Tax Policy
- Implications of Cannabis Legalization for the US Federal Budget
- Alex Brill Writes to FTC Regarding Interim Pharmacy Benefit Manager Report
