In 2020, Americans’ individual charitable giving reached $324 billion, a record high and a 2.2 percent increase from 2019. While the pandemic imposed great costs on our society, many households shared their resources with others, including religious, educational, and human service organizations.
The Senate Finance Committee held an important subcommittee hearing this week, “Closing the Tax Gap: Lost Revenue from Noncompliance and the Role of Offshore Tax Evasion.” The “tax gap,” which is the difference between the amount of tax rightfully owed by US taxpayers and the amount of tax actually paid, is not small.
Is the tax code sufficiently progressive? The answer depends not only on the values of the person answering the question, but it also is a surprisingly tricky empirical exercise. What counts as income and who pays the corporate tax? How should one measure households?
