More Recent Tax Foundation News: Page 5
Although the first presidential debate on Friday night was originally supposed to be about foreign policy, due to the current financial situation in the United States, the economy was the issue for the first half hour of the debate. In the economic portion of the debate, both Sens. Obama and McCain made some statements about taxes that played somewhat loose with the facts. In this Fiscal Fact, Tax Foundation economist Gerald Prante describes how both candidates stretched the truth in the debate when talking tax policy.
Read the Tax Foundation Fiscal Fact. Read more about the candidates' tax plans here and here.
In the midst of a financial crisis, and with the economy as the number one issue this election, the Tax Foundation is asking Senators John McCain and Barack Obama to answer eight questions about their tax proposals and their philosophical objectives when it comes to fiscal policy.
Tax Foundation President Scott Hodge urges the Republican and Democratic nominees for the Oval Office to clarify their positions on specific tax issues and the goals they want to achieve through the tax code.
"While our scholars have done comparative studies on the candidates' tax plans as well as analyses of specific items, including McCain's health credit and Obama's senior tax relief proposal," says Hodge, "the Tax Foundation is looking for answers to very important questions that will determine the fiscal future of this country."
Read the list of questions for Senators McCain and Obama. More on the candidates' tax plans here and here.
New data released today by the Census Bureau on owner-occupied housing shows New York and New Jersey counties rank highest in terms of property taxes paid.
In Tax Foundation Fiscal Fact No. 147, "New Census Data on Property Taxes on Homeowners," Tax Foundation Senior Economic Gerald Prante uses newly updated Census data from the 2007 American Community Survey to rank high-population counties across the country according to various property tax measures.
Read the Tax Foundation Fiscal Fact. View the new property tax data.
A newly released Tax Foundation study shows that while current law would give 33 percent of tax filers zero liability next year, that figure would increase to 43 and 44 percent if John McCain's and Barack Obama's tax plans, respectively, were enacted in 2009.
In Tax Foundation Fiscal Fact No. 146, "Both Candidates' Tax Plans Will Reduce Millions of Taxpayers' Liability to Zero (or Less)," Tax Foundation President Scott Hodge estimates that while 47 million tax filers would see zero liability under current law in 2009, if all of McCain's or Obama's tax provisions were instituted next year, the number of "nonpayers" would rise to 62 or 63 million, respectively.
"Both the McCain and Obama plans would increase this number by expanding existing tax benefits or creating new ones," says Hodge. "The 15 million filer increase in nonpayers under the McCain plan is almost all due to McCain's health care credit, which dramatically realigns health care incentives and gives people a powerful motive to buy health insurance. Obama uses a longer list of smaller tax credit ideas, including a new ‘Making Work Pay Credit' and a ‘Universal Mortgage Credit,' to take 16 million filers off the tax rolls."
Read "Both Candidates' Tax Plans Will Reduce Millions of Taxpayers' Liability to Zero (or Less)." Read the news release. More on the presidential candidates' tax plans.
A new Tax Foundation study shows John McCain's pitch to replace a tax subsidy that favors high-income people with a refundable credit that favors low- and middle-income people would cover a third or more of Americans who are uninsured, leading to a net tax cut for most taxpayers.
In Tax Foundation Fiscal Fact No. 144, "McCain's Health Credit: The Intersection of Health Policy and Tax Policy," Tax Foundation Vice President for Economic Policy Robert Carroll, Ph.D., explains that the Republican presidential nominee's proposal to replace the current income tax exclusion for employer-based insurance with a large health tax credit—$5,000 for family coverage and $2,500 for individual coverage—would sharply reduce tax-driven biases in America's health care system.
Read the Tax Foundation Fiscal Fact. Read the news release.
More on the presidential candidates' tax plans here and here.
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