In Small Towns Are Booming, Thanks to Rising Oil Prices, The Wall Street Journal’s Rebecca Elliot and Harriet Torry cite PWBM research on the recent rise in gas prices.
Steve Ballmer Talks USAFacts with Andy Serwer at PWBM’s First Spring Policy Forum
Yahoo Finance Video shows Andy Serwer’s interview with Steve Ballmer from the Penn Wharton Budget Model’s June 22nd Spring Policy Forum. Steve Ballmer, co-founder of USA Facts, owner of the LA Clippers former CEO of Microsoft, spoke on the potential of USAFacts to promote fact-based public policymaking.
New Tax Law Set to Trigger Conversions From Pass-Through Entities to C-Corporations
Politico’s Ben White and Aubree Eliza Weaver write about the Penn Wharton Budget Model’s projection of business entity classification conversions in the aftermath of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) in Morning Money: The Big Switch from Pass-Throughs.
Projecting the Mass Conversion from Pass-Through Entities to C-Corporations
We project that the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) will cause 235,780 U.S. business owners---77 percent of whom have incomes of at least $500,000---to switch from pass-through entity owners to C-corporations, primarily to take advantage of sheltering their income from tax by converting to C-corporations.
The biggest switchers include doctors, lawyers and investors, especially if owners can afford to defer receipt of business income to a later year. Other business owners, who are qualified to use the 20 percent deduction for pass-through business income, including painters, plumbers, and printers, are more likely to remain as pass-through entities.
We project that about 17.5 percent of all pass-through Ordinary Business Income will switch to C-corporations.
Recent Rise in Gas Prices Offsets Some Households’ Gains from Tax Cuts
As noted in our brief, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act reduced the direct tax liability of individuals by an estimated $1.3 billion, before considering macroeconomic feedback effects, over the period 2018-27. This reduction was achieved through a number of provisions that changed the individual income tax structure. Table 1 presents the average tax cut received by Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) percentile in 2018. The overall median tax cut is $401, with larger cuts going to groups with larger AGI.
Capitol Hill Push to Change Taxes on Capital Gains
Naomi Jagoda relies on the Penn Wharton Budget Model’s analysis of the push on Capitol Hill to change tax law to adjust capital gains for inflation in Senate Dems to Mnuchin: Don't index capital gains to inflation.
The Jobs and Infrastructure Plan for America’s Workers
Senate Democrats propose spending $1,022 billion on public infrastructure over the next 10 years, financed with taxes on personal income and corporate income.
An additional dollar of federal aid could lead state and local governments to increase total infrastructure spending by less than that dollar since state and local governments can often qualify for the new grant money within their existing and planned infrastructure programs. Based on an extensive literature review, we estimate that infrastructure investment across all levels of government increases between $225 billion and $1,039 billion, including the $1,022 billion federal investment.
Depending on how much state and local governments spend on infrastructure in response to federal aid, we estimate that the plan changes GDP between -0.1 and 0.1 percent by 2032 relative to no policy change. By 2042, the plan changes GDP between -0.3 and -0.2 percent.
Senator Ted Cruz’s Proposal to Index Capital Gains to Inflation
Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) recently introduced a bill titled the “Capital Gains Inflation Relief Act of 2018”. The proposal would let investors adjust asset cost basis for inflation, resulting in a lower tax bill upon realizing capital gains.
Why Are Recent Immigrants Better-Educated Than Ever Before?
In a previous blog post, I described two significant changes in the characteristics of newly arriving immigrants (legal and unauthorized) to the U.S. between 1997 and 2017. First, the share of recent immigrants aged 25 and older who had bachelor’s or advanced degrees rose from 30 percent to 48 percent. Second, the origins of new immigrants to the U.S. shifted dramatically, as immigration from Mexico and Europe declined in importance while immigration from Asia and Africa grew. In this post, I examine the relationship between these two changes.
Senate GOP Wary of New Tax Cut Sequel
In his article “Senate GOP wary of new tax cut sequel,” Alexander Bolton described Republican reactions to the CBO scoring of the new tax bill and opinions over making the individual tax cuts permanent. He cites projections from Penn Wharton Budget Model (PWBM) in order to demonstrate the likely effects on the national debt from extending the individual tax cuts.
W2018-3 How Initial Conditions Can Have Permanent Effects: The Case of the Affordable Care Act
Authors: Florian Scheuer and Kent Smetters
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act: Extending Changes to Individual Taxes
PWBM previously analyzed the effects of the tax bill passed this December. Most of that bill’s tax cuts for individuals (non-businesses) expire at year-end 2025. This brief reports the budgetary and economic effects of indefinitely extending the individual-side tax cuts.
By 2027, we project that debt increases between $573 billion and $736 billion. However, GDP is relatively unchanged, although slightly contracts, because this standard 10-year budget window covers only two years of tax cut extensions.
By 2040, we project that GDP contracts by 0.6 percent to 0.9 percent relative to current law, where the tax cuts for individuals are set to expire. Debt increases between $5.2 trillion and $6.1 trillion.
The White House's Trade Policies and the Economy
A recent CNBC article by John Harwood, Peter Navarro says Trump’s trade policies are ‘good for the market,’ but economists aren’t buying it, applies two Penn Wharton Budget Model (PWBM) studies on the effects of tax cuts by industry and the probable effects of a trade war. The author analyzes the possibility that recent administration actions increasing protectionist measures would slow economic growth.
Incentives and Corporate Tax Cuts
Justin Wolfers’ New York Times article, "How to Think About Corporate Tax Cuts" analyzes the economic effects of President Trump’s corporate tax cuts and references Kent Smetters of Penn Wharton Budget Model. While the tax bill promises to increase the incentive to invest and gives companies more cash, Smetters argues that in the short run giving more money to corporations helps the owners.
The Effect on Households of Different Methods of Financing a UBI
To evaluate the potential effects of a hypothetical $1.5 trillion Universal Basic Income (UBI) program, PWBM conducts analyses of the program under three different financing policies. Each of the three financing options has different effects on household savings, consumption, and labor decisions, which leads to significantly different effects on the aggregate economy and household welfare.
Options for Universal Basic Income: Dynamic Modeling
Public support for a Universal Basic Income (UBI) has been increasing over time, and several experiments are already underway.
The Roosevelt Institute recently published an analysis of a UBI proposal that would pay $6,000 per year to every adult in the United States. Roosevelt estimates that GDP would increase by up to 6.8 percent within eight years after the policy’s onset, if the policy were deficit financed.
We estimate the impact of the same plan on the federal budget and economy using a richer dynamic model. If deficit financed, we project that same UBI plan would increase federal debt by over 63.5 percent by 2027 and by 81.1 percent by 2032. GDP falls by 6.1 percent by 2027 and by 9.3 percent by 2032. The smaller tax base also sharply reduces Social Security revenue, by 7.1 percent by 2027 and by 10.4 percent by 2032.
The Omnibus Spending Bill of 2018
Recently, President Trump signed the Omnibus Spending Bill of 2018 into law. The bill increases the level of federal discretionary spending in 2018.
This report projects the impact on the economy assuming that the increase to spending levels will be sustained in future years and evolve with PWBM’s demographic and macroeconomic projections.
By 2027, we project that debt increases by 1.6 percent and GDP falls by 0.1 percent, relative to current spending levels. By 2037, debt increases by 1.6 percent and GDP falls by 0.2 percent.
Indexing Capital Gains to Inflation
Richard Rubin of the Wall Street Journal reports that the Trump administration is considering changing tax law so that capital gains would be adjusted for inflation. Under current policy, households owe taxes on the full nominal value of certain capital gains; this proposal would index the asset basis to inflation, leaving only the real value of any capital gain as taxable income. Our analysis suggests that this policy would cost $102 billion dollars over the next decade. While high-income households would benefit most, the share of taxes paid by AGI would not change meaningfully.
Recent Immigrants Are Better-Educated Than Ever Before
From 1997 to 2007, a newly arrived adult immigrant to the United States was about as likely to have a college degree as to have not finished high school. During that period, each group accounted for about one third of new arrivals (including both legal and unauthorized immigrants). Over the decade since 2007, those odds changed dramatically. The share of recent immigrants with a college degree grew by nearly 50 percent, while the share without a high school degree fell by a similar proportion (see Figure 1). By 2017, a recently arrived immigrant was almost three times as likely to have a college degree as to have not finished high school.
W2018-2 Tax Based Switching of Business Income
Authors: Richard Prisinzano and James Pearce