Toddsterpatriot
Diamond Member
The Congressional Budget Act of 1974 defines tax expenditures as “revenue losses attributable to provisions of the Federal tax laws which allow a special exclusion, exemption, or deduction from gross income or which provide a special credit, a preferential rate of tax, or a deferral of tax liability.” These provisions are meant to support favored activities or assist favored groups of taxpayers. Thus, tax expenditures are alternatives to direct spending programs or regulations to accomplish the same goals. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) each year publish lists of tax expenditures and estimates of their associated revenue losses. The Treasury Department prepares the estimates for OMB.
The key word in the definition of tax expenditures is “special.” OMB and JCT do not count all exemptions and deductions as tax expenditures. For example, the agencies do not count as tax expenditures deductions the tax law permits to measure income accurately, such as employers’ deductions for employee compensation or interest expenses. Similarly, OMB and JCT do not count personal and dependent exemptions as tax expenditures on the theory that adjusting for family size is appropriate in measuring a taxpayer’s ability to pay.
What are tax expenditures and how are they structured?
Measuring a taxpayers ability to pay? WTF, using BS to say tax expenditures aren't really tax expenditures doesn't alter the fact that they are tax expenditures whether they count them that way or not. If any personal choice effects your tax liability, that is a tax expenditure, where do the feds get off using the tax code for social engineering?
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they are tax expenditures whether they count them that way or not.
A company deducting employee salaries or interest expense isn't a tax expenditure.
Nope, net profits on businesses should be taxed, without the business expenses there would be no profits.
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Exactly. That's why they aren't tax expenditures.
The same can't be said for individual wage earners.
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What can't be said?