The National Tax Association’s 55th Annual Spring Symposium kicks off today at Georgetown University:
The theme of this year’s Symposium is “Taxes in a New World.” Organized by Janet Holtzblatt of the Tax Policy Center, Kyle Pomerleau from the American Enterprise Institute, and Eric Solomon of American Tax Policy Institute and Ivins, Phillips & Barker, the program looks to be exceptional.
Thursday, May 8
9:00 AM: The Past and the Future of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act
Most of the individual income tax and estate tax provisions in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act will expire at the end of the year. President Trump favors the permanent extension of those provisions, which would cost more than $4 trillion over the next ten years and largely benefit high-income taxpayers. The president has also proposed including other tax cuts—such as eliminating taxes on overtime, tips, and Social Security benefits—that would further add to the federal deficit. This panel will explore the impact of the TCJA changes over the past seven years and the benefits and costs of permanent extension.
- Richard Rubin (WSJ) (moderator)
- George Callas (Arnold Ventures)
- Jeffrey Hoopes (North Carolina; Google Scholar)
- Beverly Moran (Boston College)
10:15 AM: An Update on International Tax Policy
- Pat Brown (PwC) (moderator)
- Daniel Bunn (Tax Foundation)
- Wei Cui (British Columbia; Google Scholar)
- Itai Grinberg (Georgetown)
- Loren Ponds (Skadden)
12:00 PM: Keynote Presentation
- Kevin Salinger, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy at the Department of the Treasury
2:00 PM: Modeling the Budgetary, Economic, and Distributional Implications of Tariffs
- Molly Saunders-Scott (Congressional Budget Office) (moderator)
- Rob McClelland (Tax Policy Center), Who Bears the Burden? A Description of How the Tax Policy Center Estimates the Distribution of Tariffs
- Ernie Tedeschi (Yale), The Fiscal & Macroeconomic Effects of ‘Reciprocal’ Tariffs
- Erica York (Tax Foundation) & Kyle Pomerleau (American Enterprise Institute), Understanding the Implications of Tariffs
3:15 PM: Anti-Poverty Programs at Policy Crossroads
- Katherine Pratt (Loyola-L.A.; Google Scholar) (moderator)
- Elizabeth Ananat (Barnard College, Columbia; Google Scholar)
- Kathryn Edwards (Independent Policy Consultant)
- Elira Kuka (George Washington; Google Scholar)
4:15 PM: Presentation of the Daniel M. Holland Medal
- Ankur Patel (U.S. Treasury) (moderator)
- Marianne Bitler (UC-Davis; Google Scholar)
- Elaine Maag (Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center; Google Scholar)
- Robert Moffitt (Johns Hopkins; Google Scholar)
Friday, May 9
9:00 AM: Restoring Fiscal Sustainability
- John McClelland (Congressional Budget Office) (moderator)
- Karen Dynan (Harvard; Google Scholar) (discussant)
- William Gale (Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center; Google Scholar), Ian Berlin (Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center) & Samuel Thorpe (University of Manchester; Google Scholar), Fiscal Consolidation – Are There Lessons for the U.S.?
- Laurence Kotlikoff (Boston University; Google Scholar), Radical Reform Is the Only Path to Fiscal Sustainability
- Louise Sheiner (Brookings Institution), Wendy Edelberg (Brookings Institution) & Ben Harris (Brookings Institution), Assessing the Risks and Costs of the Rising U.S. Federal Debt
10:15 AM: Famine, Feast, and Famine Again: The IRS’s Budget and Its Impact on Taxpayers
Famine and feast and famine again: that’s a description of the Internal Revenue Service’s funding situation over the past 15 years. From 2010 through 2020, Congress cut the IRS’s appropriations by nearly 20 percent, after adjusting for inflation, leading to cutbacks in taxpayer services, reductions in audits, and a slowdown in modernization. The famine appeared to end with the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, which boosted funding for the IRS by nearly $80 billion through 2031—on top of annual appropriations—for transformative changes to the agency. But since then, Congress has chipped away at the IRA funding and froze the IRS appropriations. The experts on this panel will discuss the impact of the IRA fundings before the funding rollbacks and the future of the IRS.
- Janet Holtzblatt (Tax Policy Center) (moderator)
- Barry Johnson (Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center)
- Natasha Sarin (Yale; Google Scholar)
- Pete Sepp (National Taxpayers Union)
11:30 AM: Keynote Presentation
- Danny Werfel (Former IRS Commissioner)
1:30 PM: Issues for Energy and Environmental Taxation
- Michael Mehling (MIT) (discussant)
- Marcel Olbert (London Business School; Google Scholar), Diego R. Kanzig (Northwestern; Google Scholar) & Julian Marenz (London Business School; Google Scholar), Carbon Leakage to Developing Countries
- Shuting Pomerleau (American Action Forum), Practicality of Carbon Border Adjustments in a Carbon Tax
- Molly Sherlock (Congressional Budget Office), Tax Incentives Supporting Solar and Wind in the Electric Power Sector
2:45 PM: Migration Responses to State and Local Taxes
- Brian Galle (Georgetown; Google Scholar) (discussant)
- Soomi Lee (La Verne) & Yuri Mansury (Illinois Institute of Technology; Google Scholar), Welfare Consequences of Mobility Restrictions in the Tiebout Model: An Agent-Based Modeling Approach
- Ben Sprung-Keyser (Penn; Google Scholar) & Lucas Goodman (U.S. Treasury), State Taxes, Migration, and Capital Gains Realizations
- Andrey Yushkov (Tax Foundation; Google Scholar), Local Income Taxes and Intrastate Migration: New Evidence from Indiana and Maryland
4:00 PM: Current Issues in Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations
The Trump administration and Congress signaled their intent to extend and expand the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. This panel will discuss the impacts of a TCJA extension and other pending federal tax changes on state revenue systems. The panel will also explore how potential reforms of federal grant programs could affect the fiscal situation of state and local governments.
- Liz Farmer (Pew Charitable Trusts) (moderator)
- Brian Sigritz (National Association of State Budget Officers)
- Jared Walczak (Tax Foundation; Google Scholar)
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