Tax benefits linked to children form a central component of the social safety net inthe United States and are at the heart of current policy proposals to expand benefits tohouseholds with children. To better understand the extent to which families with childrenalready engage with the tax system,...

Tax benefits tied to children form a central component of the social safety net in the United States. To participate in these programs, taxpayers must claim a child on their tax return. We study the claiming of children on tax returns by drawing on health insurance information returns to...

The mortgage interest deduction (MID) is costly, and half the benefits accrue to the top 10 percent of taxpayers. This paper analyzes how five modifications to the MID would affect federal individual income tax revenue and the distribution of the tax burden. Under full repeal, federal individual...

While many studies have documented the long–term trend of increasing income inequality in the U.S. economy, there has been less focus on income mobility and the potential opportunity for upward mobility. Data from panels of individual income tax returns suggest that there was considerable...

The Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 (EGTRRA) and the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 (JGTRRA) incorporated the main elements of the Bush Administration’s tax proposals. The principal feature of this legislation was the reduction in individual...

While cross-sectional data show increasing income inequality in the United States, it is also important to examine how incomes change over time. Using income tax data, this paper provides new evidence on long-term and intergenerational mobility, and persistence at the top of the income...