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1 J. D. Foster, A Survey on Tax Expenditures 1 (1994)

handle is hein.taxfoundation/srdhxz0001 and id is 1 raw text is: TAX TION FOUNDATION July 1994 Number 3 7 A Survey on Tax Expendituies A recent General Accounting Office (GAO) report suggested, by its title, that Tax Expen- ditures Deserve More Scrutiny. The GAO report may, in fact, encourage Congress to scrutinize tax expenditures more carefully. At the same time, however, the debate on tax ex- penditures may encourage further debate on tax neutrality and tax surcharges. In conjunc- tion with other ongoing work in tax policy, the tax expenditure debate may also provide an important dimension of any future tax reform effort. 'fax expenditures are calculated by both the Joint Tax Committee (JTC) of Congress and by the I)epartment of Treasury. As the GAO clearly states in its report, however, there is no consensus about what constitutes a tax expenditure. To investigate the question of what is a tax expenditure, the Tax Foundation mailed a survey to the 'fax )irectors, Tax Vice- Presidents, and Senior Partners of its contribu- ting companies. This sample of America's tax practitioners includes representatives from many different businesses in many different industries and from companies of many differ- ent sizes. This report discusses some of the issues surrounding tax expenditures and presents the results of the survey. Figure 1 Tax Expenditures as Listed by theJTC and Disputed b' the Survey Respondents Net exclusion of pension contributions and earnings Exclusions of Social Security benefits Step-up basis of capital gains at death Deductibility of state/local non-business taxes other than on owner-occupied houses Accelerated depreciation, machinery and equipment Deduction for state/local property taxes on homes Deferral of captital gains on home sales Passive loss exception for $25,000 of rental loss Interest exclusion for public purpose state/local debt Exclusion of interest on life insurance savings Exclusion of employer contributions for medical insurance premiums and medical care Charitable deduction Home mortgage interest deduction 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 Number of Respondants (out of 59) Sourc.: Tax loundlition. 13y. 1). loster, Ph.I). Ixeculive Direclor eind Chief Economist Tax Fouidalion

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