Tax Foundation

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The Tax Foundation is a Washington-D.C.-based tax research organization founded in 1937. It is organized as 501(c)3 non-profit educational organization. The group is most famous for its annual calculation of Tax Freedom Day, which it has produced since the early 1970s. The Tax Foundation's stated mission is to "educate taxpayers about sound tax policy and the size of the tax burden borne by Americans at all levels of government."

1 Goals
2 Criticisms
3 Notes
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] Goals

The group lists as its guiding research principles the following "principles of sound tax policy":^[1]

Simplicity: The tax system should be as simple as possible, and taxes should be easy to understand and comply with.
Transparency: Taxes should be as visible as possible to taxpayers, and should make clear who and what is being taxed.
Stability: Tax law should not change continually, and changes in tax law should not be retroactive.
Neutrality: Taxes should aim to raise revenue with a minimum of economic distortion, and should not attempt to micromanage the economy.
Growth-promotion: Taxes should raise revenue for programs while consuming as small a portion of national income as possible, and should interfere with economic growth, trade and capital flows as little as possible.

[edit] Criticisms

The annual reports on American family tax burdens has been criticized by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) as flawed and contradicting to the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation.^[2] However, analysis presented by the Tax Foundation has shown that criticisms made by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities are based on factual errors and misinterpretations of Tax Foundation figures. Scott A. Hodge, President of the Tax Foundation, stated "The CBPP’s criticisms of Tax Freedom Day are flawed and are not serious economic critiques of the Tax Freedom Day methodology."^[3]