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Tax Expenditure of the Week

All about our work on tax expenditures

In this series

Accelerated Depreciation
Article

Accelerated Depreciation

Seth Hanlon explains the $24.5 billion tax break that lets businesses deduct the wear and tear on assets like buildings and equipment faster than they actually wear out.

Seth Hanlon

Offshore Tax Deferral
Offshore deferral encourages companies to use accounting techniques to record profits offshore, even if they keep actual investment and jobs in the United States. This explains why U.S. corporations report their largest profits in low-tax countries like Luxembourg, pictured above, though clearly that is not where most real economic activity occurs. (iStockphoto)
Article

Offshore Tax Deferral

Seth Hanlon breaks down the $42 billion tax break that lets U.S. companies put off taxes on profits earned abroad.

Seth Hanlon

The Mortgage Interest Deduction
The mortgage interest deduction is closely associated with homeownership and, by extension, the American Dream. But as a $100 billion government spending program, it deserves as much scrutiny as any program of similar magnitude. (iStockphoto)
Article

The Mortgage Interest Deduction

Seth Hanlon explains how the third-biggest tax break in the Internal Revenue Code is also the nation’s largest housing program.

Seth Hanlon

Tax-Deferred Retirement Savings
Retirees Jim and Evelyn Burke pose at their Gulf Breeze, FL home. The tax code encourages people to save for retirement by allowing them to shelter from taxes personal income invested in 401(k) plans, individual retirement accounts, or IRAs, employer pension plans, and other similar savings vehicles. (AP/Tony Giberson)
Article

Tax-Deferred Retirement Savings

Seth Hanlon continues CAP’s new weekly series on the country’s biggest tax breaks by looking at the $142 billion expenditure for retirement savings.

Seth Hanlon

Tax-Free Health Insurance
President Barack Obama signs the Affordable Care Act in the East Room of the White House on March 23, 2010. The newly enacted ACA is estimated to cover an additonal 32 million people. (AP/J. Scott Applewhite)
Article

Tax-Free Health Insurance

Seth Hanlon launches a new weekly series by looking at the biggest tax break in the Internal Revenue Code: the tax exemption for employer-sponsored health insurance.

Seth Hanlon

New Weekly Series Explains Government’s Biggest Tax Breaks
The Internal Revenue Service building is shown in Washington, D.C. Tax expenditures are really just federal spending programs administered by the IRS. (Flickr/<a href= M.V. Jantzen)" data-srcset="https://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2011/01/iirs_building_onpage.jpg?w=610 610w, https://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2011/01/iirs_building_onpage.jpg?w=610 610w, https://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2011/01/iirs_building_onpage.jpg?w=610 610w, https://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2011/01/iirs_building_onpage.jpg?w=500 500w, https://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2011/01/iirs_building_onpage.jpg?w=250 250w" data-sizes="auto" />
Article

New Weekly Series Explains Government’s Biggest Tax Breaks

Seth Hanlon explains in plain English how multibillion dollar “tax expenditures” work, their pros and cons, and their effect on the federal budget.

Seth Hanlon