The Office of Tax Analysis (OTA) advises and assists the Assistant
Secretary (Tax Policy) and her deputies in the development, analysis, and
implementation of tax policies and programs. The Office provides economic and
policy analyses leading to development of the Administration's tax proposals and
also assesses major Congressional tax proposals.
OTA analyzes the effects of the existing tax law and alternative tax programs
and prepares a variety of background papers, position papers, policy memoranda,
and analytical reports on economic aspects of domestic and international tax
policy. OTA is responsible for official Administration estimates of all Federal
receipts included in the President's Budget and Mid-Session Review, and revenue
estimates for actual and proposed tax legislation, earmarked revenue allocated
to various trust funds, Treasury cash management decisions, and the Tax
Expenditure Budget. OTA staff also engage in tax treaty negotiations with
foreign governments and participate in meetings of international organizations.
OTA develops and operates several major microsimulation models and maintains
large statistical databases to analyze the economic, distributional, and revenue
effects of alternative tax proposals and tax systems. Many of the large
microdata files used in OTA's models are developed from samples of tax returns
prepared by the IRS Statistics of Income Division under the Office's direction.
OTA helps implement the administration of tax provisions by assisting the IRS
in developing studies of tax compliance and taxpayer compliance burdens,
developing and revising tax forms and, working with the
Tax Legislative Counsel, International Tax Counsel,
and Benefits Tax Counsel staffs, formulating and
reviewing tax regulations.
OTA is divided into five divisions: the Business and InternationalTaxation Division, the Economic Modeling and Computer Applications Division, the Individual Taxation Division, the International Taxation Division, and the Revenue Estimating Divisionand Receipts Forecasting Division.
Office of Tax Analysis Working Papers
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