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Tax Expenditures in OECD Countries Introduction Barry Anderson Head of Budgeting and Public Expenditure Division, OECD Presentation Joseph J. Minarik Senior Vice President, Committee for Economic Development Discussant Diane Lim Rogers Chief Economist, House Budget Committee

Event Description:

Tax expenditures are losses to the budget from granting certain deductions, exemptions, or credits to specific categories of taxpayers. In some cases, tax expenditures may be an alternative to direct government spending on policy programs. Tax expenditures are an important form of government expenditure and are growing in size and importance in many countries. Furthermore, as more and more countries have moved or are considering moving towards fiscal rules that make use of expenditure ceilings, tax expenditures may create a way to avoid fiscal constraints.

This presentation will provide information on trends in tax expenditures in some of the larger OECD countries, and then discuss tax expenditure classification and reporting and how the review and control of tax expenditures can best be integrated into the budget process. The presentation is based on a paper that is being prepared for the 29th Annual Meeting of Senior Budget Officials from OECD countries, which will be held in Vienna, Austria, on June 2-3, 2008.  Barry Anderson, Head of OECD’s Budgeting and Public Expenditures Division, will introduce the presentation, which will be given by Joe Minarik, Senior Vice President and Director of Research at the Committee for Economic Development.

Biographies:

Barry Anderson is currently Head of the Budgeting and Public Expenditures Division at the Public Governance and Territorial Development Service of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).  Prior to joining OECD, Mr. Anderson was a budget advisor at the International Monetary Fund, where he advised senior government officials on budget and management issues, including: fiscal rules; public-private partnerships; performance budgeting; and the organization and operation of central budget offices. Before joining IMF, Mr. Anderson served in various positions dealing with federal budgeting in the United States Federal Government, most recently as the Deputy Director and then the Acting Director of the Congressional Budget Office; before that as the Assistant Director and senior career civil servant at the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, and before that at the General Accounting Office.  In these positions, he helped draft and implement the Budget Enforcement Act, the Gramm-Rudman Act, and every other major budget control act enacted by Congress.  He also represented the United States and chaired meetings of Senior Budget Officials held by the OECD.  He has also been a member of the Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board, and a private consultant.  He currently is a member of the Board of the Center on Federal Financial Institutions and of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, and he lectures on federal budgeting at the George Washington University. He received his MBA from the University of Washington, and his undergraduate degree from the University of Illinois.

Joseph J. Minarik is the Senior Vice President and Director of Research at CED. Dr. Minarik leads policy research projects on CED’s agenda, including; economy and the federal budget; globalization; trade; early childhood education; campaign finance reform; and digital copyright. From 1981 to 1986, Dr. Minarik worked closely with Members of Congress, especially Senator Bill Bradley, on efforts to reform the Federal income tax. Dr. Minarik published Making Tax Choices (Urban Institute Press, 1985) and many articles on this issue, testified before the Congress on numerous occasions, served on the faculty of the two issue retreats of the House Ways & Means Committee, and worked informally with policymakers on the evolution and the eventual enactment of the legislation.In 1991 and 1992, Dr. Minarik served as Executive Director for Policy and Chief Economist of the Budget Committee of the House of Representatives, for then-Chairman Leon E. Panetta. Dr. Minarik joined CED in January 2005 from his position as Policy Director and Chief Economist for the House Budget Committee. Dr. Minarik received three graduate degrees in economics from Yale University, earning his Ph.D. in 1974. He received his B.A. in economics from Georgetown University in 1971.

Diane Lim Rogers is Chief Economist of the House Budget Committee (U.S. House of Representatives), where she has served Chairman John Spratt and other Democratic members of the Committee since January 2007.  Dr. Rogers’ career has focused on the economic effects of tax and budget policies.  In 2006 she was Research Director of the Budgeting for National Priorities project at the Brookings Institution and participated in the Concord Coalition’s “Fiscal Wake-Up Tour.”  She was previously Chief Economist for the House Ways and Means Committee Democrats, a Principal Economist for the Joint Economic Committee Democrats, and a Senior Economist on the staff of the Council of Economic Advisers during the last year of the Clinton Administration and first 100 days of the Bush Administration.  Dr. Rogers has also worked at the Urban Institute and the Congressional Budget Office, and was Assistant Professor of Economics at Penn State University.  She holds three degrees in Economics (B.A., U. of Michigan, 1983; M.A., Brown U., 1984; and Ph.D., U. of Virginia, 1991), but her greatest accomplishment is as mom to four amazing kids.