The Washington Post, The Fact Checker, June 27, 2011 by Glenn Kessler
http://wapo.st/lOmiWE

“It’s hard to think of any new policies that have made the long-run problem appreciably worse (as opposed, for example, to the adoption of Medicare Part D [prescription drugs] in 2003, which created a huge new unfunded liability).”

San Francisco Chronicle, June 13, 2011 by Carolyn Lochhead
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/06/13/MN1H1JRRPR.DTL&type=printable

“Financial crises in general are more difficult to recover from than regular recessions,” said UC Berkeley economist Alan Auerbach. “This is different from other recessions in the postwar period, and that helps explain why the recovery is weaker. But as for simple policies to get us out of this, I really don’t know that we know much from what other countries have done.”

-Reuters, June 9, 2011 by Jim Christie
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/09/us-california-taxsystem-idUSTRE75862T20110609

California could reduce its revenue volatility and improve its business climate by moving toward a greater reliance on consumption taxes … according to the Public Policy Institute of California report…. Revenue volatility is working in California’s favor at the moment, said Alan Auerbach, author of the institute’s report. “It’s one of the reasons why revenues have been going up so quickly.”

-Capital Public Radio, Insight, June 14, 2011 Host Jeffrey Callison
http://bit.ly/lDz1Ss

“Our income tax has become more and more important, and that’s a problem for two reasons. One is that it leads to an enormous amount of volatility in state revenues, which we’ve experienced every time we’ve had a recession; and also it discourages production in California because it’s a tax based on earning income in California.”

Fox Business, The Willis Report, May 4, 2011 Host Gerri Willis
http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/4677710

“We’re definitely losing some money through what’s called transfer pricing, where corporations operating in the United States, as well as other countries, find ways—legal ways typically—of locating their profits in countries that have lower tax rates. It’s a problem that the United States faces. It’s faced by other leading economies that have relatively high tax rates, as well, although our tax rate is among the highest, and that means our problem is more severe.”

-The Economist, April 28, 2011
http://www.economist.com/node/18621038?story_id=18621038

A study of the most recent such tax holiday, in 2004, suggested it had little effect on employment and investment, with most of the benefits going to shareholders…. Nonetheless, points out Alan Auerbach, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, the idea of another tax holiday, “like a lot of bad ideas, has bipartisan support.”

-California Watch, April 29, 2011 by Kendall Taggart
http://californiawatch.org/dailyreport/some-companies-skirt-state-income-tax-10065

“Companies have two separate sets of books: one for their tax returns and one for what they report on their financial statements,” said Alan Auerbach, professor of economics and law at UC Berkeley. “Since the tax returns are confidential, we don’t really know.”

Los Angeles Times, April 17, 2011 by Don Lee
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-econ-deficit-20110417,0,642624.story

“I’m sympathetic to the president’s wish to focus on tax increases on the very high incomes, but that’s not going to be enough,” said Alan Auerbach…. “We’ll eventually need more revenue than those tax increases will generate to solve the long-run budget problems we face.”

Los Angeles Times, April 2, 2011 by Steve Lopez
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/apr/02/local/la-me-0403-lopez-prop13supporters-20110328

“You could do a gradual phase-in” of a new system, Auerbach said, but everyone over a certain age would get a pass. For younger homeowners, a gradual property tax increase would take place over several years, based on market value rather than on when a home was purchased.

-The San Diego Union-Tribune, March 18, 2011 by Mike Freeman
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/mar/18/tapping-into-offshore-cash/

“One thing virtually all economists would agree on is that if you think this kind of tax on repatriation is bad, it would be better to remove it permanently and reform the tax system rather than have these holidays every few years.”

-Agence France-Presse, March 28, 2011 by Andrew Beatty
http://yhoo.it/dLWjz2

“If you want to get the corporate tax rate down from 35 to 28 percent—that is a 20 percent cut in the tax rate—you have to increase the tax base by 20 percent, or offset it,” said Alan Auerbach…. “That is a big increase.”

San Francisco Chronicle, March 8, 2011 by Joe Garofoli
http://articles.sfgate.com/2011-03-08/news/28670837_1_sales-taxes-tax-code-corporate-taxes

“It’s certainly going to raise corporate taxes, and it probably will not do any harm to employment in California,” said Alan Auerbach…. “Now whether it falls on wealthy Californians or wealthy shareholders in other states, it’s a little hard to know,” Auerbach said. “So it’s not as transparent as an increase in the top individual rate would be, but it’s certainly a progressive move and one that makes sense.”

The New York Times, February 12, 2011 by Conrad De Aenlle
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/business/yourtaxes/13corp.html

“Because the United States now has one of the highest corporate tax rates among the world’s leading economies, some argue that it must lower its corporate tax rate to compete,” he said…. “A simple reduction in its corporate tax rate is not the answer, though, because it would leave in place all the flaws of the existing system.”