Leonard Burman

Burman is an expert in tax policy. Prior to coming to Syracuse, he co-founded and directed the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan joint venture of the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution widely respected in Washington policy circles for the quality, objectivity, and clarity of its analysis of complex subjects. Burman previously held high-level posts at the Treasury Department and the Congressional Budget Office. He recently served as the president of the National Tax Association (NTA), the leading American organization of experts in the theory and practice of taxation. He served on the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Debt Reduction Task Force, where he and Joe Minarik led the effort to draft a tax reform plan. He serves on the board of the Pew SubsidyScope project. He has written about how the political process favors channeling spending programs through the tax code and why that might be unfair and economically inefficient; the economic effects of continued growth in the public debt; how tax policy distorts the health insurance market; and assorted other tax topics, such as the individual alternative minimum tax, the taxation of capital gains, and subsidies for retirement savings.