Roadmap#
Because Tax-Calculator itself does only static (and some simple behavioral-response) analysis of federal individual income and payroll taxes, it must interact with other models in order to analyze business taxes or conduct dynamic macroeconomic analysis. These other models typically use Tax-Calculator to estimate reform-induced changes in after-tax incomes and marginal tax rates, and then use that information to calculate how other taxes or dynamic behavior cause changes in individual incomes or expenses. These changes are then fed back to Tax-Calculator so that individual tax liabilities, as well as aggregate and distribution results, can be recalculated. All these interactions between Tax-Calculator and other models are handled by the other models.
The future development of Tax-Calculator itself will focus on the following activities:
Fix bugs in tax-calculation logic.
Update existing current-law policy parameter values as they become available each year.
Update filing-unit data used by Tax-Calculator as they become available.
Improve documentation of model logic and data.
Develop AI-assisted model-use agent that allows conversational CLI use.
Develop AI-assisted structural-enhancement agent that makes it easier to implement (locally and privately) the Python code required to simulate a reform not parameterized by existing model parameters.