Before joining Urban, I had a long career in government, including three years as a political appointee heading the staff of tax policy economists in the Treasury Department. I joined Urban after leaving government service because it is a place where I could continue to do high-quality research on important issues, surrounded by great colleagues. I value the commitment to nonpartisan and independent analysis, and the encouragement Urban provides to seek better ways of communicating research findings and basic facts about the economy and policy issues to nontechnical audiences.
Eric Toder is a nonresident fellow in the Tax Policy Center (TPC) at the Urban Institute. Previously, he was an Institute fellow at the Urban Institute and codirector of TPC. In those positions, he was a leading expert on corporate and international tax and tax compliance issues, performed and directed research studies, and oversaw TPC’s modeling team.
Toder has published articles on a wide variety of tax policy and retirement policy issues, including corporate tax reform, distributional effects of tax expenditures, carbon taxes, value-added taxes, net benefits of Social Security taxes and spending, tax compliance, and the effects of saving incentives.
Before joining Urban, Toder held senior-level positions in tax policy offices in the US government and overseas, including service as deputy assistant secretary for the Office of Tax Analysis at the US Department of the Treasury, director of research at the Internal Revenue Service, deputy assistant director for the Office of Tax Analysis at the Congressional Budget Office, and consultant to the New Zealand Treasury. He has also been a part-time consultant to the International Monetary Fund and a lecturer in the Comparative Tax Policy and Administration program at the Harvard Kennedy School and was treasurer of the National Tax Association between 2010 and 2020.
Toder received his PhD in economics from the University of Rochester in 1971.
