The Mirrlees Review recommends that commodity taxation should in general be uniform, but with some goods consumed in conjunction with labour supply (such as child care) left untaxed. This paper examines the validity of this claim in an optimal income tax framework. Contrary to the recommendation...

The Mirrlees Review recommends that commodity taxation should in general be uniform, but with some goods consumed in conjunction with labour supply (such as child care) left untaxed. This paper examines the validity of this claim in an optimal income tax framework. Contrary to the recommendation...

This paper investigates the long-term evolution of the tax system in Germany to explain why the political left has increasingly expanded taxation to its own clientele. The paper contrasts the second half of the 19th with the second half of the 20th century to show that some of the underlying...

This paper examines elements of British tax policy and discusses their implications for the United States, where several recent proposals would mirror aspects of the British system. These include reducing filing requirements under the individual income tax, indexing capital gains for inflation,...

We provide evidence on the differences in the effective tax rate by firm size, highlighting that effective tax rates tend to follow a bump-shaped curve, increasing from micro to small firms and then decreasing for medium to large firms. Our analysis, based on microdata from several EU countries,...

The five-year average tax burden in the UK is now at a 70-year high. The impact and opportunities of Brexit, coupled with the need to revitalise the economy in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis, mean 2021 would be a good time for the government to embark on a tax-cutting programme. This paper...