It comes as no surprise to any observant person in this country that there is a wide disparity in our federal income tax treatment of persons who have differing incomes and financial resources. But while much has been written on tax law complexity and inefficiency, little or nothing has been...

Empirical evidence suggests that charitable contributions to public goods may be driven not only by the familiar warm-glow of giving motive but also as a means for businesses to signal high product quality. Building on this finding, we present an analytical framework that characterizes the...

As a public policy goal, moderation of financial instability has gained some prominence in the face of the current credit contraction. Not surprisingly perhaps, the role of tax policy in exacerbating instances of financial instability has begun to receive some attention in the tax-policy...

Government does lots of redistribution along with expenditures for defense, education, etc. Government imposes income taxes to finance these activities. Income taxation can be done to raise revenue in a simple transparent way. Here's a suggested scheme

This paper investigates the effects of the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) on residents of buildings qualifying for the credit. Specifically, it analyzes whether individuals who grow up in LIHTC housing are more likely to enroll in post-secondary education programs and have higher earnings...

This article criticizes a proposal recently put forward by the co-chairmen of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform to abolish all tax expenditures and sharply reduce statutory tax rates. The author believes that abolishing all tax expenditures without regard to merit or a...

U.S.-based multinational corporations are calling for a tax holiday that would allow them to repatriate their foreign earnings at little tax cost. With over $1 trillion in earnings trapped offshore and untaxed by the U.S., these corporations characterize the proposed repatriation holiday as a...

Tax expenditures are generally defined as those government expenditures carried out through tax legislation, regulations, and practices that reduce or defer taxes for some taxpayers. There is a general concern that the tax expenditures negatively affect the budget and tax policies, which in turn...

Using a series of laboratory experiments, this paper studies the effect of tax misperceptions on retirement savings and examines whether informational tax nudges and changing the form of the tax subsidy promote tax-efficient savings behavior. We find that deferred pension taxation results in...

At a time when states are desperately struggling to balance their budgets, one source of additional revenue has been overlooked: decoupling state tax policies from federal tax policies to modify deductions and credits that reduce citizens’ state tax liability. While forty-three states and the...