Federal and state governments in the United States use income and payroll taxes as their primary tools to collect revenue. Relative to the United States, governments in the rest of the world rely much more heavily on taxing consumption. Heavy American reliance on income rather than consumption...

Federal estate taxes give very wealthy families incentives to transfer resources directly to distant generations in order to avoid taxes on successive rounds of transfers. Until recently such transfers were impeded by the rule against perpetuities, which prevented transfers to most potential...

This paper analyzes the effect of repatriation taxes on dividend payments by the foreign affiliates of American multinational firms. The United States taxes the foreign incomes of American companies, grants credits for any foreign income taxes paid, and defers any taxes due on the unrepatriated...

The United States imposes substantial federal taxes on estates, gifts, and generation-skipping transfers exceeding high exemption levels (currently US$5.25 million). These transfer taxes are very distortionary compared to other federal taxes, and raise little revenue; their appeal lies in their...

Many proposals for addressing the long-term issues of Social Security involve benefit reductions both in Disability Insurance and in Old Age and Survivors Insurance. However, the proposals in the papers that follow in this symposium do not alter the long-term financial balance of Disability...