This article conducts two investigations — searching historical documents and testing the conclusions drawn with an econometric model of policy adoption — into why federal and state governments began offering senior income tax breaks. Such tax breaks began by accident but their existence...

The elderly’s unique economic situation makes some government expenditure and taxation policies more attractive than others and also makes them potentially quite mobile. This research investigates whether elderly migration is affected by state fiscal policies, paying close attention to how the...

Researchers and practitioners hypothesize that the elderly may move to avoid paying “death” (estate, inheritance and gift, or EIG) taxes. Past research on elderly migration, however, has been based on cross–sectional data. Cross–sectional analyses may be misleading as many states that...

Over the last 40 years, state income tax breaks targeting the elderly have grown, often justified by arguments that the elderly move across state lines in response to such tax preferences. Using two complementary sources of elderly migration data and several measures of elderly income tax...