This Comment evaluates four recent proposals to reform tax laws affecting the financial industry. After introducing the proposals, the author provides a theoretical framework for evaluating them and then relies on this framework to explore the benefits and drawbacks of each. Ultimately, the...

People pay taxes for two reasons. On the positive side, most people recognize, even if grudgingly, that payment of tax is a duty of citizenship. On the negative side, they know that the law requires payment, that evasion is a crime, and that willful failure to pay taxes is punishable by fines or...

Introduction / Henry J. Aaron and Joel Slemrod -- The tax shelter battle / Joseph Bankman -- Issues of international tax enforcement / David R. Tillinghast -- Small business and the tax system / Joel Slemrod -- The Turbotax revolution : can technology solve tax complexity? / Austan Goolsbee --...

The IRS is struggling. Phone calls from confused taxpayers ring unanswered, paper returns pile up, aggressive tax filers are confident they are unlikely to be audited. Congress piles new responsibilities on the agency while (so far) slashing its budget to modern lows. This is a strange time,...

This article identifies and discusses some commonly made claims about the EU Commission's proposed FTT: (i) ordinary citizens and businesses will hardly be affected by the FTT, (ii) the proposed FTT is a “small tax”, (iii) the financial sector is under-taxed, (iv) high-frequency trading...

VAT reform constituted the most important tax policy action China took during the global financial crisis in 2008-9. If China had had a more typical tax structure, this specific policy instrument (as well as certain others) would not have been available. Conversely, because of the idiosyncrasies...

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of the global financial crisis on corporate' tax avoidance has been investigated. The statistical sample consists of 107 active firms in Tehran Stock Exchange between the years 2005 and 2014 which were selected through systematic removal. To...

This paper provides new evidence on the relationship between corporate tax avoidance, and investment inefficiency. Based on a sample of 82,487 firm-year observations across 38 countries, we find that tax avoidance is positively associated with inefficient investments. Particularly, the positive...

We model the link between inequality and excessive risk taking. In the presence of increasing returns to tax avoidance, the middle class is willing to take non rewarded financial risk despite risk aversion. Electoral pressure may lead an incumbent politician to endorse this excessive risk taking...