A number of recent proposals have called for broadening the individual income tax base while lowering statutory income tax rates. Such proposals would eliminate or curtail various preferential income tax provisions and use some or all of the resulting revenue to lower statutory tax rates. In...

This article concludes a two-part series on effective marginal tax rates (EMTRs) and the U.S. individual income tax system. The EMTR is the change in tax liability that occurs when an additional dollar of income, here taken to be labor income, is earned. In an income tax system, the EMTR...

This paper consists of three parts. First, I review the legislative history related to the enactment of two major tax cut proposals during George W. Bush's presidency, the first in 2001 and the second in 2003. Second, I present results from a simple tax calculator that calculates the expected...

We present a model of optimizing government behavior in which a need for increased revenue leads to the introduction of a new revenue source, such as a VAT, accompanied by a reduction in income taxes. We argue that this is a plausible outcome for the United States, in view of international...

As governors and state legislators across the country search for ways to address the budgetary imbalances that many of their states face following the Great Recession, reductions in individual income tax credits and deductions are being considered. Unfortunately, the casualties of that process...