In addition to valuing whether a tax policy is equitable, efficient, and administrable, I argue we should ask if a tax policy is politically just. Others have made a similar case for valuing political justice as democracy in implementing just tax policy. I join that call and highlight why it...

Governments are increasingly turning to behavioral economics to inform policy design in areas like health care, the environment, and financial decision-making. Research shows that small behavioral interventions, referred to as “nudges,” often produce significant responses at a low cost. The...

This paper evaluates the trade-off between growth and welfare maximization from two perspectives. Firstly, it synthesizes and extends endogenous growth models with public finance to compare the growth and welfare maximizing tax rates. Secondly, it examines the distinct model outcomes in terms of...

The Global Recession of 2008 and ensuing austerity measures have renewed the urgency surrounding the call for fundamental tax reform. Before embarking on fundamental tax reform, this Article proposes adding a critical lens to existing US tax policy to ensure that any proposals for change are...

Tax expenditure analysis (TEA) requires a baseline for identifying tax provisions that provide subsidies or incentives instead of serving to define the tax base and to implement the tax. With respect to the federal income tax, the baseline historically has been the Schanz-Haig-Simons (SHS)...

Measuring the size of government is not simple. Standard measures omit important aspects of government action such as the many deductions, credits, and other tax preferences used to influence resource allocation. We argue that many tax preferences are effectively spending. Traditional measures...

The marginal cost of public funds is usually seen as a number greater than one, reflecting the efficiency cost of distortionary taxes. But economic intuition suggests that since green taxes are efficiency-enhancing the MCF with such taxes will be less than one. The paper demonstrates that this...

Over the past few years, policymakers have argued that everything from Apple's Irish tax deal to patent boxes to the LuxLeaks tax rulings represent “harmful tax competition.” Despite the ubiquity of this term, however, there is no internationally accepted definition of so-called harmful tax...

This paper derives the tax system and size of government implied by principles of economic efficiency and aversion to the violation of individual rights. The optimal policy equalizes the gains individuals obtain from the governmental activity, relative to what they have a right to in its...

When a debtor goes bankrupt and limited assets have to be divided between competing creditors, should unpaid taxes owed to the government be paid before the debts owed to other creditors? This Article defends the notion that some tax debts should be awarded priority. Insofar as bankruptcy...