This paper characterizes efficient tax subsidies for charitable contributions, and considers the properties of potential reforms. Contributions are underprovided in the absence of subsidies, and are misdirected if subsidies fail to account for all of the costs that donors incur. It is costly for...

This paper considers the implications of asymmetric information in capital markets for entrepreneurial entry and tax policy. In many countries, governments subsidize the creation of new firms. One possible justification for these subsidies is that capital markets for the financing of new firms...

This paper analyzes optimum income taxation in a model with endogenous job destruction that gives rise to unemployment. It is shown that optimal tax schemes comprise both payroll and layoff taxes when the state provides public unemployment insurance and aims at redistributing income. The optimal...

The paper examines the manner in which federal tax expenditure estimates are prepared by the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) and the Treasury Department’s Office of Tax Analysis (OTA). The paper finds that the current cash flow method does not measure the actual benefits of...

This paper presents our findings on the knowledge and use of the 1997 Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) based on a sample of Chicago area households with children that filed tax returns in the winter and spring of 1998. Respondents reported in detail about using their federal tax refunds...

In this article, the author examines, through numerical examples, the effects would EU Member States subject taxpayers – both residents and non-residents – deriving income from domestic sources, to unlimited income taxation whilst granting double tax relief for foreign income under a...

The creation of tax-free health savings accounts presents a new opportunity to reduce the distortions created by federal tax preferences for health-related expenditures, and ultimately help eliminate those distortions. This paper proposes changes to current law that would allow most workers to...

Tax expenditures — government spending programs that deliver subsidies through the tax code via special tax credits, deductions, exclusions, exemptions, and preferential rates — are the dominant type of federal support for the U.S. energy industry. Altogether, these spending programs amount...