Following a critical examination of the two predominant approaches to tax policy, formalist and utilitarianism, this Article posits a “political-interpretive” approach that looks to our actual tax-related practices as source material for designing normative reforms. Applying a...

This study discusses options how to increase the Dominican Republic tax revenue and attempts to identify priority areas for efficiency-enhancing reforms. A 2016 World Bank report on Dominican fiscal policy found that the country's tax expenditures were poorly targeted and regressively...

The Federal Gift Tax is designed to implement two competing policies: to tax gifts so as to prevent taxpayers from depleting their estates (and thus evading the estate tax) with tax-free lifetime transfers; but to tax gifts at a rate lower than testamentary transfers so as to encourage taxpayers...

Affluent households can respond to taxation with means that are not economically viable for the rest of the population, such as sophisticated tax plans and international tax arbitrage. This paper studies an economy in which an inequality-averse social planner faces agents who have access to a...

This chapter in this book addressing inequality identifies elements of the U.S. income tax laws that contribute to that inequality. While the language of the tax laws is neutral and applies identical rules to all, the distribution of tax burdens among the members of the U.S. populace may not...