A recent wave of literature, partly motivated by presidential campaign tax reform plans, analyzes tax expenditure limitation proposals. These reforms are often advanced not only, or even primarily, because they reduce distortions caused by favoritism for some types of expenditures over others....

Pension benefit rules depend on individual history far more than taxes do, and age plays a much larger role in pension determination than in tax determination. Apart from some simulation studies, theoretical studies of optimal tax design typically contain neither a mandatory pension system nor...

In this paper we characterize the optimal linear and piecewise linear EITC schedule. In the linear framework we demonstrate that in the presence of unemployment, an increase of social inequality aversion and a decrease in labor aversion both derive in a lower optimal EITC. For the piecewise...

Governments implementing an Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) aim at increasing Working Poor's propensity to work, in order to alleviate poverty. If this goal is attained in the long-run: shall the optimal EITC increase or decrease? We deal with this question using simulations with endogenous...

In this paper it is shown that allowing the deduction of work-related expenses has a strictly positive effect on tax efficiency only if two conditions hold jointly: (i) The expenses should be interpretable as real cost and (ii) the expenses should be required for increasing taxable income....

The philanthropic sector is highly consequential, particularly in the United States, and the most important policies directed toward this sector are tax policies. Yet most economic analysis of the optimal tax treatment of charitable giving is ad hoc, treating it as a subject unto itself. This...

Amid global climate change concerns, policymakers worldwide are increasingly scrutinizing environmentally harmful subsidies. This study examines the tax-deductibility of job-related commuting expenses, which has faced criticism for promoting longer commutes and congestion. Through a controlled,...

Assuming that higher traveling expenses reduce traveling time, this paper considers reliefs for traveling expenses to work when a distorting wage tax is levied. While the decision on traveling expenses would not be distorted if traveling costs were completely deductible, taxation would still not...