This presentation was delivered to the Tax Section of the New York State Bar Association in January 2020. It first briefly reviews important current tax policy issues, and shows that the income tax has plenty of headroom to accommodate higher tax revenues: “Personal Income,” the government's...

This presentation considers the aims of critical tax studies and offers three suggestions. First, critical tax papers too often fixate on taxes as both the problem and the solution. In many cases, in particular when progressivity is the aim, public spending is the better policy lever. Second,...

Explicit federal outlays are determined through elaborate budget procedural rules (framework laws), but tax expenditures in many respects fall outside these established Congressional procedures. The preparation of the annual federal budget therefore privileges tax subsidies over outlays, even...