Everyone knows that the current tax system is unfair. Some of the richest people in America pay no tax, while a huge share of the tax burden falls on the rest of us. A mere glance at the tax code confirms that it is far too complex, with volumes of rules that no ordinary person could possibly...

In this brief commentary, I argue that, now that we have no meaningful estate tax for the vast masses of even wealthy individuals and families, it is time to call for an end to stepped-up basis on death and to start doing something, somehow, to shut down the typical tax planning of the wealthy

Recent legislation has left a gift and estate tax that will apply to far fewer than 1% of all decedents each year. This Article, prepared for a symposium on Tax Advice for the Second Obama Administration, argues that the estate tax has become largely irrelevant, except ironically as a spur to...

Luxury taxes are increasingly used by major sports leagues, such as Major League Baseball and the National Basketball Association, to raise revenue and affect behavior. This brief article lists three lessons that general tax policy can take from the sport world's taxes, helping to make the case...

This chapter argues that a behavioral law and economics approach to tax is deeply needed for a wider normative analysis of the impacts of law on social welfare. The absence of traditional markets to serve as arbitrage mechanisms in public finance means that suboptimal tax and fiscal systems can...

This Article explains, updates and generalizes Cooper (1979), which had labeled the estate tax a voluntary tax. The tax has remained quot;voluntaryquot; in the sense of being easily avoidable, even by those engaging in activities within the tax's ostensible normative target (i.e., significant...

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...