To study the effects of 'double taxation' (first at the corporation level, then at the shareholder level this paper analyzes a model with a tax on all corporate distributions to equity owners and no other taxes. Contrary to the common view, the tax is shown to have no substitution effect and, in...

This paper concerns the question of how the rules for calculating the investment tax credit and the associated rules for calculating depreciation allowances for tax purposes should be structured to assure the "appropriate" relationship between the subsidy granted to long-lived assets and that to...

This paper considers the treatment of multinational business in the system known as an X Tax. The focus is on the choice between origin and destination treatments of transborder transactions. The destination-principle approach sidesteps the transferpricing problem. It remains in the...

In a previous paper I described how the tax design called the X Tax would facilitate an international tax system free of many of the complexities and avoidance opportunities plaguing the existing international tax regime and also have neutrality properties generally deemed desirable. A choice...

In the context of several examples of problems associated with present budgetary conventions, I revisit Musgrave's conceptual division of the government's program into Allocation, Distribution and Stabilization Branch subbudgets. I suggest progress towards Musgrave's ideal of a more informative...

The difficulty of making a transition from an income-type to a consumption-type tax is often cited as an obstacle to such a change in policy. The problem is the double taxation of 'old savings' or 'old capital.' A person who has accumulated wealth under an income tax will be hit with an extra...

In the debate about the correct discount rate to use in evaluating policy with regard to climate change, which covers the entire world and extends for centuries, the conditions for deploying benefit-cost analysis are often overlooked. Where (a) income distributional effects of policies are large...

A great deal of effort and ingenuity has been addressed to patching holes in the income tax attributable to realization accounting. A classic instance of the problem is the headachescreated by capital gains, whereby the taxpayer can choose to postpone recognition of gain and accelerate...

A number of tax reform plans under discussion in the United States would replace the existing hybrid income-based system with a consumption-based system. In this paper I use uniform (single-rate) consumption and income taxes: (a) to explain how the problem of taxing 'old savings' or 'old...

Most discussion of national saving behavior is based on national income account data. This paper lays out some of the main alternative conceptions of saving and to present data comparing recent U.S. saving behavior with its own past and with that of other nations. I argue, in particular, that...