The mortgage interest deduction is often criticized for contributing to after-tax income inequality. Yet the effects of the mortgage interest deduction on income inequality are more nuanced than the conventional wisdom would suggest. We show that the mortgage interest deduction causes...

Profits-only partnership interests grant service-providing partners an interest in the profits of a partnership but not its capital. Such interests are a proverbial double-edged sword: they create economic arrangements needed in business, but provide opportunities for inequitable tax reductions....

Wealth transfer taxes are a critical policy tool for mitigating economic inequality, including inequality of opportunity. They are also relatively efficient. This short essay summarizes why and how wealth transfer taxes should be strengthened. Reform options that our next President should...

This paper evaluates the welfare effects of the 1986 Tax Reform Act (TRA86). In thirty years since its introduction, several studies have analysed the effects of TRA86. However, preference heterogeneity and non-market dimensions of welfare have not been taken into account. We propose an...

In Uruguay the tax structure and social spending reduce inequality and poverty for the whole society (Bucheli et al. 2013). In this study we analyze the effect of fiscal policy by race considering whites, afros and indigenous. The main question of our paper is whether the reduction of inequality...

The repeal of the estate tax for one year only in 2010 creates vast uncertainty but also provides an opportunity to reconsider the taxation of million would include in income and pay a 15 percentage point surtax on gifts and bequests. This paper proposes replacing the estate tax with an...

The upcoming one-year repeal of the federal estate tax in the U.S. creates an opportunity to reconsider the taxation of wealth transfers. This article argues that if inheritances are included in an optimal tax framework, existing evidence suggests that the ideal wealth transfer tax would be much...

This paper examines the equity effects of one of the largest per-recipient income transfer programs in the Unites States: the U.S. agricultural subsidy program. The paper demonstrates the complexity of the program's effect on equity and the unintended rent-seeking behavior induced by policies...

The Value Added Tax (VAT) was introduced in India in place of Sales Tax, taking effect in April 1, 2005. These taxes are in the domain of different state governments within the country's federal set up. Although VAT is widely acclaimed to be a better system than the sales tax on grounds of...

Empirical welfare analyses often impose stringent parametric assumptions on individuals' preferences and neglect unobserved preference heterogeneity. In this paper, we develop a framework to conduct individual and social welfare analysis for discrete choice that does not suffer from these...