This article recommends allowing a lessor and a lessee to decide between themselves which party will be entitled to the tax benefit associated with the ownership of the leased property. It describes why the current linkage of tax benefits to property ownership is economically inefficient and...

This paper traces the rise of tax expenditure reporting in countries of the Global South, with a particular focus on India. It investigates why and how policy makers in some low and middle income countries are now moving to adopt a budgeting practice that originated in wealthy Western nations in...

U.S.-based multinational corporations are calling for a tax holiday that would allow them to repatriate their foreign earnings at little tax cost. With over $1 trillion in earnings trapped offshore and untaxed by the U.S., these corporations characterize the proposed repatriation holiday as a...

This article takes a critical view of tax preferences targeted at the manufacturing sector. Their justification is dubious and they move in the opposite direction of tax reform. If people are genuinely concerned about the competitiveness of American industry, replacing the corporate income tax...

Therefore, to give greater assurance that the public benefit of the gift will be consistent with the claimed deduction, the donee should be required to certify that it has selected the easement consistent with its mission and it has both the resources to manage and enforce the restriction and a...

[Note: For a revised and expanded version of this paper, please see Hidden Foreign Aid, http://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=1044041]Whether the U.S. government should be allowed to claim credit for the private philanthropy of its citizens is a hot topic in today's foreign aid debate. Overlooked in...

Widening economic inequality is fast becoming the defining social problem of this era. Although there are a number of policy mechanisms available for addressing the problem, taxation is the first and best tool for the job. The federal income tax code is already moderately progressive and thus...

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...

Estates and trusts are recognizing growing amounts of taxable income from “income in respect of a decedent” (or “IRD”). These are payments attributable to income earned by a decedent before death but received by an estate, trust, or other beneficiary after death, and taxed to that...