Several states have passed — and many more are considering — new tax credits that would reduce tax liability based on donations made by a taxpayer in support of various state, local or non-profit programs. In general, taxpayer contributions to qualifying organizations — including public...

States and localities offer businesses an enormous amount of tax incentives to locate within their jurisdictions despite: 1) the mass of evidence that suggests that these incentives are not particularly effective and, 2) substantial doubts about their constitutionality. In this essay, we develop...

The purpose of this brief is to correct and respond to two arguments in Petitioner-Appellee Altera's petition for rehearing en banc and briefs of amici supporting the petition for rehearing. First, Treasury's regulation requiring cost sharing of stock-based compensation and the Ninth Circuit...

There are many ways in which the Internal Revenue Code doles out tax expenditures to non-sustainable development patterns. Most notably, there is the series of provisions that subsidize home ownership. These federal subsidies are in direct tension with the many programs meant to encourage...

So many things have gone wrong with our housing market that it is hard to know where to start. One simple diagnosis is that we invested too much in houses that were not worth as much as we thought. Looked at in this way, it is relatively easy to see how innovations like interest-only loans...

In this symposium essay, we explore the theoretical implications of one particular type of fiscal limitation on state legislatures — namely, special Tax Increase Limitation rules (TILs). We argue that there is no meaningful content to the term “tax increase” as used in TILs. This...

Local governments have long used special financing districts to build infrastructure. If a local project, say building a pocket park, is likely to increase the values of properties very close to the park, then why should those properties not pay for the park in the first place? Though efficient...

In this article, the first of a series, we analyze the distributional issues involved in implementing U.S. state level cap-and-trade regimes. Specifically, we will argue that the structure of California’s AB 32 regime will unnecessarily disadvantage lower-income Californians under the...

This short Article, a contribution to a symposium, outlines some possible design responses to the primary legal issue raised by the implementation of a state-level carbon tax. There are at least two reasons for states to consider a carbon tax. First, somewhat prosaically, the Environmental...

As the Great Recession dramatically illustrated, state and local governments need a more stable revenue source. Accordingly, states and localities as diverse as Texas and San Francisco, are experimenting with new kinds of taxes. However, there has been essentially no experimentation with the...