Good tax policy should be pro-growth, simple, and fair. An income tax, unlike a consumption tax, penalizes saving, which undermines economic growth and introduces complexity. An income tax is often thought to be fairer than a consumption tax, however, because it taxes saving, which is...

n recent years, governments around the world have slashed corporate tax rates -- with the average rate falling from 38 to 27 percent from 1992 to 2006 in a large sample of countries -- in response to global competitive pressures. Fearing that governments will lose a valuable revenue source, some...

A number of recent proposals have called for broadening the individual income tax base while lowering statutory income tax rates. Such proposals would eliminate or curtail various preferential income tax provisions and use some or all of the resulting revenue to lower statutory tax rates. In...

When confronted with large refund claims by businesses that have paid unconstitutional or otherwise illegal taxes, state governments sometimes invoke a pass-on defense, arguing that businesses have passed on at least part of the tax to consumers in the form of higher prices and should not...

Congress has recently considered taxing the carried interest of private equity fund managers at ordinary rates rather than at the 15 percent rate that currently applies to a portion of this income. The proposed change is intended to promote neutrality between the labor compensation of fund...

Many economists favor revenue-neutral reforms that broaden the corporate tax base and lower the statutory tax rate. Economic analysis provides partial, but not complete, support for this view. Welfare gains do not arise from a lower tax rate as such, but from leveling the playing field between...

Alan D. Viard reviews "Institutional Foundations of Public Finance: Economic and Legal Perspectives" by Alan J. Auerbach and Daniel N. Shaviro. In his opinion, the book is exceptionally well suited to serve as a tribute to David Bradford. The authors and discussants address the questions that...

Alan D. Viard of American Enterprise Institute reviews, "The Benefit and the Burden: Tax Reform -- Why We Need It and What It Will Take" by Bruce Bartlett. According to Viard, the book offers a highly readable overview of the federal tax system and key tax policy issues. While experts will...

In this article, I discuss the enactment, structure, and economic implications of the UIMC. Despite its statutory name, the income to which the UIMC applies is not unearned and the tax is not a contribution to Medicare. Contrary to the bizarre myth circulating on the Internet, the UIMC is not a...

Actual state and local sales taxes diverge dramatically from the popular and textbook vision of the tax. One major flaw is the exclusion of a wide range of consumer services from taxation, which renders the consumer tax base much narrower than the textbook description suggests. The other crucial...