The tax system profoundly affects countless aspects of private behavior. It is a powerful policy influence on the distribution of income and it is the one aspect of government that almost every citizen cannot avoid. With tax reform high on the political agenda, this book brings together studies of leading tax economists and lawyers to assess the various reform proposals and examine the effects of tax reform in several distinct areas. Together, these studies and comments on them present a balanced evaluation of professional opinion on the issues that will be critical in the tax reform debate. The book addresses annual and lifetime distributional effects, saving, investment, transitional problems, simplification, home ownership and housing prices, charitable groups, international taxation, financial intermediaries and insurance, labor supply, and health insurance. In addition to Henry Aaron and William Gale, the contributors include Alan Auerbach, University of California, Berkeley; David Bradford, Princeton University; Charles Clotfelter, Duke University; Eric Engen, Federal Reserve; Don Fullerton, University of Texas; Jon Gruber, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Patric Hendershott, Ohio State; David Ling, University of Florida; Ronald Perlman, Covington & Burling; Diane Lim Rogers, Congressional Budget Office; John Karl Scholz, University of Wisconsin; Joel Slemrod, University of Michigan; and Robert Triest, University of California, Davis.
Presents the recent trends in the taxation of corporate income in OECD countries, discusses the main drivers of corporate income tax reform and evaluates the gains of fundamental corporate tax reform.
This timely book brings clarity to the debate on the new legal phenomenon of environmental border tax adjustments. It will help form a better understanding of the role and limits these taxes have on environmental policies in combating global environmental challenges, such as climate change.
I. Introduction -- II. Recent tax reform proposals -- III. Effects on the macroeconomy -- IV. Effects on the allocation of resources -- V. Effects on economic efficiency -- Appendix A. What will a consumption-based tax do to the price level and the value of existing assets? -- Appendix B. Simulation models and the saving response -- Appendix C. Fullerton-Rogers General-equilibrium model.
The debates about the what, who, and how of tax policy are at the core of politics, policy, and economics. The Economics of Tax Policy provides a straightforward overview of recent research in the economics of taxation. Tax policies generate considerable debate among the public, policymakers, and scholars. These disputes have grown more heated in the United States as the incomes of the wealthiest 1 percent and the rest of the population continue to diverge. This important volume enhances understanding of the implications of taxation on behavior and social outcomes by having leading scholars evaluate key topics in tax policy. These include how changes to the individual income tax affect long-term economic growth; the challenges of tax administration, compliance, and enforcement; and environmental taxation and its effects on tax revenue, pollution emissions, economic efficiency, and income distribution. Also explored are tax expenditures, which are subsidy programs in the form of tax deductions, exclusions, credits, or favorable rates; how college attendance is influenced by tax credits and deductions for tuition and fees, tax-advantaged college savings plans, and student loan interest deductions; and how tax policy toward low-income families takes a number of forms with different distributional effects. Among the most contentious issues explored are influences of capital gains and estate taxation on the long term concentration of wealth; the interaction of tax policy and retirement savings and how policy can "nudge" improved planning for retirement; and how the reform of corporate and business taxation is central to current tax policy debates in the United States. By providing overviews of recent advances in thinking about how taxes relate to behavior and social goals, The Economics of Tax Policy helps inform the debate.
This book gives and general overview of sales taxes and describes main characteristics of consumption taxation. It also provides an economic analysis of all the taxes covered and related tax issues such as tax shifting, tax incidence, the economic effect of reduced rates and exemptions, tax accumulation, regressivity, and the Laffer curve approach. In addition, it offers a tax policy approach in regard to specific economic sectors such as the treatment of small enterprises, financial services, and real property. The author further focuses on contrasts between US sales tax and European VAT (in regard of e-commerce and the treatment of capital goods). The work also offers legal analysis in areas such as cross-border transactions and US constitutional restraints.
Publisher: Washington, D.C. : Institute for International Economics
ISBN: UCSD:31822030133169
Category: Business & Economics
Page: 558
View: 352
NAFTA entered into force in 1994 after a bitter Congressional debate. But NAFTA in operation has proved no less controversial than NAFTA before ratification, for both supporters and opponents of trade liberalization have cited experience with the agreement to justify their positions. To provide a factual basis for this ongoing debate, the authors evaluate NAFTA's performance over the first seven years, comparing actual experience with both the objectives of the agreement's supporters and the charges of its critics. They then examine future challenges and opportunities in the trade and investment relationships among the three partner countries and the broader implications for new trade initiatives throughout the hemisphere.
Most major economies use a value added tax (VAT) which is a derivation of the French 1954 taxe sur la valeur ajoutée. The initial imposition of VAT in France and its spread around the world have been driven by economic reasons. This book focuses on one of these economic triggers: the neutrality of VAT as regards the functioning of the economy. It demonstrates that the reason VAT was chosen in France and why thereafter it spread around the world was because it offered the possibility to collect governmental revenue while allowing the economic forces of the market to interplay without being adversely affected. The prerequisite conditions for the existence of VAT neutrality are therefore identified herein along with an overview of the VAT mechanism, demonstrating that the concept of neutrality is built into the VAT system in a manner that allows for the preservation of the natural functioning of the market. After the definition of VAT neutrality is set forth, the elements that comprise VAT neutrality are tested against the realities on the ground and the issues that infringe the neutrality of VAT are identified and analysed. In conclusion, remedies for these issues are being sought by a review of the causes of infringement of VAT neutrality in the perspective of selected proposals for modified VAT systems. These proposals include redesignating the place where VAT is levied and improving VAT collection. Ultimately, the proposed solution has recourse to the roots of VAT together with the most advanced technological tools available to give back to VAT the power to levy revenue while letting the economic forces of the market interplay without instigating any adverse influence.
