Our Selfish Tax Laws
Our Selfish Tax Laws

Author: Anthony C. Infanti

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2018-10-02

Total Pages: 253

ISBN-13: 0262038242

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Why tax law is not just a pocketbook issue but a reflection of what and whom we, as a society, value. Most of us think of tax as a pocketbook issue: how much we owe, how much we'll get back, how much we can deduct. In Our Selfish Tax Laws, Anthony Infanti takes a broader view, considering not just how taxes affect us individually but how the tax system reflects our culture and society. He finds that American tax laws validate and benefit those who already possess power and privilege while starkly reflecting the lines of difference and discrimination in American society based on race, ethnicity, socioeconomic class, gender, sexual orientation and gender identity, immigration status, and disability. Infanti argues that instead of focusing our tax reform discussions on which loopholes to close or which deductions to allow, we should consider how to make our tax system reflect American ideals of inclusivity rather than institutionalizing exclusion. After describing the theoretical and intellectual underpinnings of his argument, Infanti offers two comparative case studies, examining the treatment of housing tax expenditures and the unit of taxation in the United States, Canada, France, and Spain to show how tax law reflects its social and cultural context. Then, drawing on his own work and that of other critical tax scholars, Infanti explains how the discourse surrounding tax reform masks the many ways that the American tax system rewards and reifies privilege. To counter this, Infanti urges us to work together to create a society with a tax system that respects and values all Americans.

Taxing Profit in a Global Economy
Taxing Profit in a Global Economy

Author: Michael P. Devereux

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2020-09-29

Total Pages: 401

ISBN-13: 0198808062

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The international tax system is in dire need of reform. It allows multinational companies to shift profits to low tax jurisdictions and thus reduce their global effective tax rates. A major international project, launched in 2013, aimed to fix the system, but failed to seriously analyse the fundamental aims and rationales for the taxation of multinationals' profit, and in particular where profit should be taxed. As this project nears its completion, it is becomingincreasingly clear that the fundamental structural weaknesses in the system will remain. This book, produced by a group of economists and lawyers, adopts a different approach and starts from first principles in order to generate an international tax system fit for the 21st century. This approach examines fundamental issues of principle and practice in the taxation of business profit and the allocation of taxing rights over such profit amongst countries, paying attention to the interests and circumstances of advanced and developing countries. Once this conceptual framework is developed, the book evaluates the existing system and potential reform options against it. A number of reform options are considered, ranging from those requiring marginal change to radically different systems. Some options have been discussed widely. Others, particularly Residual Profit Split systems and a Destination Based Cash-Flow Tax, are more innovative and have been developed at some length and in depth for the first time in this book. Their common feature is that they assign taxing rights partly/fully to the location of relatively immobile factors: shareholders or consumers.

Toward Fundamental Tax Reform
Toward Fundamental Tax Reform

Author: Kevin A. Hassett

Publisher: A E I Press

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 188

ISBN-13:

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Tax experts across the political spectrum agree that the current rate structure is not rational and that potential gains from reform could be remarkable. Accordingly, tax reform is widely viewed as desirable. However, there is not a clear consensus on what reforms are most desirable or feasible. In Toward Fundamental Tax Reform, eleven leading tax scholars, including a Nobel Prize winner, outline their ideas about tax reform. The original essays provide readers with concise but varying perspectives on the possibilities of tax reform. They also focus attention on key questions in the scholarly debate: Would a different tax code dramatically alter the functioning of the economy? How much damage does the current law do? Can relatively small changes to the tax code deliver most of the benefits of more dramatic reforms like the flat tax? Are political forces that oppose efficient tax systems simply too powerful to overcome? Will tax reform inevitably harm the poor? Can a tax reform, if enacted, be sustained?

Designing a Tax Administration Reform Strategy
Designing a Tax Administration Reform Strategy

Author: Ms.Katherine Baer

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 1997-03-01

Total Pages: 37

ISBN-13: 1451980396

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Building on previous FAD work in the tax administration field, this paper defines broad criteria for diagnosing the problems in a country’s tax administration and formulating an appropriate reform strategy. To be effective, this strategy should be based on the size of the tax gap and the country’s particular circumstances. This paper discusses some guiding principles which have provided the basis for successful reforms, including: reducing the tax system’s complexity, encouraging taxpayers’ voluntary compliance, differentiating the treatment of taxpayers by their revenue potential, and ensuring the reform’s effective management. Also discussed are specific bottlenecks that hinder the effectiveness of the tax administration’s operations.

The Benefit and The Burden
The Benefit and The Burden

Author: Bruce Bartlett

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2012-01-24

Total Pages: 354

ISBN-13: 1451646267

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A thoughtful and surprising argument for American tax reform, arguably the most overdue political debate facing the nation, from one of the most respected political and economic thinkers, advisers, and writers of our time. THE UNITED STATES TAX CODE HAS UNDERGONE NO SERIOUS REFORM SINCE 1986. Since then, loopholes, exemptions, credits, and deductions have distorted its clarity, increased its inequity, and frustrated our ability to govern ourselves. By tracing the history of our own tax system and assessing the way other countries have solved similar problems, Bruce Bartlett explores the surprising answers to all these issues, giving a sense of the tax code’s many benefits—and its inevitable burdens. From one of the most respected political and economic thinkers, advisers, and writers of our time, The Benefit and the Burden is a thoughtful and surprising argument for American tax reform.

The Flat Tax
The Flat Tax

Author: Robert E. Hall

Publisher: Hoover Press

Published: 2013-09-01

Total Pages: 245

ISBN-13: 0817993134

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This new and updated edition of The Flat Tax—called "the bible of the flat tax movement" by Forbes—explains what's wrong with our present tax system and offers a practical alternative. Hall and Rabushka set forth what many believe is the most fair, efficient, simple, and workable tax reform plan on the table: tax all income, once only, at a uniform rate of 19 percent.

The Political Economy of Tax Reform
The Political Economy of Tax Reform

Author: Takatoshi Ito

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2007-12-01

Total Pages: 362

ISBN-13: 0226387003

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The rapid emergence of East Asia as an important geopolitical-economic entity has been one of the most visible and striking changes in the international economy in recent years. With that emergence has come an increased need for understanding the problems of interdependence. As a step toward meeting this need, the National Bureau of Economic Research joined with the Korea Development Institute to sponsor this volume, which focuses on the complexities of tax reform in a global economy. Experts from Taiwan, Korea, the Philippines, Japan, and Thailand, as well as the United States, Canada, and Israel examine the major tax programs of the 1980s and their domestic and international economic effects. The analyses reveal similarities between the United States and countries in East Asia in political constraints on policy making, and taken together they show how growing interdependence interacts with domestic economic and political concerns to affect issues as politically vital as tax reform. Economists, policymakers, and members of the business community will benefit from these studies.

U.S. Investment Since the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017
U.S. Investment Since the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017

Author: Emanuel Kopp

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 2019-05-31

Total Pages: 37

ISBN-13: 1498317049

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There is no consensus on how strongly the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) has stimulated U.S. private fixed investment. Some argue that the business tax provisions spurred investment by cutting the cost of capital. Others see the TCJA primarily as a windfall for shareholders. We find that U.S. business investment since 2017 has grown strongly compared to pre-TCJA forecasts and that the overriding factor driving it has been the strength of expected aggregate demand. Investment has, so far, fallen short of predictions based on the postwar relation with tax cuts. Model simulations and firm-level data suggest that much of this weaker response reflects a lower sensitivity of investment to tax policy changes in the current environment of greater corporate market power. Economic policy uncertainty in 2018 played a relatively small role in dampening investment growth.

The X Tax in the World Economy
The X Tax in the World Economy

Author: David F. Bradford

Publisher: A E I Press

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 68

ISBN-13:

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This study explores how the tax design called the X tax could alleviate the complexities and avoidance opportunities plaguing the existing U.S. system for taxing international business income.