Taxing Ourselves: A Citizen's Guide to the Debate Over TaxesTo follow the debate over U.S. tax reform, the interested citizen is forced to choose between misleading sound bites and academic treatises. Taxing Ourselves bridges the gap between the two by presenting in clear non-technical language the key issues in U.S. tax reform: who should pay taxes, how taxes affect the economy and whether to reform or replace the current tax system. The authors discuss various alternative proposals in detail, including the flat tax and the sales tax, but they are not advocates for any of them; instead, they provide readers with the knowledge and the tools - including an informative overview of the U.S. tax system and an invaluable voter's guide to the tax policy debate - to make their own informed choices about how American citizens should tax themselves. The third edition of this popular guide has been extensively revised and updated to cover all changes in U.S. tax laws through to May 2003 and to reflect the most recent research and relevant data. It also provides new or expanded treatment of issues in the current debate, including tax cuts and whether they stimulate the economy, savings incentives, double taxation of corporate income, the estate tax, c |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
Complaints about the Current Tax System | 2 |
A Different Way to Tax | 7 |
Objections to Radical Reform | 8 |
Changes in the Context of the Current System | 10 |
The Need for Objective Analysis | 11 |
An Overview of the US Tax System | 13 |
International Comparisons | 15 |
Elements of Fundamental Reform | 189 |
A Single Rate | 190 |
A Consumption Base | 195 |
A Clean Tax Base | 217 |
Conclusion | 231 |
What Are the Alternatives? | 233 |
How the Consumption Tax Plans Work | 234 |
At What Rate? | 242 |
Historical Perspectives on the US Tax System | 17 |
Personal Income Taxation | 28 |
Basic Features of the US Corporate Income Tax | 46 |
The Social Security Payroll Tax | 51 |
Estate and Gift Taxes | 52 |
Conclusion | 53 |
Fairness | 55 |
Vertical Equity | 57 |
Equal Treatment of Equals | 85 |
Transitional Equity | 93 |
Conclusion | 95 |
Taxes and Economic Prosperity | 97 |
Taxes and the Business Cycle | 99 |
Budget Deficits and Surpluses | 103 |
How Much Should Government Do? | 109 |
Tax Cuts to Force Spending Cuts versus Surpluses to Prepare for an Aging Population | 111 |
A First Cut at the Evidence | 114 |
The Specifics | 121 |
Conclusion | 155 |
Simplicity and Enforceability | 157 |
What Makes a Tax System Complicated? | 163 |
Evasion and Enforcement | 172 |
What Facilitates Enforcement? | 185 |
Conclusion | 188 |
Simplicity and Enforceability of the Consumption Tax Plans | 246 |
Distributional Effects of the Consumption Tax Alternatives | 256 |
Economic Effects of Consumption Tax Plans | 264 |
Conclusion | 271 |
Starting from Here | 273 |
Eliminating the Double Taxation of Corporate Income | 274 |
Corporate Welfare and Corporate Tax Shelters | 278 |
Inflation Indexing | 283 |
Capital Gains | 285 |
Savings Incentives in the Income Tax | 289 |
The Estate Tax | 294 |
Simplifying the Income Tax | 299 |
Technological Improvements and the Promise of a ReturnFree System | 302 |
Ideas for Fundamental Income Tax Reform | 303 |
Combining a VAT with Income Taxation | 304 |
Conclusion | 307 |
A Voters Guide to the Tax Policy Debate | 309 |
Tax Cuts as a Trojan Horse | 310 |
Fairness Is a Slippery Concept but an Important One | 311 |
The Tax System Can Be Improved | 312 |
Notes | 313 |
References | 347 |
| 369 | |
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Taxing Ourselves: A Citizen's Guide to the Debate Over Taxes Joel Slemrod,Jon M. Bakija No preview available - 2004 |
Common terms and phrases
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