"The progressive tax system, and the nation's fiscal system more boradly, have historically played an important role in expanding opportunities for all Americans while reducing inequality. But the same dynamic forces of technological change, financial innovation, and globalization that have contributed to rising income inequality also present new challenges for progressive taxation. Financial engineering, for example, has made it easier for the financially sophisticated--typically the wealth--to take advantage of new financial instruments that shelter their gains from tax. And as capital is able to move ever more quickly and easily across borders, corporate income becomes increasingly elusive of taxation. These forces, together with deliberate policy changes, have led to an erosion of progressivity--the principle that higher incomes should face higher rates of taxation--and a dramatic reduction in the average tax rate facing very high-income households. More than half of that decline is the result of declining effective corporate tax rates, as high-income households own disproportionate amounts of capital. The tax code is not only a means of raising revenue to pay for government services. It also impactsan astonishing array of economic and social activities, from honeownership to education and child care to support for low-income workers. Taxes contribute, as part of the problem or as part of the solution, to many of the challenges our nation faces. The present tax treatment of health insurance, for example, pushes health spending upward while offering many of the uninsured little help in getting coverage. The tax treatment of retirement savings provides a windfall for high-income Americans who would likely have saved anyway, while offering scant encouragement to saving by low- and moderate-income Americans, many of whom face the prospect of an insecure retirement. America's factories and cars continue to emit vast amounts of the carbon dioxide that drives climate change, a problem that would be remedied, in part, if the tax code imposed a cost for buring corbon-emitting fossil fuels"--Page 3.

"The progressive tax system, and the nation's fiscal system more boradly, have historically played an important role in expanding opportunities for all Americans while reducing inequality. But the same dynamic forces of technological change, financial innovation, and globalization that have contributed to rising income inequality also present new challenges for progressive taxation. Financial engineering, for example, has made it easier for the financially sophisticated--typically the wealth--to take advantage of new financial instruments that shelter their gains from tax. And as capital is able to move ever more quickly and easily across borders, corporate income becomes increasingly elusive of taxation. These forces, together with deliberate policy changes, have led to an erosion of progressivity--the principle that higher incomes should face higher rates of taxation--and a dramatic reduction in the average tax rate facing very high-income households. More than half of that decline is the result of declining effective corporate tax rates, as high-income households own disproportionate amounts of capital. The tax code is not only a means of raising revenue to pay for government services. It also impactsan astonishing array of economic and social activities, from honeownership to education and child care to support for low-income workers. Taxes contribute, as part of the problem or as part of the solution, to many of the challenges our nation faces. The present tax treatment of health insurance, for example, pushes health spending upward while offering many of the uninsured little help in getting coverage. The tax treatment of retirement savings provides a windfall for high-income Americans who would likely have saved anyway, while offering scant encouragement to saving by low- and moderate-income Americans, many of whom face the prospect of an insecure retirement. America's factories and cars continue to emit vast amounts of the carbon dioxide that drives climate change, a problem that would be remedied, in part, if the tax code imposed a cost for buring corbon-emitting fossil fuels"--Page 3.

The increasing globalization of economic activity is bringing an awareness of the international consequences of tax policy. The move toward the common European market in 1992 raises the important question of how inefficiencies in the various tax systems—such as self-defeating tax competition among member nations—will be addressed. As barriers to trade and investment tumble, cross-national differences in tax structures may loom larger and create incentives for relocations of capital and labor; and efficient and equitable income tax systems are becoming more difficult to administer and enforce, particularly because of the growing importance of multinational enterprises. What will be the role of tax policy in this more integrated world economy? Assaf Razin and Joel Slemrod gathered experts from two traditionally distinct specialties, taxation and international economics, to lay the groundwork for understanding these issues, which will require the attention of scholars and policymakers for years to come. Contributors describe the basic provisions of the U.S. tax code with respect to international transactions, highlighting the changes contained in the U.S. Tax Reform Act of 1986; explore the ways that tax systems influence the decisions of multinationals; examine the effect of taxation on trade patterns and capital flows; and discuss the implications of the opening world economy for the design of optimal international tax policy. The papers will prove valuable not only to scholars and students, but to government economists and international tax lawyers as well.

This book presents 15 original papers and commentaries by a distinguished group of tax policy and tax administration experts. Using international examples, they highlight the state of knowledge of tax reform, present new thinking about the issue, and analyze useful policy options. The book’s general goal is to examine the current and emerging challenges facing tax reformers and to assess possible directions future reforms are likely to take. More specific themes include distributional issues, how to tax capital income, how to design specific taxes (e.g., the income tax, the value-added tax, the property tax), how to consider the politics and administrative aspects of tax reform, and how to combine the separate insights into comprehensive tax reform.

Topics in this comprehensive survey include bureaucracy, corruption and tax compliance; public finance in developing economies; taxation in several former Soviet republics, Eastern Europe and China; taxation in the enlarged European Union; tax harmonization vs. tax competition; and the philosophy of taxation and public finance. The editor has assembled a stellar group of authorities to write about their areas of expertise.

This paper discusses the theory and practice of tax design to achieve an efficient and equitable outcome, i.e. in support of inclusive growth. It starts with a discussion of the key principles from tax theory to guide practical tax design. Then, it elaborates on more granular tax policy, discussing key choices in the structure of the personal income tax on labor and capital income, taxes on wealth, the corporate income tax, and consumption taxes. The paper concludes by highlighting the political economy considerations of the issues with concrete recommedtions as to how to implement tax reform.