Congressional interest in a major reform of the individual income tax that would broaden the base and use the additional tax revenues to lower rates and/or reduce the deficit has increased. The Pres. Fiscal Comm., for ex., proposed an individual income tax reform with three objectives: to broaden the base and lower the tax rate, to contribute to deficit reduction, and to maintain or increase the progressivity of the tax system. The Fiscal Comm. proposed to broaden the tax base by eliminating or modifying most tax expenditures. Contents of this report: Tax Expend. and Base Broadening; Allocational and Efficiency Effects; Distributional Issues; Admin. and Tech. Challenges; Public Attitudes Towards Tax Reform. Illus. A print on demand report.

Congressional interest in a major reform of the individual income tax that would broaden the base and use the additional tax revenues to lower rates and/or reduce the deficit has increased. The President's Fiscal Commission, for example, proposed an individual income tax reform with three objectives: to broaden the base and lower the tax rate, to contribute to deficit reduction, and to maintain or increase the progressivity of the tax system. The Fiscal Commission proposed to broaden the tax base by eliminating or modifying most tax expenditures. One legislative proposal, S. 727, introduced by Senators Wyden, Begich, and Coats, would broaden the tax base by eliminating many tax expenditures and reduce tax rates.

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.

The increasingly digitalized global economy is undermining the usefulness of many traditional tax concepts. In addition to issues of double taxation and double non-taxation, important questions arise concerning the allocation of taxing rights in respect of income from cross-border digital transactions. This is the first book to analyse what changes are possible, necessary and feasible in order to forestall the unravelling of the existing international tax framework. Focusing in turn on the legal framework, specific proposals for adapting tax concepts for the digital economy, types of transactions and administrative issues such as those around data protection and digital currencies, the expert contributors discuss such challenges to taxation as the following: the pervasiveness of intangible assets; new value creation models; the ascendance of the sharing economy and digital services; virtual currencies; the importance of user participation for digital platforms; cloud computing; the impact of Big Data on tax enforcement; virtual business presence; and the influence of robotization. Throughout, the authors describe and analyse proposals made by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the European Union (EU) and individual countries and their likely impact going forward. They also attend to the limits imposed on reform possibilities by public international law, EU law and constitutional law. It is generally acknowledged that there is a need to monitor how the digital transformation may be impacting value creation. This book is a key milestone toward developing a durable, long-term solution to the tax challenges posed by the digitalization of the economy. With its thorough scrutiny of proposals for digital services tax and virtual permanent establishments, insightful analysis of digital services and detailed description of the impact of big data on tax administration and taxpayer protection, it will quickly prove indispensable for tax practitioners and the international tax community more generally.

Focuses on tax treatment of individual income and Subchapter S Corporations. Concentrates on individual tax deductions, provisions for minimum and maximum taxes, tax rates for elderly and single persons, and income averaging techniques.