This fifth edition of Federal Tax Policy, like its predecessors, is intended to explain such issues so that the interested citizen may better understand and contribute to public discussion of tax policy. This edition reflects tax developments between 1983 and 1987 and emphasizes the newer issues: comprehensive income taxation, the effects of taxation on economic incentives, inflation adjustments for income tax purposes, the relative merits of graduated income taxes and expenditure taxes, and changes in the fiscal relations between the federal and the state and local governments.

Records the impact of taxation on events in world history, from ancient Egypt to the present, and concludes that taxation has been a force that has shaped world history and has had a direct bearing on the civilization process.