In this paper, we evaluate and critique ten principal claims made in recent debates on the estate tax, distinguishing five types of statements: facts, rhetoric, value judgments, economic reasoning, and informed speculation. Economics cannot fully resolve the debate because economic knowledge is...

Presents an overview of the U.K. tax system and compares and contrasts it with the U.S. system. Identifies areas in which the two corporate and income tax systems converge and diverge, and argues that the U.S. might take cues on simplification from the British.

The effects of fiscal policy on the economy have received substantial attention in academic and policy circles. We review this literature in light of recent policy debates and new research and obtain three results. First, other things equal, deficits reduce national saving and future national...

A study of how tax changes in TRA '86 (consumer debt interest and IRA deductions) affected household saving behavior shows that household assets and debt were reallocated but that there was little change in the real level of economic activity.

This paper examines the required tax rate in a national retail sales tax (NRST). I show that recent proposals, such as one to replace virtually all federal revenues with a 23 percent tax-inclusive NRST, are based on assumptions that real government spending would decline by $480 billion per year...

We examine workers' disposition of pre-retirement lump-sum distributions, using policy changes in 1986 and 1992 as natural experiments. We find that higher taxes on cash-outs increase rollovers, consistent with both rational and behavioral motives. Several results, however, only make sense in a...

This paper provides alternative measures of federal budget surpluses over 10-year and long-term horizons. Official baseline budget forecasts are based on a series of statutory requirements that may be at variance with reasonable expectation. More plausible notions of current policy toward...

We reexamine the distributional effects of the 2001 and 2003 tax changes, incorporating two factors omitted in standard distributional estimates: the financing of the tax changes, and the implications of behavioral responses for both after–tax income and other aspects of well–being. Using...

Originally targeted at high-income households, the individual alternative minimum tax (AMT) is now on the verge of switching from a "class" tax to a "mass" tax. Under current law, the AMT will encroach dramatically on the middle-class over the next decade and will become the de facto tax system...