Evaluates the regressivity of the VAT and analyzes options for reducing the regressivity of the tax. Concludes that the tax burden on the lower income groups can be reduced most effectively by providing payments to lower income groups.

Using tax return data for1993–2003, we measure how US corporations use tax losses over time. For firms included in our dataset, we find that: (1) approximately 50–60 percent of tax losses are used over a ten–year window as a carryback refund or loss carryforward deduction; (2)...

Recent data present a puzzle: the ratio of corporate tax losses to positive income was much higher around 2001 than in earlier recessions. Using a comprehensive 1982-2005 sample of U.S. corporation tax returns, we explore a variety of potential explanations for this surge in tax losses, taking...

Recent data on corporate tax losses presents a puzzle this paper attempts to explain: the ratio of losses to positive income was much higher around the recession of 2001 than in earlier recessions, even those of greater severity. Using a comprehensive sample of U.S. corporation tax returns for...

On average, 40 percent of US corporations with foreign source income are not taxable because they are in loss, and annually these loss firms are responsible for about 13 percent of foreign source dividend repatriations. Yet the repatriation behavior of these US parents in loss has largely been...

The paper uses a new micro-simulation model to estimate the impact of repealing the employer-sponsored insurance (ESI) exclusion on ESI coverage given two alternative scenarios: a non-group market that is fully underwritten and a modified community-rated market where the low income population...

This paper examines the extent to which U.S.-based multinational corporations are affected by the alternative minimum tax. More than half of all foreign-source income received by corporations in 1990 was earned by corporations subject to the alternative minimum tax. The AMT rules potentially...