States and localities offer businesses an enormous amount of tax incentives to locate within their jurisdictions despite: 1) the mass of evidence that suggests that these incentives are not particularly effective and, 2) substantial doubts about their constitutionality. In this essay, we develop...

The current structure of U.S. federal tax law incentivizes state governments to adopt tax policies that inflict costs on the federal government, at the expense of national welfare. We label this the “tax cannibalization problem.” This article introduces the tax cannibalization problem to the...

The U.S. income tax is broken. Due to the realization doctrine and taxpayers’ consequent ability to defer taxation of gains, taxpayers can easily minimize or avoid the taxation of investment income, a failure that is magnified many times over when considering the ultra-wealthy. As a result,...

This report analyzes how states should cope with fiscal volatility at the level of institutional-design policy. We propose that states reconsider how they define terms like ‘‘tax cuts'' and ‘‘tax hikes.'' By adopting a new baseline for defining those terms, states can increase the...

Testimony and presentation by David Gamage, Assistant Professor at the UC Berkeley School of Law, before the California State Assembly Committee on Revenue and Taxation in October, 2009. The topic of the hearing was: Academic Perspectives on the Tax Recommendations of the Commission on the 21st...

Testimony and presentation by David Gamage, Assistant Professor at the UC Berkeley School of Law, before the California State Assembly Committee on Revenue and Taxation on March 23rd, 2009. The topic of the hearing was: Academic Perspectives on Reforming California's Tax System in Crisis and...

This Essay responds to Leigh Osofsky's, "Who's Naughty and Who's Nice? Frictions, Screening, and Tax Law Design." Osofsky's analysis suggests that tax rules might be designed so as to take account both of heterogeneity in taxpayers' tax planning proclivities and of taxpayer characteristics...

The 2017 tax legislation brought sweeping changes to the rules for taxing individuals and business, the deductibility of state and local taxes, and the international tax regime. The complex legislation was drafted and passed through a rushed and secretive process intended to limit public comment...

Command-and-control regulations are generally thought to be inferior to incentive-based alternatives. This essay proposes an incentive-based approach for regulating campaign finance. In place of our current regime of contribution ceilings, the essay calls for a graduated system of contribution...