In the course of our study of individual tax systems, we necessarily touch on all of the above issues. Before doing so, it is worth emphasizing that the personal tax is one of three main broad-based taxes whose bases overlap to a considerable extent, the others being the VAT and payroll taxes....

Louis Kaplow proposes a two-step methodology for normative policy analysis and illustrates it using various policy reforms. The first step is to identify efficiency gains when hypothetical lump-sum taxes can undo redistributive consequences. The second step evaluates the redistributive effects...