As specified in Congressional bill H.R. 25/S. 25, the FairTax is a proposal to replace the federal personal income tax, corporate income tax, payroll (FICA) tax, capital gains, alternative minimum, self-employment, and estate and gifts taxes with a single-rate federal retail sales tax. The...

This paper considers the treatment of multinational business in the system known as an X Tax. The focus is on the choice between origin and destination treatments of transborder transactions. The destination-principle approach sidesteps the transferpricing problem. It remains in the...

We estimate and attempt to explain the evolution of the taxes paid by U.S. multinationals on their foreign profits since 1966. In the oil sector, taxes paid to oil-producing States have been contained, allowing U.S. firms to earn high after-tax returns. Foreign taxes fell abruptly after the...

This paper analyzes the interaction between corporate taxes and corporate governance. We show that the characteristics of a taxation system affect the extraction of private benefits by company insiders. A higher tax rate increases the amount of income insiders divert and thus worsens governance...

Performance pay for tax collectors has the potential to raise revenues, but might come at a cost if taxpayers face undue pressure from collectors. We report the first large-scale field experiment on these issues, where we experimentally allocated 482 property tax units in Punjab, Pakistan into...

This paper presents new evidence on the level and distribution of income and payroll tax burdens for U.S. families over the 1979-1999 period. During this period, payroll taxes have become an increasingly important component of the tax burden for many low- and middle-income families. This paper...

This paper generalizes the standard model of how taxes affect the labor-leisure choice by allowing individuals to change both their labor supply and avoidance effort in response to tax changes. Doing so reveals that both the income and substitution effect of taxes depend on both preferences and...

Pensions are widely thought to be attractive tax shelters which encourage saving for retirement. They allow people to save before-tax dollars and to compound investment returns without current taxation. However, the taxation of pension assets as they are distributed in retirement or as they pass...

This paper proposes a method for computing tax rates using national accounts and revenue statistics. Using this method we construct time-series of tax rates for large industrial countries. The method identifies the revenue raised by different taxes at the general government level and defines...

The social security payroll tax has become the largest tax paid by the majority of American households. Although, the statutory marginal social security tax rate is the same for all those with wage and salary income up to the maximum level, the complex rules linking social security taxes and...