National Tax Journal articles from December 2000

National Tax Journal archives from December 2000

Remote vendors and American sales and use taxation: the balance between fixing the problem and fixing the tax.
December 1, 2000... INTRODUCTION The inability of states to consistently collect sales tax on sales by remote vendors (including but not limited to those operating through the Internet) to customers within their borders presents a watershed for state...

Implementing state corporate income taxes in the digital age.
December 1, 2000... INTRODUCTION To date most discussion of state taxation of electronic commerce has focused on the sales and use tax.(1) There are, however, also interesting and important issues involving application of the state corporate income tax to...

Federal constitutional limitations on congressional power to legislate regarding state taxation of electronic commerce.
December 1, 2000... INTRODUCTION Over the past few years, an enormous amount of scholarly and not-so-scholarly attention has been devoted to the problems raised by state taxation of electronic commerce, to possible solutions to those problems, and, more...

An analysis of the feasibility of implementing a single rate sales tax.
December 1, 2000... INTRODUCTION The use of retail sales taxes began in the 1930s; it is now used by 46 states, 33 of which allow a local option rate, generally piggybacked on the state base (Due and Mikesell, 1994). State revenue departments must rely...

The National Tax Association's Project on Electronic Commerce and Telecommunication Taxes.
December 1, 2000... INTRODUCTION Traditional" tax models are strained by electronic commerce and the digital transmission of products and services (Fox and Murray, 1997; Murray, 1997). For example, in the context of state and local sales and use taxes, it is...

E-commerce in the context of declining state sales tax bases.
December 1, 2000... INTRODUCTION Much has been said about the importance of e-commerce to state tax revenues, with particular attention to effects that interstate sales have on the ability of states to impose and collect sales and use taxes.(1) Estimates of...

"The Day the Sales Tax Died".(Poem)
December 1, 2000... (Sung to the tune of "American Pie." Apologies to Don McLean.) A long, long time ago, I can still remember How the sales tax used to make me smile. I can't remember if I cried When I watched as the ACEC fried, ...

Taxing wealth transfers and its behavioral consequences.
December 1, 2000... INTRODUCTION The estate tax recently became the subject of heated debate and controversy, with many legislative proposals for its repeal or scale-back. Some of the opponents of the tax argue that it "discourages work and saving" and, with...

Green Taxes: Economic Theory and Empirical Evidence from Scandinavia.(Review)
December 1, 2000... Green Taxes: Economic Theory and Empirical Evidence From Scandinavia. Edited by RUNAR BRANNLUND and ING-MARIE GREN. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 1999, Pp xvi, 157. INTRODUCTION Environmental tax reforms are currently of great interest...

State Sales and Income Taxes.
December 1, 2000... State Sales and Income Taxes. By GEORGE ZODROW. College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 1999. Pp. 204. Suppose you lived in a state, such as Texas, that has a sales tax but no income tax. Would you advocate introducing an income...

The collision of tax and welfare politics: the political history of the earned income tax credit, 1969-99.
December 1, 2000... INTRODUCTION Over the course of the last 30 years, tax expenditures have become increasingly visible components of the U.S. tax-transfer system. Although they do not require annual review by the appropriations process, they are subject...

Making single mothers work: recent tax and welfare policy and its effects.
December 1, 2000... INTRODUCTION Between 1984 and 1996 there were enormous changes in many of the tax and transfer programs that affect single mothers. These changes dramatically increased the incentive to work. Between 1984 and 1996, real dollars received...

The impact of the earned income tax credit and social policy reforms on work, marriage, and living arrangements.
December 1, 2000... INTRODUCTION All social policies create incentives, and most create at least some that are undesirable in the eyes of policymakers. The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is unusual in that it creates sharply different incentives for...

Measuring the effect of the EITC on marriage penalties and bonuses.(earned income tax credit)
December 1, 2000... INTRODUCTION According to the General Accounting Office (1996), there are 59 provisions in the income tax code that either penalize or reward marriage.(1) The presence of marriage penalties and bonuses in the income tax code raises at...

EITC noncompliance: the determinants of the misreporting of children.(earned income tax credit)
December 1, 2000... INTRODUCTION The Earned Income Tax Credit was created in 1975, largely to offset the burden and labor force disincentives associated with Social Security taxes levied on low-income workers.(1) In keeping with these goals, the credit was...

Who are the ineligible EITC recipients?(earned income tax credit)
December 1, 2000... INTRODUCTION This year, 19 million families are expected to receive the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) at a total cost to the federal government of $30 billion (Committee on Ways and Means, 1998; Office of Management and Budget, 2000)....

The EITC: expectation, knowledge, use, and economic and social mobility.(earned income tax credit)
December 1, 2000... INTRODUCTION The largest targeted tax credit program for low-income families is the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). In 1997, the EITC cost the federal government $30.0 billion, more than was spent on food stamps or Temporary Assistance to...

The effects of the earned income credit on the seasonality of household expenditures.
December 1, 2000... INTRODUCTION From humble beginnings in 1975 as a small program designed to offset the payroll taxes paid by low income workers, the Earned Income Credit (EIC) has grown into a major income support program. In 1996, the EIC transferred a...

How families view and use the EITC: advance payment versus lump sum delivery.(earned income tax credit)
December 1, 2000... INTRODUCTION In 1990 and again in 1993, Congress approved significant expansions of the previously modest earned income tax credit (EITC). These increases targeted working families with children. In a 1993 event publicizing the...

The determinants of cross border shopping: implications for tax revenues and institutional change.(Canada)
December 1, 2000... INTRODUCTION In this paper I focus on the determinants of the decision by individuals to cross the border to shop and test the predictions of the model developed for that purpose on Canadian monthly border crossing data for the period...

Do taxes influence where U.S. corporations invest?
December 1, 2000... INTRODUCTION Much of international tax policy rests on judgments regarding the allocation of capital in response to tax differences among alternative locations. A primary objective of this paper is to assess the responsiveness to taxes of...

The treatment of financial services under a broad-based consumption tax.
December 1, 2000... INTRODUCTION Many tax economists, lawyers, and accountants have examined the design of mechanisms with which financial services can be appropriately taxed under a broad-based consumption tax such as a value added tax (VAT). The main...

Elasticity of demand for UK national lottery tickets.
December 1, 2000... INTRODUCTION The UK National Lottery was inaugurated in November, 1994, and immediately became one of the country s principal gambling media, attracting 4.4 bn [pounds sterling]. of revenue in its first year of operation. Similar in format...

Modeling IRA accumulation and withdrawals.
December 1, 2000... INTRODUCTION The Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 changed policy towards Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) in several ways. Income limits that determined eligibility for traditional deductible IRAs were raised, a new backloaded (Roth) IRA...

Estimates of the tax subsidy for employment-related health insurance.
December 1, 2000... INTRODUCTION In the wake of efforts to secure comprehensive reform of the United States health care system, attention has shifted toward reforms that are incremental in nature and that minimize direct government involvement. In this...

Life and death questions about the estate and gift tax.
December 1, 2000... INTRODUCTION The political debate over the U.S. estate tax has become white hot in recent months, filled with moral indignation over compounding a family's grief over the loss of a loved one with a tax, of all things, and with the charge,...

Behavioral responses to the estate tax: inter vivos giving.
December 1, 2000... INTRODUCTION As the description of the estate and gift tax law presented earlier in this volume indicates, the tax burden facing large estates can be great. With marginal tax rates as high as 55 percent, individuals who value the amount...