National Tax Journal articles from September 2001

National Tax Journal archives from September 2001

The 2001 tax legislation from a long-term perspective.
September 1, 2001... INTRODUCTION Let me try to give a somewhat different, longer-term perspective on the meaning of this tax cut. I want to address three issues. The first is the size of the bill relative to others in recent history and relative to total tax...

Taxes and charitable giving.
September 1, 2001... INTRODUCTION Incentives to donate to charity have existed in the tax code almost as long as the income tax itself. The most well-known incentive reduces the cost of charitable contributions by allowing those taxpayers who itemize expenses...

Tax reductions, tax changes, and the marriage penalty.
September 1, 2001... INTRODUCTION One aspect of the federal personal income tax system that has been widely regarded as unfair, by legislators from both sides of the aisle, is the so-called "marriage penalty" or "marriage tax." A marriage penalty or tax occurs...

First, do no harm: designing tax incentives for health insurance.
September 1, 2001... INTRODUCTION As part of his 2001 Budget, President Bush proposed a refundable tax credit in an effort to help the nearly 18 percent of non-elderly Americans who lack health insurance coverage. His goal of expanding access to insurance...

Total corporate taxation: "hidden," above-the-line, non-income taxes.
September 1, 2001... INTRODUCTION The current U.S. tax system relies heavily on corporations not only to pay income taxes, but also to pay and collect excise, payroll, property, and sales taxes. Much of the focus of corporation tax policy and planning has been...

Fiscal competition or harmonization? Some reflections.
September 1, 2001... INTRODUCTION The issue of economic competition among governments is a contentious one on both sides of the Atlantic. In the U.S., there is an often-voiced concern that competition among state and local governments, making use both of...

Whither tax depreciation?
September 1, 2001... INTRODUCTION In 1986, tax depreciation and other investment subsidies were reformed with a view to bringing effective and statutory tax rates for assets of different durabilities closer together, or at least as close as feasible given the...

Financing new school construction and modernization: evidence from Cafifornia.
September 1, 2001... INTRODUCTION Recently, there has been a resurgence of interest in the way state and local governments finance new school construction and modernization. This renewed interest reflects two general concerns about school facility finance....

State policy under devolution: redistribution and centralization.
September 1, 2001... INTRODUCTION In his book, Disunited States, John Donahue (1997) argues that devolution of governmental responsibility from federal to state and local governments will create a more uneven and competitive landscape between states and...

Sales tax incentives for economic development: why shouldn't production exemptions be general?
September 1, 2001... INTRODUCTION One great puzzle of state tax policy is why broad exclusion of production inputs from the sales tax is so difficult to accomplish even as states aggressively seek economic development and expansion by reducing taxes paid by...

Wealth transfer tax repeal: some thoughts on policy and planning.
September 1, 2001... INTRODUCTORY REMARKS AND BACKGROUND With the election of George W. Bush, the trusts and estates community must realistically face the prospect of an outright repeal of the wealth transfer (i.e., estate and gift) tax system. In the comments...

Restructuring estate and gift taxes.
September 1, 2001... INTRODUCTION As more details of the Administration's proposal to phase out the death tax have become public, the advantages and disadvantages of repeal compared to other methods of restructuring estate and gift taxes have been the subject...

Rhetoric and economics in the estate tax debate.
September 1, 2001... INTRODUCTION Economists often bemoan the apparent lack of sophistication in policy debates, where loose rhetoric too often drives out objective economic thinking. However, economic theory and evidence cannot fully resolve most policy...

Choosing between an income tax and a wealth transfer tax.
September 1, 2001... INTRODUCTION The year was 1926, exactly 75 years ago, the last time the federal estate tax was slated for repeal. Considerable opposition rose against taxation amidst budget surpluses. In that year, income and estate tax rates were...

Social insecurity? The effects of equity investments on social security finances.
September 1, 2001... INTRODUCTION Analyses of the effects of equity investments on Social Security finances often focus on the higher expected mean outcome without sufficient attention to the range of probable outcomes. Since equity investments have...

Who takes advantage of tax-deferred saving programs? Evidence from federal income tax data.
September 1, 2001... INTRODUCTION Over the past few years, a number of legislative packages have focused on expanding participation in, and increasing contributions to, tax-deferred retirement savings programs. These proposals included, among other things,...

The taxation of retirement saving: choosing between front-loaded and back-loaded options.(Symposium: Regulation by Litigation, Sponsored by Wiggin & Dana)
September 1, 2001... INTRODUCTION In the United States, most tax incentives for saving are "front-loaded." In a front-loaded plan, contributions are tax-deductible, the account balances accrue tax-free, and qualified withdrawals are taxed as ordinary income....