In A Good Tax, tax expert Joan Youngman skillfully considers how to improve the operation of the property tax and supply the information that is often missing in public debate. She analyzes the legal, administrative, and political challenges to the property tax in the United States and offers recommendations for its improvement. The book is accessibly written for policy analysts and public officials who are dealing with specific property tax issues and for those concerned with property tax issues in general.

The debates about the what, who, and how of tax policy are at the core of politics, policy, and economics. The Economics of Tax Policy provides a straightforward overview of recent research in the economics of taxation. Tax policies generate considerable debate among the public, policymakers, and scholars. These disputes have grown more heated in the United States as the incomes of the wealthiest 1 percent and the rest of the population continue to diverge. This important volume enhances understanding of the implications of taxation on behavior and social outcomes by having leading scholars evaluate key topics in tax policy. These include how changes to the individual income tax affect long-term economic growth; the challenges of tax administration, compliance, and enforcement; and environmental taxation and its effects on tax revenue, pollution emissions, economic efficiency, and income distribution. Also explored are tax expenditures, which are subsidy programs in the form of tax deductions, exclusions, credits, or favorable rates; how college attendance is influenced by tax credits and deductions for tuition and fees, tax-advantaged college savings plans, and student loan interest deductions; and how tax policy toward low-income families takes a number of forms with different distributional effects. Among the most contentious issues explored are influences of capital gains and estate taxation on the long term concentration of wealth; the interaction of tax policy and retirement savings and how policy can "nudge" improved planning for retirement; and how the reform of corporate and business taxation is central to current tax policy debates in the United States. By providing overviews of recent advances in thinking about how taxes relate to behavior and social goals, The Economics of Tax Policy helps inform the debate.

The official account of the advisory panel formed by Presi-dent George W. Bush to identify major problems in the U.S.Federal Tax Code and to recommend options to make the codesimpler, fairer and more conducive to economic growth. Thepanel's report was submitted to U.S. Secretary of the Trea-sury John W. Snow on Nov. 1, 2005. Chaired by Connie MackIII, the panel recommended 2 reform options: the SimplifiedIncome Tax Plan & the Growth & Investment Tax Plan.

An economist examines the evolution of optimal tax analysis and its influence on tax policy design. Many things inform a country's choice of tax system, including political considerations, public opinion, bureaucratic complexities, and ideas drawn from theoretical analysis. In this book, Robin Boadway examines the role of optimal tax analysis in informing and influencing tax policy design. Scholars of public economics formulate models of optimal tax-transfer systems based on normative principles that reflect efficiency and equity considerations. They use that analysis to form views about the optimal design or reform of actual tax systems that are much more complicated than their models. Boadway argues that there is an important symbiosis between ideas drawn from normative tax analysis and tax policies actually enacted. Ideas germinated by normative analyses have led to the widespread adoption of the value-added tax, the use of refundable tax credits, and various business tax reforms. Other ideas provide rationales for existing features of tax systems, including the tax treatment of retirement savings and human capital investment. Boadway charts the evolution of optimal tax analysis and discusses the lessons it holds for tax policy. He describes the theoretical challenges posed by recent findings in such fields as behavioral economics and social choice and considers how optimal tax analysis might adapt to these new paradigms. His analysis offers a timely assessment of the role that optimal tax theory has played in establishing the principles that continue to inform tax policy.

Taxes are an inescapable part of life. They are perhaps the most economically consequential aspect of the relationship between individuals and their government. Understanding tax development and implementation, not to mention the political forces involved, is critical to fully appreciating and critiquing that relationship. Tax Politics and Policy offers a comprehensive survey of taxation in the United States. It explores competing theories of taxation’s role in civil society; investigates the evolution and impact of taxes on income, consumption, and assets; and highlights the role of interest groups in tax policy. This is the first book to include a separate look at "sin" taxes on tobacco, alcohol, marijuana, and sugar. The book concludes with a look at tax reform ideas, both old and new. This book is written for a broad audience—from upper-level undergraduates to graduate students in public policy, public administration, political science, economics, and related fields—and anyone else that has ever paid taxes.

A journalist, educator, and lawyer specializing in tax and government issues discusses the issues political leaders face when developing and implementing state tax policy, particularly basic state tax concepts, the political and theoretical issues involved, and the major policy issues facing state governments. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

Of current theories of the incidence of the major state and local taxes, assessment of the capacity of state and local governments to carry their debt burdens, and discussion of the property tax system and the state and local retirement system. Two chapters are devoted to the intergovernmental transfers.