Taxation Commons^™

A Review And Critique Of Selected Problem Areas From The Tax Reform Act Of 1976, Neil E. Harl, Michael D. Boehlje

Neil E. Harl

Rarely has agriculture enjoyed the attention it received in the Tax Reform Act of 1976. In addition to various provisions narrowing the scope of tax shelter opportunities, Congressional attention was drawn to the federal estate tax concerns that were believed to be unique to agriculture and other small firms. As a result, legislation was enacted providing two new methods for valuing land, an expanded and more attractive installment option or paying the federal estate tax attributable to a qualifying business, a new rule for taxing post-1976 joint tenancies at death,— an opportunity to continue "Section 303" stock redemptions for the ...

"Use" Valuation Under The 1976 Tax Reform Act: Problems And Implications, Michael D. Boehlje, Neil E. Harl

Neil E. Harl

With the rapid rise in farmland*values during recent years, farmers and farm organizations have argued that land values have little relationship to agricultural productivity. The fact that farmers have been the dominant purchasers in the farm real estate market during this period of time would seem to discredit this argument to some degree, but public officials have been sympathetic to the farmers' arguments. Some state legislatures, particularly in areas o f the country where urban expansion has placed upward pressures on land values, have adopted procedures to value farmland based on its agricultural productivity for purposes of assessing property ...

Rich Have Responsibility To Give Back, Aaron W. Hughey

Aaron W. Hughey

No abstract provided.

The Marriage Tax: A Social And Fiscal Policy Reversal For U.S. Family Taxation, Anthony J. Cataldo Ii, Kevin E. Flynn, John S. Dejoy

Kevin Flynn

No abstract provided.

A Preliminary Analysis Of Shifting State Tax Policy In Iowa To Minimize Federal Income Tax Liability Of Iowa Taxpayers, Mark A. Edelman Dr.

Mark Edelman

Because of recent state budget deficit concerns, a study to examine innovative ways of reducing the state budget deficit by shifting state tax mix to minimize Federal Income Tax liability of Iowans was conceived on November 27, 1991. On the surface this concept appeared to have significant merit. In fact, several colleagues, policy analysts, economists, lawyers and interest group representatives, after hearing the concept indicated strong encouragement that the concept should be studied further.

A Preliminary Analysis Of The Proposed 1998 Taxpayers' Right Amendments To The Iowa Constitution And Fiscal Consequences Assuming Implementation From Fy1984 To Present, Mark A. Edelman Dr.

Mark Edelman

This staff paper-reviews the Senate (SSB2072) anU House (HSB688) versions of'a proposed 1998 Amendment.to the Iowa Constitution and.provides a preliminary analysis of the fiscal impacts'on the,state general fund receipts, general fund appropriations, and local property^taxes assuming each proposal was implemented in FY1984. While the year-to-year reductions in spending are relatively small,the cumulative fiscal impact of the SSB2072 would likely have resulted in (1) a FY1997 state general-fund limit that allows 32 percent less spending'than•actual FY1997, (2) a $710-million reduction in the growth of state aid-to local government; and (3)'a29.7 ...

A Preliminary Assessment Of The Annual Conservation And Land Preservation Tax Concept, Mark A. Edelman

Mark Edelman

This staff paper provides (1) a summary of the proposed bill regarding the annual conservation and land preservation tax concept, (2) observations and a preliminary assessment of the impacts, and (3) an outline of potential issues, considerations, and related alternative concepts that policymakers, interest groups and citizens may wish to consider during the course of debate on the proposal. Ideas and concepts discussed in this staff paper should not be considered recommendation, but rather fodder consisting of alternative ideas to fully inform and assist policymakers in making informed choices and reducing unintended consequences.

Assessment Limits And Timing Of Real Estate Transactions, Sebastien J. Bradley

Sebastien J Bradley

Corporate Tax Inversions: A Brief Overview, Hannah J. Mueller

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The purpose of this report is to give a brief overview of corporate tax inversions and how policymakers are attempting to curb these efforts. The U.S. Treasury is starting to feel the effects of these inversions through decreased tax revenue as they have become more common for U.S. corporations. It is important for businesspersons to analyze this argument from both sides in order to better serve their clients. Corporations feel that an inversion is necessary in order to save money in taxes and maintain competitiveness in the global market. The government insists that corporations are taking advantage of ...

Efficiency Of Decoupled Farm Programs Under Distortionary Taxation, Giancarlo Moschini, Paolo Sckokai

Giancarlo Moschini

When lump-sum taxation is not feasible, decoupled transfers to farmers (which require raising government revenue) will entail welfare loss somewhere in the economy. Assuming the government's objective is to assure a given welfare level for farmers, we show that when decoupling is possible, free trade is always superior to some tariff protection for a small country, even under Distortionary taxation. As expected, for a large country there is scope for an optimal tariff policy that improves the terms of trade. However, we show a separation between the exercise of market power through an optimal tariff, and the interaction of ...

Social Security Taxation And Intergenerational Risk Sharing, Walter Enders, Harvey E. Lapan

Harvey Lapan

The life cycle hypothesis has become the dominant mode used to analyze the effects of a social security system on private saving, the labor/leisure choice, and social welfare. As both Barro and Samuelson indicate, a fully funded Social Security program (in a world of certainty) would drive out an equivalent amount of private saving. If the interest rate is r, the effects of a payment of a dollar into the social security pool while young would just offset* the effects of receiving (1+r) dollars as a transfer when retired. Papers by Diamond, Hi», and Samuelson, among others, have ...

Trade Policy And Time Consistency In An Oligopsonistic World Market, Jean-Philippe Gervais, Harvey E. Lapan

Harvey Lapan

This paper investigates the strategic behavior between countries that have purchasing power on the world market for a certain good. Tariffs and quotas are not equivalent protection instruments in this oligopsonistic market. Policy active importers would be better off by colluding and setting their trade instrument cooperatively. In a non-cooperative setting, if production decisions occur before consumption decisions, the ex-ante optimal policy is not time consistent because the ex-post elasticity of the residual foreign export supply curve is lower than the ex-ante elasticity. However, we show that the importers' inability to irrevocably commit to their trade instrument may be welfare ...

Social Security Taxation When Benefits Are Tied To Contributions, Walter Enders, Harvey E. Lapan

Harvey Lapan

There is a substantial body of literature addressing the issue of optimal Social Security taxation. The most common theme in this literature concerns the optimal Social Security tax in a growing economy. For example, papers by Diamond (1965), Samuelson (1975), and Hu (1979) demonstrate that a Social Security tax can alter the private sector's saving behavior. As such, Social Security can be used as a policy tool to change the economy's capital/labor ratio and the economy's growth path. The optimal Social Security tax is that which brings about the most preferred growth path. For an economy ...

Monopoly Power In Domestic Production, Smuggling, And The Non-Equivalence Between Tariffs And Quotas, Harvey E. Lapan, Bruno Larue

Harvey Lapan

During the last thirty years, one of the most popular research topics in international trade has been the non-equivalence among policy instruments such as specific and ad valorem import tariffs, voluntary export restraints and import quotas. The non-equivalence principle was shown to hold under revenue/rent seeking behavior (Vousden, 1990), under uncertainty (Young and Anderson, 1982), and in the presence of retaliation (Melvin, 1986; Syropoulos, 1994). Furthermore, it has been shown that different policy instruments have different effects on the stability of world prices (Zwart and Blandford, 1989) in addition to having different effects on the quality/composition of imports ...

Endogenous Labor Supply, Rigid Factor Prices And A Second Best Solution, Harvey E. Lapan

Harvey Lapan

The conventional wisdom asserts that distortions due to factor price rigidities should be eliminated by subsidies. However, we argue that the success of this policy rests upon the fact that the return to the factor is a pure rent. If factor supply is endogenous, then subsidies to employers and taxes on factor owners are needed to support the optimal solution. Since we believe this policy combination works only by assuming away the problem, we then devise a model to study the optimal policies in a second best world. Our results show that, in general, both factor subsidies (or taxes) and ...

Differential Effects Of Monetary Policy On The U.S. Agricultural And Nonagricultural Sectors, Wallace E. Huffman, Suchada V. Langley

Wallace Huffman

The possible adverse effects of monetary policy on the agricultural sector have been the focus of several recent papers (e.g., Johnson, 1980; Gardner, 1981; Chambers, 1984; Starleaf et al. 1985; Falk et al. 1985; and Rausser, 1985). Rausser (1985) and Staraoulis et al. (1985) have hypothesized that raacroeconoraic externalities are imposed upon agriculture because prices are relatively sticky in the nonagricultural sector.

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Tax Psychology And The Timing Of Charitable-Giving Deadlines, Alex Rees-Jones, Dimitry Taubinsky

Finance Papers

This brief discusses the timing of the charitable-giving tax deduction deadline, evaluated in light of recent evidence from the behavioral public finance literature. We discuss how tax salience, inattention, and aversion to taxes interact with different possible deadlines. We present several arguments in favor of moving the charitable-giving deadline to tax day.

Obstacles To Tax Reform: Income Definition And Capital Gains Taxation, Nicholas Santosuosso

Honors Senior Capstone Projects

The Great Recession of 2007-2009 sparked widespread economic anxiety among the American public while setting the tone for the debate over economic policy to capture center stage in the 2012 Presidential election cycle. Concern over growing budget deficits and wealth concentration in the wake of the Recession caused much of this attention to shift onto the fiscal policy of the United States. Public dissatisfaction with the federal income tax code remains pervasive today, and 72 percent of Americans believe that the tax system needs either a major or complete overhaul, according to Pew Research Center (Doherty 2013). Support for such ...

America's Tax System And How To Fix It, Brendan O. Smith

Senior Honors Theses

Abraham Lincoln signed into law the first national income tax on August 5, 1861. Since 1913, the content of the Internal Revenue Code has increased from the 27-page tax law of that year to over 5000 pages today. As time has passed and the length of this document has increased, so has the expense and complexity of abiding by its statutes. The inefficiencies of the current system indicate that something must be done about the United States tax system, but no one has agreed on what to do. Many proposals to correct the problem have been brought forward over the ...