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Full-Text Articles in Law

Paying To Save: Tax Withholding And Asset Allocation Among Low- And Moderate-Income Taxpayers, Michael S. Barr, Jane Dokko Nov 2007

Paying To Save: Tax Withholding And Asset Allocation Among Low- And Moderate-Income Taxpayers, Michael S. Barr, Jane Dokko

Law & Economics Working Papers Archive: 2003-2009

We analyze the phenomenon that low- and moderate-income (LMI) tax filers exhibit a “preference for over-withholding” their taxes, a measure we derive from a unique set of questions administered in a dataset of 1,003 households, which we collected through the Survey Research Center at the University of Michigan. We argue that the relationship between their withholding preference and portfolio allocation across liquid and illiquid assets is consistent with models with present-biased preferences, and that individuals exhibit self-control problems when making their consumption and saving decisions. Our results support a model in which individuals use commitment devices to constrain their consumption. …


Time To Step Up: Modeling The African American Ethnivestor For Self-Help Entrepreneurship In Urban America, Roger M. Groves Jan 2007

Time To Step Up: Modeling The African American Ethnivestor For Self-Help Entrepreneurship In Urban America, Roger M. Groves

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

When the United States Congress passed legislation in late 2000 to revitalize the urban core with incentives for equity investors, African Americans were inconspicuously absent as stakeholders in the enterprise. Subsidies in the form of tax credits were instead gobbled up by investor groups who developed upscale hotel-convention centers, high priced condominiums, and symphony orchestra venues that the pre-existing poor residents could not afford. The focus of this Article is not to blame those investors who took advantage of the opportunity, though they perverted the purpose of the subsidy. Rather, this Article seeks to identify a new substrata of the …


Banking The Poor: Overcoming The Financial Services Mismatch, Michael S. Barr Jan 2007

Banking The Poor: Overcoming The Financial Services Mismatch, Michael S. Barr

Book Chapters

Low-income households often lack access to bank accounts and face high costs for transacting basic financial services through check cashers and other alternative financial service providers. Twenty-two percent of low- and moderateincome American households do not have a checking or savings account. Many other "underbanked" families have bank accounts but still rely on high-cost financial services. These households find it more difficult to save and plan financially for the future. Living paycheck to paycheck leaves them vulnerable to medical or job emergencies that may endanger their financial stability, and lack of longer-term savings undermines their ability to improve skills, purchase …


Nsf Fees, James J. White Jan 2007

Nsf Fees, James J. White

Articles

Overdraft fees now make up more than half of banks' earnings on consumer checking accounts. In the past century, overdrafts have gone from the banker's scourge to the banker's profit center as bankers have learned that there is much to be made on these short term loans at breathtaking interest rates. I note that the federal agencies have been complicit in the growth of this form of lending. I propose that the banks and the agencies recognize the reality and attempt to mitigate these rates by encouraging the development of a competitive market.


An Inclusive, Progressive National Savings And Financial Services Policy, Michael S. Barr Jan 2007

An Inclusive, Progressive National Savings And Financial Services Policy, Michael S. Barr

Articles

How many of us walk by the signs for "Checks Cashed Here," "Money Orders for Sale," and "Payday Loans: Get Cash Quick" without thinking about the implications of those signs for the daily lives of lower-income households? Most of us can take for granted getting our paychecks directly deposited into our bank accounts, writing a check, or storing our money in an account. We often struggle to save for longer-term goals, such as our children's education, or retirement, but most of us, most of the time, do not worry whether our savings or insurance will be enough to get us …


Stapled Securities--"The Next Big Thing" For Income Trusts? Useful Lessons From The Us Experience With Stapled Shares, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Tim Edgar, Fadi Shaheen Jan 2007

Stapled Securities--"The Next Big Thing" For Income Trusts? Useful Lessons From The Us Experience With Stapled Shares, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Tim Edgar, Fadi Shaheen

Articles

The Department of Finance has introduced two separate sets of legislation that together attempt to limit demand in the income trust market (though with very different revenue consequences). However, neither the proposed legislation nor the existing Income Tax Act contains an equity recharacterization rule. Consequently, the tax results associated with the standard income trust and royalty trust structures can still be realized with direct holding structures, in which the use of a trust as a pooling mechanism is eliminated and investors hold directly a combination of high-yield junk debt and a specified number of shares of the issuer. Until now, …


Impediments To Financial Development In The Banking Sector: A Comparison Of The Impact Of Federalism In The United States And Germany, Khalil Nicholas Maalouf Jan 2007

Impediments To Financial Development In The Banking Sector: A Comparison Of The Impact Of Federalism In The United States And Germany, Khalil Nicholas Maalouf

Michigan Journal of International Law

This Note examines how differences in U.S. and German variants of federalism have contributed to the formation and development of the dual banking system in the United States and the three-pillar banking system in Germany. Specifically, this Note considers the manner in which federalism has informed the respective banking systems' reactions to dynamic changes in the global banking industry and analyzes the role federalism has played in contributing to or impeding reform efforts in the United States and Germany.