Law Commons^™

Tax Stories And Tax Histories: Is There A Role For History In Shaping Tax Law?, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Reviews

The teaching of law is usually rather ahistorical. Teachers commonly focus on current doctrine and policy debates, discarding on the "garbage pile of history" any law that has been repealed or superseded. And yet, much of law teaching is still based on reading cases. And cases are by definition historical artifacts - they arise from a specific time and place, and reflect a frequently long-gone historical context. Thus, it is hard to imagine a modern law course completely devoid of history, even if the history gets short shrift. A constitutional law course, for example, will likely include some discussion of …

Why Tax The Rich? Efficiency, Equity, And Progressive Taxation, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Reviews

In Greek mythology, Atlas was a giant who carried the world on his shoulders. In Ayn Rand’s 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged, Atlas represents the “ prime movers”—the talented few who bear the weight of the world’s economy.1 In the novel, the prime movers go on strike against the oppressive burden of excessive regulation and taxation, leaving the world in disarray and demonstrating how indispensable they are to the rest of us (the “second handers” ).

If Taxpayers Can't Be Fooled, Maybe Congress Can: A Public Choice Perspective On The Tax Transition Debate, Kyle D. Logue

Reviews

In When Rules Change: An Economic and Political Analysis of Transition Relief and Retroactivity , Shaviro takes the various strands of the existing literature on retroactivity and weaves them together, applying his unique combination of legal expertise, political pragmatism, and theoretical sophistication in public finance economics as well as political science. The result is a subtle, balanced, and scholarly treatise on transition relief and retroactivity that should serve as the starting point for all future research in the field. In its stated objectives, the book is admirably ambitious.

This Review will, in a broad sense, follow Shaviro's characterization of the …