Law Commons^™

Breaking The Glass Slipper: Reflections On The Self-Employment Tax, Patricia E. Dilley

UF Law Faculty Publications

Lawmakers and their staffs, in drafting tax legislation, often resemble Prince Charming looking for Cinderella with that glass slipper in hand -- rather than start from scratch and draft a completely new tax provision. It is frequently easier, faster, and more reassuring to taxpayers and tax practitioners to use an existing statute or approach and simply amend it slightly to make it fit the need of the new provision. However, problems can arise from this approach.

In the original Grimm Brothers' version of the Cinderella story, for example, the wicked stepsisters were each so anxious to be the chosen one …

Taking Public Rights Private: The Rhetoric And Reality Of Social Security Privatization, Patricia E. Dilley

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Article explores the foundations of the Social Security privatization debate. What is frequently portrayed as a numbers problem to which a "correct" answer can be found is in fact an ideological and political argument about wealth building versus direct income support and about the reality and security of public entitlement as opposed to private property rights. Efforts to use the idea of private property as the basis of rights in the context of the Social Security system and other non-retirement social welfare programs have proven problematic. This Article suggests that Social Security, far from being a quaint, retrograde souvenir …

Social Security Reform: Risks, Returns, And Race, Dorothy A. Brown, Karen C. Burke, Grayson M.P. Mccouch

UF Law Faculty Publications

The debate over social security reform has far-reaching implications for the economic well-being of blacks and other minority groups. In this article, we examine how blacks have fared under the existing system, and then consider the likely consequences of moving toward a privatized system. Specifically, we consider the claim, recently advanced by some privatizers, that blacks receive an especially "bad deal" under the existing system and would be better off under a privatized system. We find that, for blacks as a group, this claim tends to overstate both the shortcomings of the existing system and the advantages of privatization. Furthermore, …