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To Praise The Estate Tax, Not To Bury It, Michael J. Graetz
To Praise The Estate Tax, Not To Bury It, Michael J. Graetz
Faculty Scholarship
For several decades, total revenues raised by estate and gift taxes have roughly equaled those raised by excise taxes on alcohol and tobacco. Yet no law journal has ever asked me to write on alcohol or tobacco excise taxes. The law firms of America do not routinely have divisions devoted to excise tax planning. We do not hear of the suffering of widows and orphans (or even of farmers and small businesses) because of alcohol and tobacco taxes. Philosophers and economists do not routinely debate the merits of such taxes. Perhaps most significantly, increases in such excise taxes do not …
The 1982 Minimum Tax Amendments As A First Step In The Transition To A "Flat-Rate" Tax, Michael J. Graetz
The 1982 Minimum Tax Amendments As A First Step In The Transition To A "Flat-Rate" Tax, Michael J. Graetz
Faculty Scholarship
The massive body of tax legislation enacted in the first two years of the Reagan Administration offers little guidance for predicting the future direction of United States tax policy. Dramatically different Congressional coalitions – each led by the President – passed by very narrow margins the nation's largest tax reduction (the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981) and then the next year enacted the largest peacetime tax increase (the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982). In each case, short-term political and fiscal concerns dominated the debates. The 1981 legislation reduced taxes in an effort to stimulate economic activity …