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Certain Effects Of Random Taxes, James R. Hines Jr., Michael J. Keen
Certain Effects Of Random Taxes, James R. Hines Jr., Michael J. Keen
Articles
This paper explores the implications of tax rate randomness, identifying circumstances in which revenue-neutral rate variability increases profitability, economic activity, and the efficiency of resource allocation. Furthermore, with heterogeneous taxpayers, tax rate variability is shown to perform an efficiency-enhancing screening function, imposing heavier expected tax burdens on less responsive taxpayers. And while efficient tax randomness enables governments to reduce average costs of taxation, it necessarily increases the marginal cost of taxation over some ranges of expected revenue, so may reduce efficient levels of government spending.
Stanley Surrey, The Code And The Regime, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Nir Fishbien
Stanley Surrey, The Code And The Regime, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Nir Fishbien
Articles
Stanley Surrey (1910-1984) was arguably the most important tax scholar of his generation. Surrey was a rare combination of an academic (Berkeley and Harvard law schools, 1947-1961 and 1969-1981) and a government official (Tax Legislative Counsel, 1942-1947; Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy, 1961-1969). Today he is mostly remembered for inventing the concept of tax expenditures and the tax expenditure budget. This paper will argue that while Surrey was influential in shaping domestic tax policy for a generation and had an impact after his death on the Tax Reform Act of 1986, his longest lasting contributions were in shaping the international …