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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Missing U.S. Vat: Economic Inequality, American Fiscal Exceptionalism, And The Historical U.S. Resistance To National Consumption Taxes, Ajay K. Mehrotra
The Missing U.S. Vat: Economic Inequality, American Fiscal Exceptionalism, And The Historical U.S. Resistance To National Consumption Taxes, Ajay K. Mehrotra
Northwestern University Law Review
Since the 1970s, economic inequality has soared dramatically across the globe and particularly in the United States. In that time, one of the obstacles of using fiscal policy to address inequality has been the growing myth of the “overtaxed American”—the misguided notion that U.S. taxpayers pay more in taxes than residents of other advanced, industrialized countries. This myth has persisted, in part, because of the peculiar and distinctive nature of the fractured American fiscal and social welfare state. Even a cursory review of comparative tax data shows that the United States, by most measures, is a low-tax country compared to …
Racialized Tax Inequity: Wealth, Racism, And The U.S. System Of Taxation, Palma Joy Strand, Nicholas A. Mirkay
Racialized Tax Inequity: Wealth, Racism, And The U.S. System Of Taxation, Palma Joy Strand, Nicholas A. Mirkay
Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy
This Article describes the connection between wealth inequality and the increasing structural racism in the U.S. tax system since the 1980s. A long-term sociological view (the why) reveals the historical racialization of wealth and a shift in the tax system overall beginning around 1980 to protect and exacerbate wealth inequality, which has been fueled by racial animus and anxiety. A critical tax view (the how) highlights a shift over the same time period at both federal and state levels from taxes on wealth, to taxes on income, and then to taxes on consumption—from greater to less progressivity. Both of these …
Finding The Pearl In The Oyster: Supercharging Ipos Through Tax Receivable Agreements, Christopher B. Grady
Finding The Pearl In The Oyster: Supercharging Ipos Through Tax Receivable Agreements, Christopher B. Grady
Northwestern University Law Review
A new, “supercharged” form of IPO has slowly developed over the last twenty years. This new form of IPO takes advantage of several seemingly unrelated provisions of the tax code to multiply pre-IPO owners’ proceeds from a public offering without reducing the amount public investors are willing to pay for the stock. Supercharged IPOs use a tax receivable agreement to transfer tax assets created by the IPO back to the pre-IPO ownership, “monetizing” the tax assets. As these structures have become more efficient, commentators have expressed concerns that these agreements deceive shareholders who either ignore or do not understand the …