Law Commons^™

Framing Middle-Class Insecurity: Tax And The Ideology Of Unequal Economic Growth, Martha T. Mccluskey

Journal Articles

Prevailing tax discourse rationalizes growing economic inequality. Using the example of state and local economic development “subsidy wars,” this article explores how conventional tax ideas present unequal sacrifice and risk as a public responsibility, driven by economic fact rather than unjust politics.

Over the last several decades, one contributing cause of inequality has been the escalating tax and spending incentives offered by local governments to attract private business investment. This competition operates to favor wealthy corporations over small businesses, without producing broad or lasting economic gains to communities, and it erodes resources for public education, infrastructure, social services, health care, …

Taxing Family Work: Aid For Affluent Husband Care, Martha T. Mccluskey

Journal Articles

The income of the classic breadwinner married to a homemaker receives a tax advantage under federal income tax law. The conventional wisdom holds that any resulting inequities to unmarried persons or dual-earning marriages cannot be corrected without producing similarly problematic inequities. This Article challenges that dilemma by analyzing the inequity of the marital tax system from a new perspective. This Article argues that the perceived "bonus" for breadwinner-homemaker marriages is best understood as an implicit policy of "aid for affluent husband care." Recent tax reforms (up for renewal in 2010) that partly reduced the "marriagep enalty "for some dualearning couples …