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Full-Text Articles in Law
Will The Federal Income Tax Have A Bicentennial?, Lawrence A. Zelenak
Will The Federal Income Tax Have A Bicentennial?, Lawrence A. Zelenak
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Debt-Financed Consumption And A Hybrid Income-Consumption Tax, Lawrence A. Zelenak
Debt-Financed Consumption And A Hybrid Income-Consumption Tax, Lawrence A. Zelenak
Faculty Scholarship
The debate between proponents of income taxation and proponents of consumption taxation has focused almost exclusively on the differing treatment of savings under the two tax bases. This is odd, given that income and consumption tax bases also differ in their treatment of debt-financed consumption. This Essay addresses the largely-ignored question of the taxation of debt-financed consumption. It contends that a strong case can be made in favor of a hybrid income-consumption tax base under which taxation is triggered by the earlier of consumption or income, so that both debt-financed consumption and saved income are included in the tax base. …
Tax Policy And Personal Identity Over Time, Lawrence A. Zelenak
Tax Policy And Personal Identity Over Time, Lawrence A. Zelenak
Faculty Scholarship
Tax policy analysts often claim that tax distributional analysis should be based on a lifetime perspective, at least as a theoretical ideal. A prominent argument in favor of a consumption tax base over an income tax base appeals to this lifetime equity perspective, as does the argument for lifetime income averaging under an income tax with progressive marginal rates. These appeals to lifetime equity assume, in most cases without discussion, that personal identity over time is an unproblematic concept, so that the whole-life person is clearly the ideal unit for purposes of distributional analysis. However, the philosopher Derek Parfit claims …