Law Commons^™

The Payroll Tax Liabilities Of Low And Middle Income Taxpayers, Deborah A. Geier

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

This 2005 article explores how using the "average" increase in wages rather than the "median" increase in wages to determine the yearly increase in the payroll tax wage bases - at a time of increasing inequality - has contributed markedly to the increased tax burden on labor income of the poor and middle classes.

Incremental Versus Fundamental Tax Reform And The Top One Percent, Deborah A. Geier

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

This article describes the historical shift from consumption taxation at the federal level to income taxation with the enactment of the 16th amendment (the intent of which was chiefly to tax the capital income of the wealthy) and the incremental shifts since then back toward consumption taxation (which frees capital from tax) through expansion of both the payroll taxes as well as the consumption tax features of our current hybrid income/consumption tax that target the middle class.

It then addresses the issue of whether we ought to expand consumption tax treatment to the very wealthy by reviewing two recently published …

Reflections On The Tax Reform Act Of 1976, Stanley S. Surrey

Cleveland State Law Review

What should be said in concluding these reflections on the 1976 Tax Reform Act? Overall the verdict must be on the plus side. The Act does achieve reforms in a number of areas and the serious setbacks are relatively few. The credit goes to the reform groups on the Tax Committees and in the Congress, the Budget Committees and the Congressional Budget Office, the Joint Committee Staff, the few public interest groups, the dogged efforts of a few tax reform-minded Representatives and Senators, and in ways not really fully fathomable, to the efforts, differently pursued, of Chairman Ullman and Chairman …