Law Commons^™

Repeal Tax Incentives For Esops, Andrew Stumpff, Norman Stein

Norman P. Stein

The proposal would repeal special tax incentives given to employee stock ownership plans, as well as the exemption granted to those plans from the investment diversification requirement of the ERISA.

The proposal is made as a part of the Shelf Project, a collaboration among tax professionals to develop - and perfect proposals to help Congress when it is ready to raise revenue. Shelf Project proposals are intended to raise revenue without raising rates because the best systems have the lowest feasible tax rates and taxes that are unavoidable. Shelf projects defend the tax base and improve the rationality and efficiency …

Leverage, Linkage, And Leakage: Problems With The Private Pension System And How They Should Inform The Social Security Reform Debate, Norman Stein

Norman P. Stein

The problems of the private sector retirement system should be considered in the debate over whether to introduce individual investment accounts into social security. The paper considers three problems of the private pension system, leverage, linkage, and leakage. By leverage the paper refers to the common understanding that the tax treatment of private pension plans is intended to leverage the qualified-plan tax benefits for business owners and managers through regulation into benefits for lower and moderate income workers. By linkage, the paper refers to the idea that it is desirable for participant benefit expectations to be linked to the actual …