How Much Does the Federal Government Spend to Promote Economic Mobility and for Whom?

Tracks and projects federal expenditures and tax subsidies aimed at enhancing economic mobility, such as employer-related work subsidies, homeownership, savings and investment incentives, and education and training, and who benefits from them

Aging in Japan

In this paper, Dr. Ibe addresses some of the problems confronting Japan today, among them pensions, long-term care, housing policies and the legal system. Of surprise to a reader from the West who may assume that Asia is still under the influence of Confucian rules of filial duty is Dr. Ibe's contention that "there is almost no continuity of values between the old and young." He is particularly concerned about the decline in births, and what he regards as the loss of "self confidence" on the part of Japanese men

Charitable Giving and Utilitarianism: Problems and Priorities

Charitable giving is redistributive at heart. It is thus surprising that scholarship on the charitable tax subsidies focuses on the efficient and pluralistic production of public goods while largely ignoring distributive justice concerns. Existing scholarship and current law leave crucial questions unanswered: How should we prioritize among charities? Should subsidized groups be required to help the poor? Are criticisms that charities do too little to help the poor valid? This Article is part of a series that examines how each common theory of distributive justice would answer these questions. More specifically, this Article explores utilitarianism and the charitable tax subsidies using the definitions of “utility” most common in legal scholarship: income, happiness, preference satisfaction, and objective-list well-being. It demonstrates that a careful application of utilitarianism as used by tax scholars (which equates income with utility) suggests that charities assisting the underprivileged deserve special treatment. This contrasts with the current structure, which does not prioritize such organizations, and contradicts the conventional wisdom concerning utilitarianism and charitable giving. Initially, other interpretations of utilitarianism common in the legal literature (focusing on preference satisfaction, subjective well-being, and objective lists) appear to support the conventional wisdom that groups assisting the poor are not special. Each of these approaches, however, has intrinsic drawbacks when it comes to prioritizing among organizations and answering the recurring distributional questions facing the non-profit sector. But viewing these approaches together highlights a commonality: donative organizations that help the poor likely enhance welfare under all of the common welfare-based theories of justice. This is also true of traditional income-based utilitarianism, the leximin, and the most common equality of opportunity theories. This overlap suggests that tax policy should favor such groups, thus reconciling distributional concerns with pluralism by emphasizing what various moral theories have in common

Issues in income tax reform in developing countries

Of all taxes, income taxes are the most difficult to implement. Developing countries are usually able to generate large amounts of income tax revenue only from large corporations or foreign investments. They are rarely effective in taxing wealthy individuals or small or medium-size businesses. Using recent tax reforms in Jamaica, Indonesia, and elsewhere as examples, the paper discusses the pros and cons of specific tax reform elements. It summarizes the major issues typically faced in reforming income taxes in developing countries. More revenue, increased efficiency, and a better distribution of the tax burden are usually the underlying goals. Improving enforcement and compliance by simplifying the tax structure and increasing the legitimacy of the tax process is usually the major challenge.Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Public Sector Economics&Finance,International Terrorism&Counterterrorism,Tax Law

Invisible Taxpayers

The paradigm tax dispute involves a taxpayer on one side and the government on the other. In that traditional dyad, only the taxpayer matters, even though the interrelatedness of taxpayers across the fiscal system means that the outcome of any one dispute often affects the interests of many other taxpayers. Yet everyone else is invisible to the legal system, without enforceable rights in the administrative or judicial structure. This article focuses attention on such invisible taxpayers and what justice for them would require. It proposes a theory of tax injury that is determined by “legal shares” and argues that conventional standing doctrine can accommodate broader taxpayer access if courts acknowledge the financial interrelatedness of taxpayers. Invisibility deprives taxpayers of both economic fairness (a traditional tax policy norm) and democratic fairness (a norm requiring tax institutions to treat people with equal respect and concern). This article explains how the Supreme Court has turned tax expenditures into invisible laws. It evaluates tax expenditures as tax law, challenging the standard scholarly approach that assumes tax expenditures should be not only economically, but also legally, equivalent to direct spending programs. Examination of invisible taxpayers and invisible laws reveals some troubling truths about the tax system. Invisibility has led to substantial injustice for real people. It has allowed unconstitutional taxation to proceed without challenge. And it has reduced the role of courts in taxation to a very narrow one, while simultaneously allowing unchecked discretion for both Congress and the Internal Revenue Service. This article explains (1) how standing doctrine denies redress to some taxpayers who suffer injustice, and (2) how tax expenditures make some harms immune from attack. It argues that both courts and administrative procedures could ameliorate these injustices

Invisible Taxpayers

The paradigm tax dispute involves a taxpayer on one side and the government on the other. In that traditional dyad, only the taxpayer matters, even though the interrelatedness of taxpayers across the fiscal system means that the outcome of any one dispute often affects the interests of many other taxpayers. Yet everyone else is invisible to the legal system, without enforceable rights in the administrative or judicial structure. This article focuses attention on such invisible taxpayers and what justice for them would require. It proposes a theory of tax injury that is determined by “legal shares” and argues that conventional standing doctrine can accommodate broader taxpayer access if courts acknowledge the financial interrelatedness of taxpayers. Invisibility deprives taxpayers of both economic fairness (a traditional tax policy norm) and democratic fairness (a norm requiring tax institutions to treat people with equal respect and concern). This article explains how the Supreme Court has turned tax expenditures into invisible laws. It evaluates tax expenditures as tax law, challenging the standard scholarly approach that assumes tax expenditures should be not only economically, but also legally, equivalent to direct spending programs. Examination of invisible taxpayers and invisible laws reveals some troubling truths about the tax system. Invisibility has led to substantial injustice for real people. It has allowed unconstitutional taxation to proceed without challenge. And it has reduced the role of courts in taxation to a very narrow one, while simultaneously allowing unchecked discretion for both Congress and the Internal Revenue Service. This article explains (1) how standing doctrine denies redress to some taxpayers who suffer injustice, and (2) how tax expenditures make some harms immune from attack. It argues that both courts and administrative procedures could ameliorate these injustices