The Effect of Base-Broadening Measures on Labor Supply and Investment: Considerations for Tax Reform

[Excerpt] This report attempts to show how options to broaden the tax base by placing limitations on itemized deductions can potentially work against the expansionary effects of reducing marginal tax rates. After base-broadening tax reform taxpayers may face lower statutory marginal rates but some taxpayers—those who itemize—may have more of their income is subject to tax, effectively increasing their marginal tax rates. The report also addresses other common base-broadening provisions that increase the effective marginal tax rate on the return to capital

Distortion Costs of Taxing Wealth Accumulation: Income Versus Estate Taxes

Recently, attention has focused on the estate tax. To date, however, the debate over estate taxes has been nearly devoid of standard considerations of deadweight loss. We develop a framework for computing the deadweight loss of a revenue-neutral switch from an estate tax to a capital income tax, focusing on the potential lifetime behavioral responses in anticipation of paying the estate tax, while requiring relatively few parameters to estimate. We conclude that eliminating the estate tax and replacing the revenue with that from a capital income tax will likely enhance economic efficiency. Specifically, using our baseline parameter estimates we estimate that the mean decrease in deadweight loss is $0.018 per dollar of wealth. There is, however, considerable heterogeneity in the estimated impact. Importantly, our estimates are based on data that do not contain the 'super-rich' who are most highly affected by the estate tax.

Budgetary and Distributional Effects of Adopting the Chained CPI

[Excerpt] This report examines the budgetary and distributional effects of using what is referred to as the Chained Consumer Price Index (C-CPI-U or chained CPI) as the official measure of inflation for adjusting federal revenue and spending programs for inflation. This report begins by describing general issues with measuring inflation before looking at concerns with the traditional CPI and the chained CPI. The report then examines the budgetary and distributional effects of adopting the chained CPI before offering some concluding observation

Overview of the Federal Tax System

The major sources of federal tax revenue are individual income taxes, Social Security and other payroll taxes, corporate income taxes, excise taxes, and estate and gift taxes. This report describes the federal tax structure, provides some statistics on the tax system as a whole, and presents analysis of selected tax concepts

Spiders from Some Pacific Islands, Part V

A collection of spiders from various Pacific islands was entrusted to me for examination by the Director of the Bernice P. Bishop Museum in Honolulu, to whom I am indebted. There were 146 tubes, mostly containing a number of specimens, and they had been collected by different people at different times from islands between New Caledonia in the west and Tahiti in the east. Five new species are described and also four allotypes, and a number of additions to faunal lists have been made. The islands, or island groups, ' will be mentioned in alphabetical order, and the descriptions given at the end. Unless otherwise stated the specimens are in the Bernice P. Bishop Museum

Tax Rates and Economic Growth

[Excerpt] This report summarizes the evidence on the relationship between tax rates and economic growth, referring in a number of cases to more-detailed CRS reports. Potentially negative effects of tax rates on economic growth have been an issue in the debate about whether to increase taxes to address the budget deficit and whether to broaden the base and lower the rates with tax reform. After first distinguishing between short-run counter-cyclical considerations and long-run growth effects, the following section provides some historical data on tax rates and measures of factor supply and growth. This report then reviews the empirical evidence on the major contributors to growth. The final section concludes with a review of dynamic scoring issues

End of life care: an educational pathway for community nurses.

This article reports on an innovative educational pathway for district and community nurses aimed at enhancing confidence and competence in dealing with end of life care (EoLC). Nurses were aligned with a mentor from a specialist palliative care team and, after completing a training needs analysis, created their own development plan. Participants undertook a range of formal and informal education, and a rise in confidence was identified, specifically in communication skills and symptom management. Such practice-based education may offer a powerful and convenient approach to EoLC education for community staff. Read More: http://rcnpublishing.com/doi/abs/10.7748/phc2014.02.24.1.18.e80

Hybrid solutions to the feature interaction problem

In this paper we assume a competitive marketplace where the features are developed by different enterprises, which cannot or will not exchange information. We present a classification of feature interaction in this setting and introduce an on-line technique which serves as a basis for the two novel <i>hybrid</i> approaches presented. The approaches are hybrid as they are neither strictly off-line nor on-line, but combine aspects of both. The two approaches address different kinds of feature interactions, and thus are complimentary. Together they provide a complete solution by addressing interaction detection and resolution. We illustrate the techniques within the communication networks domain