In recent years, with the implementation of the tax rate increases and ad hoc earnings base increases included in the 1977 amendments to the Social Security Act, many observers have noted that Social Security taxes (for the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI), Disability Insurance (DI), and Hospital Insurance (HI) programs combined) now exceed Federal income taxes for many families. A compar...

This paper surveys recent research findings concerning th& size and importance of labor-supply changes resulting from U.S. income taxes and transfers. Our review of the literature of recent years leads us to conclude that the aggregate amount of work reduction that is attributable to taxes and transfers is relatively modest. Moreover, this reduction may be partly offset by the beneficial effect...

Soft drink consumption has been hypothesized as one of the major factors in the growing rates of obesity in the US. Nearly two-thirds of all states currently tax soft drinks using excise taxes, sales taxes, or special exemptions to food exemptions from sales taxes to reduce consumption of this product, raise revenue, and improve public health. In this paper, we evaluate the impact of changes in...

Once we get over the current global economic crisis, most developed nations will need to raise significant revenues to pay for their recent economic stimulus packages as well as for their ongoing social welfare systems. Achim Kemmerling’s book will provide policymakers with some important insights about which taxes to increase and what the consequences are for labor markets. Kemmerling observes...

In the USA, little is known about local variation in retail cigarette prices; price variation explained by taxes, bans, and area-level socio-demographics, and whether taxes and hospitality bans have synergistic effects on smoking prevalence. Cigarette prices 2001-2011 from chain supermarkets and drug stores (n = 2973) were linked to state taxes (n = 41), state and county bar/restaurant smoking ...

Local governments in the United States typically rely on several main sources of own-source revenues, including individual income taxes, general sales taxes, specific excise taxes, fees and charges, and local property taxes. Of these sources, the dominant is by far the property tax. According to the United States Census Bureau (http://www.census.gov/govs/estimate), local property taxes accounte...

The debate on tobacco and fat taxes often treats smoking and eating as independent behaviors. However, the available evidence shows that they are interdependent, which implies that policies against smoking or obesity may have larger scope than expected. To address this issue, we propose a dynamic rational model where eating and smoking are simultaneous choices that jointly affect body weight an...

The integration of European financial markets of the 1980s created an environment of nearperfect capital mobility across countries that had harmonized indirect taxes but maintained large differences in factor taxes. The years that followed witnessed several rounds of competition in capital taxes with puzzling results. Instead of the dreaded “race to the bottom” in capital taxes, the U.K. lowere...

AIM To set out a policy analysis of food taxes as a way of influencing food consumption and behaviour. DESIGN The study draws on examples of food taxes from the developed world imposed at national and local levels. Studies were identified from a systemised search in six databases with criteria designed to identity articles of policy relevance. RESULTS The dominant approach identified from t...