The recent literature on optimal taxation may be seen as attempting to clarify the structure of the arguments advanced to support changes in the tax system, tracing the implications of taxes and quantifying (analytically) the trade-offs between the various objectives of tax policy. This literature has examined the optimal structure for particular types of taxation taken in isolation, such as th...

A panel of industrial countries is examined for evidence of `tax smoothing’. Tax smoothing results when governments minimize tax distortions over time. The model provides a positive theory of government debt and is due primarily to Barro. Unit root tests are performed in panel data to test the null hypothesis of nonstationary tax rates. Panel regressions are then undertaken to test the null hyp...

We analyze a sequential game between two symmetric countries when firms can invest in a multinational structure that confers tax savings. Governments are able to commit to long-run tax discrimination policies before firms’ decisions are made and before statutory capital tax rates are chosen non-cooperatively. Whether a coordinated reduction in the tax preferences granted to mobile firms is bene...

Many state governments and federal policymakers view a new, special tax on electronic commerce to be a fresh and attractive revenue source. But whether implemented at the state or national level, this new tax would be highly undesirable, because it simply expands the shortcomings of the current revenue structure. Because of the flexibility of e-commerce, the attempt to collect such a tax would ...

We analyze a sequential game between two symmetric countries when firms can invest in a multinational structure that confers tax savings. Governments are able to commit to long-run tax discrimination policies before firms’ decisions are made and before statutory capital tax rates are chosen non-cooperatively. Whether a coordinated reduction in the tax preferences granted to mobile firms is bene...

To assess the impact of tax-bene…t policy changes on income distribution over time, we suggest a methodology based on counterfactual simulations. We start by decomposing changes in inequality/poverty indices into three contributions: reforms of the tax-bene…t structure (rules, rates, etc.), changes in nominal levels of market incomes and tax-bene…t parameters (bene…t amounts, tax bands, etc.), ...

Income tax is one of the most important costs of companies and it is usually considered as a cost that should not be paid. One of the most noticeable and influential factors in tax avoidance is corporate ownership structure. With an emphasis on institutional ownership and its types in this paper, it is attempted to measure the effect of this ownership and its types on corporate tax avoidance. F...

Analyses of optimal government capital structure generally follow Bohn (1990) and Barro (1995) in assuming risk neutrality or an exogenous risk premium. These analyses usually conclude that the optimal government capital structure stabilizes tax rates over time and states of nature to the greatest extent possible, something known as “tax smoothing.” In this paper, we show that when an endogenou...

This paper estimates the effects of same-sex marriage legalization on federal income tax revenue using changes in taxation generated from the 2003 Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act. These estimates rely critically on the responsiveness of labor supply and marital choice to changes in the tax code. In addition, this paper proposes a novel measure of the marriage penalty that incorpor...