One of the most important economic topics in every country is considering tax issues as a way of increasing the government's income through attracting public confidence by observing the principles of proceeding in the tax system of the country which might likely cause a national production boom, increase economic growth rate, reduce unemployment and the fair distribution of wealth. In this rega...

We consider the impact of taxes on the quantity and quality produced of goods, such as wine, for which market value accrues with age. Any pair of taxes that includes a volumetric sales tax and any one of three other types of tax – an ad valorem sales tax, an ad valorem storage tax, or a volumetric storage tax – spans the quality/revenue space and can support an optimal tax system. Provided soci...

We define and statistically estimate a nonlinear relationship between individual effective income tax rates and economic income for United States tax return data for tax years 1979-89. The relationship, which we call the effective tax function, has three parameters and was theoretically derived from the theory of equal sacrifice by Young (1988, 1990) and more generally by Berliant and Gouveia (...

The federal tax system, and the income tax in particular, is often held out as a key—perhaps the key tool—for combatting income inequality. Especially given the rapid rise in inequality seen over the last 30 years, it is natural to look to the tax code and ask what can be done in response. However, this article’s answer to that question is “not much,” because of the practical constraints on pol...

Tunisia’s tax system has undergone significant structural reforms over the last several decades. Even so, its structure exhibits some major flaws, shortcomings that spill over to and affect the performance of the overall Tunisian economy. Further, the tax system continues to underperform in some fundamental ways, ways that also affect the rest of the economy. Finally, the structure of the Tunis...

The literatures dealing with voting, optimal income taxation, and implementation are integrated here to address the problem of voting over income taxes. In contrast with previous articles, general nonlinear income taxes that affect the labor-leisure decisions of consumers who work and vote are allowed. Uncertainty plays an important role in that the government does not know the true realization...