1,720,987 research outputs found
Accepting the Limits of Tax Law and Economics
Full text linkThis Article explores the limits of tax law and economics, attributing them to the unique complexity of the tax optimization problem. Designers of the optimal tax system must account for the impossibility of deterring socially undesirable behavior, provide for redistribution, and minimize social costs on the basis of assumptions that are laden with deeply contested value judgments, pervasive empirical uncertainty, or both. Given these challenges, it is hardly surprising that economic theory has a much weaker connection to the content of our tax laws and their enforcement than it does to the content and enforcement of many other legal regimes. This weakness has a profound effect on the debates about the fundamental features of our tax system. It shapes the meaning of the foundational tax concepts. It affects many familiar arguments about anti-avoidance rules and sanctions. And it extends to evaluating outright tax evasion. In sum, the limits of tax law and economics shape every aspect of tax law and tax administration. At the same time, accepting these limits shifts focus to several research agendas where tax law and economics will continue to make valuable contributions to the project of improving our tax system
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Irredeemably Inefficient Acts: A Threat to Markets, Firms, and the Fisc
Full text linkThis Article defines and explores irredeemably inefficient acts – a conceptually distinct and empirically important category of socially undesirable conduct. Though inefficient behavior is, no doubt, pervasive, the standard view holds that inefficient conduct may be converted into efficient behavior by forcing actors to internalize the external harms of their decisions. For some acts, however such conversion is impossible. These acts are not just inefficient forms of otherwise socially beneficial activities – they are not just contingently inefficient. Rather, they are inefficient at their core; they reduce social welfare no matter what the regulator does. These irredeemably inefficient (or just irredeemable) acts are private, intentional, nonconsensual transfers of money. While this definition clearly describes theft, it also covers churning and price fixing, market manipulation and option backdating, insider trading and tax shelters, to name just a few examples. All these acts are socially undesirable in any form and at any level because though the money transfer is generally welfare neutral, transferors and transferees waste real resources to make sure that this transfer does, or does not, occur Yet irredeemable acts may be overdeterred if enforcement is imperfect. Overdeterrence is possible for two reasons. First, enforcement increases the costs of irredeemable acts that remain undeterred. Second, enforcement burdens efficient conduct that yields outcomes indistinguishable from those produced by irredeemable acts. These considerations (along with the irrelevance of a standard cost-benefit comparison) underlie the unique optimal deterrence analysis of irredeemable acts. Antitrust law, corporate law, and criminal law largely reflect the divide between contingently and irredeemably inefficient acts, as well as some of the more specific prescriptions following from this Article\u27s inquiry. Securities and commodities regulation fails to recognize the same distinction despite a wide variety of irredeemable acts in securities and commodities law violations. Although the tax policy implications of the proposed framework are limited, this framework helps to resolve a long-standing debate about tax shelter regulation. Overall, the proposed analysis enriches our understanding of socially undesirable conduct, supports numerous rules and sanctions across divergent areas of economic regulation, and animates a call for legal reforms
Reforming the Taxation of Derivatives – An Overview
Full text linkThis brief essay outlines three benchmarks for evaluating alternative ways of taxing capital income, summarizes anticipatory, retroactive, and accrual-based proposals for reforming the taxation of derivatives, and offers guidelines for evaluating more limited reforms. It is intended as an introduction to key concepts, tensions, and ideas for reforming the taxation of financial instruments
Distributional Arguments, In Reverse
Full text linkThis Article contends that the government should consider – rather than ignore – distributional consequences both in the design of legal rules and during legal transitions. This does not mean that the distributional effect of every legal rule should be measured and taken into account in the rule’s design. But if the likely distributional effects are unintended, large, and objectionable, if the efficiency of the legal rule is doubtful, if the compensating tax-and-transfer adjustment is not forthcoming (or has not occurred), policymakers should take distribution into account. One way of doing so is to choose among several alternative legal rules of questionable efficiency the one with better distributional consequences. Another is to slow the pace of legal change in certain cases.
This Article also does not suggest that every transitional loss should be reimbursed. But if losses are large and unforeseeable, if private risk-mitigation mechanisms are unavailable, the government should step in. Enacting a broad-based transitional assistance program for low-skill workers and replacing our complex, obscure, state-specific social safety net with a simpler, transparent, nationally uniform one would go a long way toward mitigating the losses discussed here
Probabilistic Compliance
Full text linkUncertain legal standards are pervasive but understudied The key theoretical result showing an ambiguous relationship between legal uncertainty and optimal deterrence remains largely undeveloped, and no alternative conceptual approaches to the economic analysis of legal uncertainty have emerged
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
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A Guide to the Guide to the Republican Better Way Plan
Full text linkThis special Issue of the Columbia Journal of Tax Law is bound to have both an immediate impact and a lasting significance. The immediate impact is assured because the sole focus of this Issue is the tax plan proposed by the Congressional Republicans as part of their broad reform agenda called A Better Way: Our Vision For A Confident America.[1] As this Issue goes to print, the Better Way Plan (or the Plan for short) is being debated in the White House, on Capitol Hill, in the press, in academic circles, think tanks, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and all major law and accounting firms, as well as in many other places. For anyone thinking through the implications of the Plan, this Issue is a must read.
At the same time, the contributions in this Issue will provide a lasting benefit to the tax policy community. Even though the intellectual foundations of the tax system proposed in the Plan were laid decades ago, the core ideas underlying the Plan have never been considered, tested, and scrutinized nearly as rigorously and comprehensively as they are now. Simply put, the level of intellectual capital that is being invested in analyzing the Plan is extraordinary. This Issue combines some of the best applied work on the subject to date. So it will benefit academics, policymakers, and practitioners thinking about the tax systems similar to the one proposed in the Plan for decades to come.
This Issue is a guide to the Plan based on what we know so far, and this Introduction is a guide to the Issue
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