This article argues that a dynamic relationship existed during the 1929-1955 period between the Hollywood film industry and the United States income tax system. The relationship functioned on three levels. First, steep marginal tax rates impacted film production, encouraging certain highly paid actors and directors to work less in the 1930s, form corporations in the 1940s, and live and work abr…
As the United States' economy continues to experience challenges, more families at or near the poverty level fall prey to predatory financial practices. Their vulnerability to these operations is increased by a lack of knowledge of asset-building resources and alternative financial services. This article focuses on Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA)--a free income tax preparation program, w…
In the wake of the UK government's post-2010 spending cuts, talk about tax justice has become more audible and urgent. Campaigning groups such as UK Uncut have sought to bring the contested tax affairs of a number of multinational corporations, and notably Vodafone, to wider public attention, and have called for the introduction of a 'Tax Dodging Bill'. In the House of Commons, the Public Accou…
This article examines the role that economic and political factors played in tax reform in Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries from 1986 to 1990. Some writers argue that economic integration forced states to reform their tax systems. The authors' findings indicate that economic openness had an indirect effect on the level of change in marginal tax rates. The i…
As a result of the recent implementation of work-oriented antipoverty programs, more welfare recipients can be expected to be working in low-wage jobs. With these jobs there is little hope that these workers' incomes will rise above the poverty level. One way to help support these low-wage workers is through tax reform. Although low-wage workers pay little or no federal tax, they still pay high…
The explosive growth of electronic commerce raises serious questions about the viability of the current state sales and use tax system. Sales via the Internet and other electronic means are changing both the form and substance of consumer transactions, and such sales often do not satisfy the traditional nexus requirement for state taxation because online vendors frequently lack physical presenc…
Addiction creates an intertemporal link between a consumer's past and present decisions, altering their responsiveness to price changes relative to nonaddictive products. We construct a dynamic model of rational addiction and endogenous consumption to investigate how consumers respond to policy interventions that aim to reduce purchases of cigarettes. We find that, on average, the category elas…
New institutionalism has emerged as one of the most prominent research agendas in the field of comparative politics, Political economy, and public policy. This article examines the role of institutional variation in political/economic regimes in shaping tax burdens in industrialized democracies. An institutionalist model for tax policy variation is tested across the Organization for Economic Co…
Governments use taxes to discourage undesired behaviors and encourage desired ones. One target of such interventions is reckless behavior, such as texting while driving, which in most cases is harmless but sometimes leads to catastrophic outcomes. Past research has demonstrated how interventions can backfire when the tax on one reckless behavior is set too high whereas other less attractive rec…