This book explores one of the most significant trends in the evolution of global tax systems by asking how, within less than half a century, the value-added tax (VAT) has risen from relative obscurity to become one of the world's most dominant revenue instruments. Despite its significance, very little is known about why so many countries have adopted the VAT and, in particular, why different countries adopt the types of VAT that they do. The popular mythology provides that the merits of the VAT have underpinned its global spread; however, this book contends that much scholarship on the VAT confuses the question of why the VAT has risen to dominance with the issue of what makes a good VAT. This book combines policy and legal analysis to propose a new way of understanding the rise of this important revenue instrument so as to better reflect the realities of the VATs that are actually implemented.

If taxation is the mobilization of economic resources for political ends, it is evident that any study of taxation must probe well beyond the administrative technicalities of its subject. Social, economic, political and administrative history are all part of the investigation.

The early Tudor period is especially significant in the history of taxation. This new study examines the taxes granted by parliament to the crown between 1485 and 1547. Under Henry VIII, taxation based on the direct assessment of each individual was revived, having been abandoned as unworkable in the fourteenth century. In the long run, the Tudor experiment failed: direct assessment was abandoned again after decades of complaint about evasion and under-assessment in the mid-seventeenth century, and was not restored until the end of the eighteenth century. But examination of the experiment, and of the timing and causes of its failure, throws light on the changing political limits of the Tudor state.

Schofield's research marks an important advance in our understanding not only of the fiscal resources available to the English crown but also of the broader political culture of early Tudor England.

There are wide racial disparities in virtually every sphere of economic life. African American workers earn less than whites. They are more likely to be denied loans than whites. Minority-owned businesses are less likely to win lucrative bids on state and federal contracts than are white male owned businesses. Black children are more likely than whites to be reported to child protective services for neglect or abuse. There are even huge disparities in downing rates between blacks and whites. What to do about these disparities? There is a fundamental disagreement about the appropriate remedies to these varied indicators of racial inequality. Part of the disagreement stems from differences in public perceptions about the underlying causes of the inequality. But, another form of disagreement relates to the opposition to the remedy of choice during much of the 1970s and 1980s: Affirmative Action. Race conscious remedies -- like affirmative action policies in hiring, college admissions, and business contracting -- suffer from legal and constitutional challenges, compounded by hostility from the majority of Americans. The alternative – race-neutral remedies – attempt to address racial disparities without directly targeting benefits exclusively to racial minority group members. In doing so, race-neutral remedies putatively help minorities without hurting majority group members. The authors of Race Neutrality: Rationalizing Remedies to Racial Inequality make the case that policy analysts should shift from a focus on whether a remedy is race-conscious or not to a focus on the underlying problem that the alternative remedies is attempting to resolve. This type of rethinking of the problem of racial inequality will reveal that sometimes race-neutral remedies hold great promise in reducing disparities. Often, however, race-neutral remedies fail to do what they are intended to do. The authors challenge the reader to think about why race-neutral remedies—while desireable on their face—might fail to resolve protracted and persistent patterns of racial inequality in market and non-market contexts.

Accounting information, on the one hand, allows government officials to obtain better information to support greater decision making, transparency, and accountability. On the other hand, this financial information also allows local citizens more access to knowledge of how public resources are being managed and used by the local government entities. Measuring the pros and cons of this information may determine how certain officials remain in office while others do not. Financial Determinants in Local Re-Election Rates: Emerging Research and Opportunities is a collection of innovative research that assesses whether accounting information and other factors have an impact on electoral results, which in turn impact re-election in local government. While highlighting topics including political financing, voting behavior, and capital spending, this book is ideally designed for political analysts, politicians, government officials, researchers, policymakers, public policy managers, financial analysts, academicians, and students seeking current research on financial information and other factors having an impact on electoral results.

Advances in Taxation publishes relevant, high-quality manuscripts from around the world addressing problems arising from federal, state, local and international taxation. The series uses a wide variety of research methods, including archival, experimental, survey, qualitative and legal approaches to address the problems and issues associated with taxation. Volume 22 of Advances in Taxation continues this approach to taxation, looking at issues concerning challenges in tax administration, taxpayer decisions, ethical issues in taxation, and college savings plans.

This revised edition of Robert V. Andelson's" Land Value Taxation Around the World "is the first title in the new series 'Studies in Economic Reform and Social Justice', sponsored by" The American Journal of Economics and Sociology,"

Andelson has provided an interdisciplinary, international collection of essays, which has been in the making for twenty years. This is not a book on the history of economic thought but rather a book about the theory and practice of land reform and an historical summary of efforts to apply land value taxation in different countries around the world.

The collection is built around the premise that to tax an activity is to discourage it, and that when people improve land that is under their control, governments should not tax those improvements. Only when land appreciates through no effort on the part of those who manage the land should the government impose a tax. Since land is inelastic in supply, such a tax will have minimal distortionary effects on the economy. These insights are not well understood around the world but they do sometimes guide tax policy and often when they do, they produce salutory effects on economic development. Contributors to this collection argue that patterns of economic behavior are similar regardless of race, religion, or geographical location.

"Advances in Taxation" publishes articles dealing with all aspects of taxation. Articles can address tax policy issues at the federal, state, local, or international level. The series primarily publishes empirical studies that address compliance, computer usage, education, legal, planning, or policy issues. These studies generally involve interdisciplinary research that incorporates theories from accounting, economics, finance, psychology, and sociology.

The Tax Aspects of Acquiring a Business is a guide written to the tax considerations that must be weighed when acquiring an existing business, whether the business is conducted as a proprietorship, partner- ship, limited liability company, S corporation, or a C corporation. The book looks at the transactions from the point of view of the seller as well as the buyer. This symmetrical view is presented because the tax effects on the seller will influence the acceptable terms for the deal. The book describes the tax consideration in quantifiable terms by demonstrating the actual calculations that must be made to evaluate the after-tax consequences of the terms of an acquisition agreement. The changes in the law that were made by the 2017 Tax Act are incorporated in the book.

Tax by Design identifies what makes a good tax system for an open developed economy in the 21st century and suggests how the UK tax system could be reformed to move in that direction. The recommendations stress the importance of neutrality and transparency in tax design. It draws on the expert evidence from the commissioned chapters and commentaries in Dimensions of Tax Design. It also acknowledges the growing importance of globalised markets and multinational corporations as well as the challenges created by changing population demographics, the growth of new technologies, and the broadened objectives of policy makers. The Commission's work was directed by: Timothy Besley Richard Blundell Malcolm Gammie James Poterba The Commission's editorial team: Stuart Adam Stephen Bond Robert Chote Paul Johnson Gareth Myles

An engaging and enlightening account of taxation told through lively, dramatic, and sometimes ludicrous stories drawn from around the world and across the ages Governments have always struggled to tax in ways that are effective and tolerably fair. Sometimes they fail grotesquely, as when, in 1898, the British ignited a rebellion in Sierra Leone by imposing a tax on huts-and, in repressing it, ended up burning the very huts they intended to tax. Sometimes they succeed astonishingly, as when, in eighteenth-century Britain, a cut in the tax on tea massively increased revenue. In this entertaining book, two leading authorities on taxation, Michael Keen and Joel Slemrod, provide a fascinating and informative tour through these and many other episodes in tax history, both preposterous and dramatic-from the plundering described by Herodotus and an Incan tax payable in lice to the (misremembered) Boston Tea Party and the scandals of the Panama Papers. Along the way, readers meet a colorful cast of tax rascals, and even a few tax heroes. While it is hard to fathom the inspiration behind such taxes as one on ships that tended to make them sink, Keen and Slemrod show that yesterday's tax systems have more in common with ours than we may think. Georgian England's window tax now seems quaint, but was an ingenious way of judging wealth unobtrusively. And Tsar Peter the Great's tax on beards aimed to induce the nobility to shave, much like today's carbon taxes aim to slow global warming. Rebellion, Rascals, and Revenue is a surprising and one-of-a-kind account of how history illuminates the perennial challenges and timeless principles of taxation-and how the past holds clues to solving the tax problems of today.