The most disturbing aspects of the growth of underground economies are the interrelated problems of unreported and unrecorded income. A large and growing underground economy can thwart fiscal efforts to establish budget balance and may significantly undermine the veracity of a nation's economic information system. The notion that economic information is itself endogenous raises the possibility that at least part of the economic malaise observed in most Western nations during the past two decades is essentially the result of a statistical illusion. The essays in this 1989 volume examine the problems of defining, measuring and understanding the implications of the underground economies that have emerged in many of the world's developed nations. Empirical chapters examine the conceptual problems of how to measure a phenomenon that attempts to defy detection. Alternative measurement procedures are evaluated. Specific studies are included for the United States, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden, Italy, Norway, Canada, France, the Soviet Union and Hungary.

The international debt crisis that erupted in 1982 threatened the world financial system and turned the 1980s into a lost decade for Latin America. But the crisis jolted governments throughout the region into adopting sweeping economic reforms. By the early 1990s inflation was lower, growth was reviving, the major debtors had reached "Brady Plan" workout agreements reducing bank debt in exchange for collateral, and capital was entering the region in unprecedented magnitudes.This study tries to make sense of this historic financial episode and to derive lessons for future policy. Cline first returns to his 1983 projection models that figured importantly in the debate at that time, and reruns them with the benefit of hindsight to see what went wrong (e.g., capital flight) and what went right (e.g., revival of industrial country growth). He provides a critical survey of the voluminous economics literature that emerged from the debt crisis. The study evaluates performance of the evolving international debt strategy, which eventually succeeded brilliantly in preserving international financial stability and restoring debtor access to credit markets but failed to achieve debtor country growth in the 1980s.The study reviews policy reform and Brady plan results for major Latin American countries; provides new analysis of today's debt problems in Russia and Africa; and analyzes the degree of vulnerability of Latin Americas capital market renaissance to such factors as overvalued exchange rates and a resurgence of US interest rates. It concludes with suggestions for institutional change and policy guidelines to help avoid future crises.

Taxes are a crucial policy issue, especially in developing countries. Just recently, proposals to raise middle-class taxes toppled the Bolivian government, and plans to extend or increase the value-added tax caused political unrest in Ecuador and Mexico. Despite the impact of tax policy on developing countries, a comprehensive study has yet to be written. Treating Argentina, Brazil, India, Kenya, Korea, and Russia as key case studies, this volume outlines the major aspects of current tax codes and explores their economic and political implications.

Examples of both the poorest and wealthiest developing countries, Argentina, Brazil, India, Kenya, Korea, and Russia uniquely demonstrate the diverse fiscal problems of tax reform. Each economy relies heavily on indirect and corporate income taxes, though recently some have reduced their tariff rates and have switched from excise to value-added taxes. There is a large, informal economy in most of these countries, and tax evasion by firms is a significant concern. As a result, tax revenue remains low, even though rates are as high as those in developed economies. Also, unconventional methods to collect revenue have been implemented, including bank debit taxes, state ownership of firms, and implicit taxes on individuals in the informal sector.

Exploring these and other concerns, as well as changes in tax law, administration, and fiscal pressures, this comprehensive anthology clarifies the current landscape of tax administration and the economic future of the world's poorer economies.

United States Taxes and Tax Policy supplements and complements the theoretical material on taxes found in public finance texts using a combination of institutional, theoretical and empirical information. By adding flesh to theoretical bones, this textbook provides insight into the behaviour of individuals in both the private and public sectors. Specifically, the economic effects of taxes and tax policy are stressed and, as a result, students will gain an appreciation and understanding of how tax policy actually affects the economy. For example, where many texts typically stop with a rather pristine treatment of the income and substitution effects of a tax, this book goes further by examining econometric studies of the supply of labour, and the relationship of this work to taxes, the Laffer curve, and the role and magnitude of the underground economy. Using this approach, Professor Davies brings life to what can be a dull subject.

This book analyses and compares taxation in different countries. It looks at what tax systems have in common, how they differ and seeks to explain the the similarities and the differences. No attempt is made to confine the analysis on each topic to the same group of countries. Whilst the emphasis is on the larger advanced countries, countries are drawn on from all round the world according to the nature of the topic and the data available. The book seeks to answer questions such as: Why do developing countries rely heavily on indirect taxes? Why is income tax the dominant tax in advanced countries? Why is the property tax the most widely used tax in local government? Why do some countries have more tax expenditures than others? Why has VAT become the dominant sales tax world-wide? Why do less than half OECD countries have annual wealth taxes? Why are there so many differences in the way countries tax corporate income and capital gains? What are the keys to success in tax reform? And many more. In seeking to answer these questions the author draws on economic theory but also recognises the significance of historical, legal and social differences, the importance of constitutional constraints, the influence of geography and globalisation and the often decisive role played by the convictions and whims of politicians.

The author is concerned here with the tax treatment of individuals' income from the sole proprietorships and partnerships in manufacturing, finance, trade, agriculture, and professional practice. Attention is paid to the changing relation between the income from sole proprietorship and partnership and the total income of owners. Appendixes contain explanations of figures and concepts. Originally published in 1964. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

An informal discussion for the general reader of the most critical problems of taxation, including an important chapter on the income tax. Originally published in 1948. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Should government's power to tax be limited? The events of the late 1970s in the wake of California's Proposition 13 brought this question very sharply into popular focus. Whether the power to tax should be restricted, and if so how, are issues of immediate policy significance. Providing a serious analysis of these issues, the authors of this 1980 book offer an approach to the understanding and evaluation of the fiscal system, one that yields profound implications. The central question becomes: how much 'power to tax' would the citizen voluntarily grant to government as a party to some initial social contract devising a fiscal constitution? Those in office are assumed to exploit the power assigned to them to the maximum possible extent: government is modelled as 'revenue-maximizing Leviathan'. Armed with such a model, the authors proceed to trace out the restrictions on the power to tax that might be expected to emerge from the citizen's constitutional deliberations.

The capture of the French king John II at Poitiers in 1356 marked the end of royal taxation as a temporary, wartime expedient and its beginning as an annual assessment. John Henneman's detailed treatment of war financing in the period immediately preceding, from 1322 to 1356, is the first volume in a proposed study of royal finances in France during the fourteenth century. Mr. Henneman has chosen a chronological approach to his subject in order to show how the evolving theory and practice of taxation were affected by these turbulent years of war and negotiation, political faction and dynastic feuds, social and economic change. Mr. Henneman discusses the king's requirements for money over and above his normal revenues, the methods he used to raise the funds, the responses of his subjects, and the changes these procedures made in the development of French institutions. His study is based largely on unpublished sources, especially the manuscripts found in French provincial archives. As the royal financial records in Paris have been dispersed or destroyed, these manuscripts arc of particular importance. Originally published in 1971. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Taxes dominate contemporary American politics. Yet while many rail against big government, few Americans are prepared to give up the benefits they receive from the state. In Tax and Spend, historian Molly C. Michelmore examines an unexpected source of this contradiction and shows why many Americans have come to hate government but continue to demand the security it provides. Tracing the development of taxing and spending policy over the course of the twentieth century, Michelmore uncovers the origins of today's antitax and antigovernment politics in choices made by liberal state builders in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. By focusing on two key instruments of twentieth-century economic and social policy, Aid to Families with Dependent Children and the federal income tax, Tax and Spend explains the antitax logic that has guided liberal policy makers since the earliest days of Franklin Roosevelt's presidency. Grounded in careful archival research, this book reveals that the liberal social compact forged during the New Deal, World War II, and the postwar years included not only generous social benefits for the middle class-including Social Security, Medicare, and a host of expensive but hidden state subsidies-but also a commitment to preserve low taxes for the majority of American taxpayers. In a surprising twist on conventional political history, Michelmore's analysis links postwar liberalism directly to the rise of the Republican right in the last decades of the twentieth century. Liberals' decision to reconcile public demand for low taxes and generous social benefits by relying on hidden sources of revenues and invisible kinds of public subsidy, combined with their persistent defense of taxpayer rights and suspicion of "tax eaters" on the welfare rolls, not only fueled but helped create the contours of antistate politics at the core of the Reagan Revolution.

Transfer Pricing and Valuation in Corporate Taxation analyzes the disparities between both federal statutes and regulations, and r- ulations and administrative practice, in a highly controversial area of corporate tax policy: intra-company transfer pricing for tax p- poses. It addresses issues that often mean millions of dollars to in- vidual corporations, and a significant fraction of the federal gove- ment's revenue base. These disparities between law, regulations, and administrative practice are concerning on a number of grounds. First, they - pose considerable economic costs by inducing corporations to engage in a variety of "rent-seeking" activities designed to reduce their - pected tax liabilities, and by requiring the IRS to devote still more to enforcement efforts that are very often futile. Second, they are in- ; herently undemocratic. Administrative practice is currently ad hoc by relying on dispute resolution procedures that can and do yield very different settlements on disputed tax issues from one case to another, the IRS often ends up treating similarly situated cor- rations very differently. Moreover, to the extent that the disp- ity between statute and implementation reflects the IRS's failure to carry out Congress' will, the laws passed by duly elected officials are effectively being superseded by administrative procedure, developed incrementally by individuals who are not answerable to an electorate.

This text examines how firms change their investment decisions in response to tax policy and concludes that firms would substantially increase their investment in plant and equipment if some of the proposals for fundamental tax reform are enacted.

The property tax in the United States has never been more important. Despite numerous attempts to limit its use, the property tax remains the most significant source of tax revenue for local governments. This is the "go to" book that draws together important legal cases and related materials on the fundamental legal issues concerning valuation, tax policy, and the property tax. This collection provides an overview of the structure and function of real property taxation in the U.S. It is intended to be useful to lawyers and law students, as well as to policy makers, practitioners, and others with an interest in the property tax. Originally published in 1994, this book has been updated and reissued.

A Foreign Affairs Best Book of the Year "An intellectual excursion of a kind rarely offered by modern economics." -Foreign Affairs Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century is the most widely discussed work of economics in recent years. But are its analyses of inequality and economic growth on target? Where should researchers go from there in exploring the ideas Piketty pushed to the forefront of global conversation? A cast of leading economists and other social scientists-including Emmanuel Saez, Branko Milanovic, Laura Tyson, and Michael Spence-tackle these questions in dialogue with Piketty. "A fantastic introduction to Piketty's main argument in Capital, and to some of the main criticisms, including doubt that his key equation...showing that returns on capital grow faster than the economy-will hold true in the long run." -Nature "Piketty's work...laid bare just how ill-equipped our existing frameworks are for understanding, predicting, and changing inequality. This extraordinary collection shows that our most nimble social scientists are responding to the challenge." -Justin Wolfers, University of Michigan

Tax scholars traditionally emphasize economics and assume that all tax systems can be evaluated in more or less the same way. By applying the insights of anthropology, sociology, and other social sciences, Michael A. Livingston demonstrates that tax systems frequently pursue different values and that the convergence of tax systems is frequently overstated. In Tax and Culture, he applies these insights to specific countries, such as China and India, and specific tax issues, including progressivity, tax avoidance, and the emerging area of environmental taxation. Livingston concludes that the concept of a global tax culture is, in many cases, merely a reflection of Western hegemony, and is unlikely to survive the changes implicit in the rise of non-Western nations and cultures.

The Dutch tax system distorts economic decisions, treats equal economic positions unequally for tax purposes, and is extraordinarily complex. Following in the footsteps of the Mirrlees Review, prominent economists from academia and the policy arena, at home and abroad, provide independent, evidence-based analyses of the system's shortcomings, as well as detailed proposals for reform. Tax by Design for the Netherlands spans the whole spectrum of taxes on labor and capital income, profits, consumption, wealth, inheritance, and charges to correct for market and individual failure, including the environment.

"Taxation in Colonial America" examines life in the thirteen original American colonies through the revealing lens of the taxes levied on and by the colonists. Spanning the turbulent years from the founding of the Jamestown settlement to the outbreak of the American Revolution, Alvin Rabushka provides the definitive history of taxation in the colonial era, and sets it against the backdrop of enormous economic, political, and social upheaval in the colonies and Europe.

Rabushka shows how the colonists strove to minimize, avoid, and evade British and local taxation, and how they used tax incentives to foster settlement. He describes the systems of public finance they created to reduce taxation, and reveals how they gained control over taxes through elected representatives in colonial legislatures. Rabushka takes a comprehensive look at the external taxes imposed on the colonists by Britain, the Netherlands, and Sweden, as well as internal direct taxes like poll and income taxes. He examines indirect taxes like duties and tonnage fees, as well as county and town taxes, church and education taxes, bounties, and other charges. He links the types and amounts of taxes with the means of payment--be it gold coins, agricultural commodities, wampum, or furs--and he compares tax systems and burdens among the colonies and with Britain.

This book brings the colonial period to life in all its rich complexity, and shows how colonial attitudes toward taxation offer a unique window into the causes of the revolution.

By combining case studies, recent research, and the latest developments in tax compliance into a coherent and holistic framework, the book aims to guide policymakers and tax practitioners in their efforts to reform tax administrations and create a more equitable and robust foundation for economic growth.

While this volume presents the important writings of James M. Buchanan on taxation and debt, Geoffrey Brennan makes it clear in the foreword that the thrust of Buchanan's work in this area has been to integrate theories of taxation and debt with public-expenditure theory. Therefore, the editors strongly urge that the present volume on taxation and debt be read in tandem with the subsequent Volume 15, "Externalities and Public Expenditure Theory."
Included in this present volume are thirty-five important writings by Buchanan on taxation and debt. These are grouped into the following major subject categories:
1.Taxation, Politics, and Public Choice
2.Earmarking and Incidence in Democratic Process
3.Analytical and Ethical Foundations of Tax Limits
4.The Fiscal Constitution
5.Confessions of a Burden Monger
6.Ricardian Equivalence
7.The Constitution of a Debt-Free Polity
As Geoffrey Brennan points out in the foreword to this volume, "Although James Buchanan's interests are wide-ranging, the core of his professional reputation as an economist and the origin of much of his broader thinking lie in public economics--in engagement with the questions of what governments do and how governments should properly finance what they do." This volume together with its partner subsequent volume present clear and accessible insights into the rich economic work for which Buchanan is best known.
James M. Buchanan is an eminent economist who won the Alfred Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1986 and is considered one of the greatest scholars of liberty in the twentieth century.
The entire series will include:
Volume 1 "The Logical Foundations of Constitutional Liberty"
Volume 2 "Public Principles of Public Debt "
Volume 3 "The Calculus of Consent "
Volume 4 "Public Finance in Democratic Process"
Volume 5 "The Demand and Supply of Public Goods"
Volume 6 "Cost and Choice"
Volume 7 "The Limits of Liberty"
Volume 8 "Democracy in Deficit"
Volume 9 "The Power to Tax"
Volume 10 "The Reason of Rules"
Volume 11 "Politics by Principle, Not Interest"
Volume 12 "Economic Inquiry and Its Logic"
Volume 13 "Politics as Public Choice"
Volume 14 "Debt and Taxes"
Volume 15 "Externalities and Public Expenditure Theory"
Volume 16 "Choice, Contract, and Constitutions"
Volume 17 "Moral Science and Moral Order"
Volume 18 "Federalism, Liberty, and the Law"
Volume 19 "Ideas, Persons, and Events"
Volume 20 "Indexes"

Commenting on his collaboration with Geoffrey Brennan on "The Power to Tax," James M. Buchanan says that the book is "demonstrable proof of the value of genuine research collaboration across national-cultural boundaries." Buchanan goes on to say that ""The Power to Tax" is informed by a single idea--the implications of a revenue-maximizing government."
Originally published in 1980, "The Power to Tax" was a much-needed answer to the tax revolts sweeping across the United States. It was a much-needed answer as well in the academic circles of tax theory, where orthodox public finance models were clearly inadequate to the needs at hand.
The public-choice approach to taxation which Buchanan had earlier elaborated stood in direct opposition to public-finance orthodoxy. What Buchanan and Brennan constructed in "The Power to Tax" was a middle ground between the two. As Brennan writes in the foreword, "The underlying motivating question was simple: Why not borrow the motivational assumptions standard in public-choice theory and put them together with assumptions about policy-maker discretion taken from public-finance orthodoxy?"
The result was a controversial book--and a much misunderstood one as well. Looking back twenty years later, Brennan feels confirmed in the rightness of the theories he and Buchanan espoused, particularly in their unity with the public-choice tradition: "The insistence on motivational symmetry is a characteristic feature of the public choice approach, and it is in this dimension that "The Power to Tax" and the orthodox public- finance approach diverge."
James M. Buchanan is an eminent economist who won the Alfred Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1986 and is considered one of the greatest scholars of liberty in the twentieth century.
The entire series will include:
Volume 1 "The Logical Foundations of Constitutional Liberty"
Volume 2 "Public Principles of Public Debt "
Volume 3 "The Calculus of Consent "
Volume 4 "Public Finance in Democratic Process"
Volume 5 "The Demand and Supply of Public Goods"
Volume 6 "Cost and Choice"
Volume 7 "The Limits of Liberty"
Volume 8 "Democracy in Deficit"
Volume 9 "The Power to Tax"
Volume 10 "The Reason of Rules"
Volume 11 "Politics by Principle, Not Interest"
Volume 12 "Economic Inquiry and Its Logic"
Volume 13 "Politics as Public Choice"
Volume 14 "Debt and Taxes"
Volume 15 "Externalities and Public Expenditure Theory"
Volume 16 "Choice, Contract, and Constitutions"
Volume 17 "Moral Science and Moral Order"
Volume 18 "Federalism, Liberty, and the Law"
Volume 19 "Ideas, Persons, and Events"
Volume 20 "Indexes"