Steven A. Bank
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195326192
- eISBN:
- 9780199775811
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195326192.001.0001
- Subject:
- Law, Legal History
The U.S. corporate income tax — and in particular the double taxation of corporate income — has long been one of the most criticized and stubbornly persistent aspects of the federal revenue system. ...
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The U.S. corporate income tax — and in particular the double taxation of corporate income — has long been one of the most criticized and stubbornly persistent aspects of the federal revenue system. Unlike in most other industrialized countries, corporate income is taxed twice, first at the entity level and again at the shareholder level when distributed as a dividend. The conventional wisdom has been that this double taxation was part of the system's original design over a century ago and has survived despite withering opposition from business interests. In both cases, history tells another tale. Double taxation as it is known today did not appear until several decades after the corporate income tax was first adopted. Moreover, it was embraced by corporate representatives at the outset and in subsequent years businesses have been far more ambivalent about its existence than is popularly assumed. From Sword to Shield: The Transformation of the Corporate Income Tax, 1861 to Present is the first historical account of the evolution of the corporate income tax in America. It explains the origins of corporate income tax and the political, economic, and social forces that transformed it from a sword against evasion of the individual income tax to a shield against government and shareholder interference with the management of corporate funds.Less
The U.S. corporate income tax — and in particular the double taxation of corporate income — has long been one of the most criticized and stubbornly persistent aspects of the federal revenue system. Unlike in most other industrialized countries, corporate income is taxed twice, first at the entity level and again at the shareholder level when distributed as a dividend. The conventional wisdom has been that this double taxation was part of the system's original design over a century ago and has survived despite withering opposition from business interests. In both cases, history tells another tale. Double taxation as it is known today did not appear until several decades after the corporate income tax was first adopted. Moreover, it was embraced by corporate representatives at the outset and in subsequent years businesses have been far more ambivalent about its existence than is popularly assumed. From Sword to Shield: The Transformation of the Corporate Income Tax, 1861 to Present is the first historical account of the evolution of the corporate income tax in America. It explains the origins of corporate income tax and the political, economic, and social forces that transformed it from a sword against evasion of the individual income tax to a shield against government and shareholder interference with the management of corporate funds.
Rachel M. McCleary
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195371178
- eISBN:
- 9780199870592
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195371178.003.0001
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, Development, Growth, and Environmental
An overview of the book’s main issues is presented: food aid, the role of the military in humanitarian aid, funding priorities, and the future of foreign aid. PVO financial independence is ...
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An overview of the book’s main issues is presented: food aid, the role of the military in humanitarian aid, funding priorities, and the future of foreign aid. PVO financial independence is interrelated with types of federal funding mechanisms. To find out how much federal assistance PVOs received over time, a large data set on revenue and expenditures was constructed from 1939 to 2005 for all U.S.-based PVOs engaged in foreign assistance and registered with the federal government. The data set is new and the most comprehensive on U.S.-based PVOs. This introduction describes the data and characterizes the main trends among religious and secular PVOs since 1939. Analysis of the data produces findings that are contrary to widely held perceptions about PVOs and their relationship with the federal government. Two predominant myths are dispelled. Religious agencies have been integral to international humanitarian and development efforts since the formalization of the field in 1939. PVOs over the decades have increasingly sought federal funding and once recipients of federal dollars, they become an interest group.Less
An overview of the book’s main issues is presented: food aid, the role of the military in humanitarian aid, funding priorities, and the future of foreign aid. PVO financial independence is interrelated with types of federal funding mechanisms. To find out how much federal assistance PVOs received over time, a large data set on revenue and expenditures was constructed from 1939 to 2005 for all U.S.-based PVOs engaged in foreign assistance and registered with the federal government. The data set is new and the most comprehensive on U.S.-based PVOs. This introduction describes the data and characterizes the main trends among religious and secular PVOs since 1939. Analysis of the data produces findings that are contrary to widely held perceptions about PVOs and their relationship with the federal government. Two predominant myths are dispelled. Religious agencies have been integral to international humanitarian and development efforts since the formalization of the field in 1939. PVOs over the decades have increasingly sought federal funding and once recipients of federal dollars, they become an interest group.
Robin Boadway
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- January 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780199278558
- eISBN:
- 9780191601590
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199278555.003.0011
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, Development, Growth, and Environmental
This chapter, together with chs. 2 and 10, approaches the question of development funding in a theoretical way, rather than by examining individual proposals for sources. One purpose of the book is ...
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This chapter, together with chs. 2 and 10, approaches the question of development funding in a theoretical way, rather than by examining individual proposals for sources. One purpose of the book is to bring to bear on this accumulated knowledge in the field of national public finance, and more generally public economics. This chapter looks at the lessons to be learned from the fiscal federalism literature. It highlights some of the similarities and some of the differences between fiscal institutions in federations and those that might apply in a global setting, and draws a number of conclusions about sources of new revenues for development, dealing specifically with taxes on nations, taxes on global externalities, and taxes on internationally mobile tax bases. The three main sections of the chapter look at: revenue‐raising in a federal setting – assignment of revenue‐raising authority, intergovernmental transfers, cooperative behaviour by subnational governments, and freeriding by subnational governments; revenue‐raising in federations with no central government – non‐cooperative and cooperative subnational redistribution; and the implications for global revenue sources – taxes on nations (a global equalisation scheme), taxes on international externalities, and taxes on internationally mobile tax bases.Less
This chapter, together with chs. 2 and 10, approaches the question of development funding in a theoretical way, rather than by examining individual proposals for sources. One purpose of the book is to bring to bear on this accumulated knowledge in the field of national public finance, and more generally public economics. This chapter looks at the lessons to be learned from the fiscal federalism literature. It highlights some of the similarities and some of the differences between fiscal institutions in federations and those that might apply in a global setting, and draws a number of conclusions about sources of new revenues for development, dealing specifically with taxes on nations, taxes on global externalities, and taxes on internationally mobile tax bases. The three main sections of the chapter look at: revenue‐raising in a federal setting – assignment of revenue‐raising authority, intergovernmental transfers, cooperative behaviour by subnational governments, and freeriding by subnational governments; revenue‐raising in federations with no central government – non‐cooperative and cooperative subnational redistribution; and the implications for global revenue sources – taxes on nations (a global equalisation scheme), taxes on international externalities, and taxes on internationally mobile tax bases.
Michael J. Graetz
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300122749
- eISBN:
- 9780300150193
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300122749.003.0009
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, Economic Systems
This chapter proposes retaining a reformed version of the estate tax. It is argued that the estate tax accounts for a large measure of the progressivity in the current tax system at the very top of ...
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This chapter proposes retaining a reformed version of the estate tax. It is argued that the estate tax accounts for a large measure of the progressivity in the current tax system at the very top of the income scale, while affecting very few people. First adopted in the nineteenth century to fund various wartime government revenue shortfalls, it has been on the books continually since 1916. While the rate of tax on large estates has gone up and down over the years, the estate tax was, until recently, generally considered a non-controversial means of raising federal revenue from those most able to pay. The chapter reveals that the estate tax accounted for about 11 percent of federal revenues at its zenith in 1946, but has generally not produced more than 2.5 percent of federal revenue since then. Today, it accounts for about 1 percent of federal revenues.Less
This chapter proposes retaining a reformed version of the estate tax. It is argued that the estate tax accounts for a large measure of the progressivity in the current tax system at the very top of the income scale, while affecting very few people. First adopted in the nineteenth century to fund various wartime government revenue shortfalls, it has been on the books continually since 1916. While the rate of tax on large estates has gone up and down over the years, the estate tax was, until recently, generally considered a non-controversial means of raising federal revenue from those most able to pay. The chapter reveals that the estate tax accounted for about 11 percent of federal revenues at its zenith in 1946, but has generally not produced more than 2.5 percent of federal revenue since then. Today, it accounts for about 1 percent of federal revenues.
