The Labyrinth of Capital Gains Tax Policy

The Labyrinth of Capital Gains Tax Policy
Author: Leonard E. Burman
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2010-12-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0815714955

Few issues in tax policy are as divisive as the capital gains tax. Should capital gains--the increase in value of assets such as stocks or businesses--be taxed at all? If so, when should they be taxed--when they are earned, or when they are realized? Should taxes be adjusted for inflation? And should gains be taxed at both the individual and corporate levels? In this book, Leonard Burman cuts through the political rhetoric to present the facts about capital gains. He begins by explaining the complex rules that govern the taxation of capital gains, examines the kinds of assets that produce them, and the factors that can lead to gains or losses. He then reviews the effects of capital gains taxation on saving and investment and considers the arguments for and against indexing capital gains taxes for inflation, as well as other options for altering the current system.

The Encyclopedia of Taxation & Tax Policy

The Encyclopedia of Taxation & Tax Policy
Author: Joseph J. Cordes
Publisher: The Urban Insitute
Total Pages: 522
Release: 2005
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780877667520

"From adjusted gross income to zoning and property taxes, the second edition of The Encyclopedia of Taxation and Tax Policy offers the best and most complete guide to taxes and tax-related issues. More than 150 tax practitioners and administrators, policymakers, and academics have contributed. The result is a unique and authoritative reference that examines virtually all tax instruments used by governments (individual income, corporate income, sales and value-added, property, estate and gift, franchise, poll, and many variants of these taxes), as well as characteristics of a good tax system, budgetary issues, and many current federal, state, local, and international tax policy issues. The new edition has been completely revised, with 40 new topics and 200 articles reflecting six years of legislative changes. Each essay provides the generalist with a quick and reliable introduction to many topics but also gives tax specialists the benefit of other experts' best thinking, in a manner that makes the complex understandable. Reference lists point the reader to additional sources of information for each topic. The first edition of The Encyclopedia of Taxation and Tax Policy was selected as an Outstanding Academic Book of the Year (1999) by Choice magazine."--Publisher's website.

Economism

Economism
Author: James Kwak
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2018-03-20
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0525436286

Here is a bracing deconstruction of the framework for understanding the world that is learned as gospel in Economics 101, regardless of its imaginary assumptions and misleading half-truths. Economism: an ideology that distorts the valid principles and tools of introductory college economics, propagated by self-styled experts, zealous lobbyists, clueless politicians, and ignorant pundits. In order to illuminate the fallacies of economism, James Kwak first offers a primer on supply and demand, market equilibrium, and social welfare: the underpinnings of most popular economic arguments. Then he provides a historical account of how economism became a prevalent mode of thought in the United States—focusing on the people who packaged Econ 101 into sound bites that were then repeated until they took on the aura of truth. He shows us how issues of moment in contemporary American society—labor markets, taxes, finance, health care, and international trade, among others—are shaped by economism, demonstrating in each case with clarity and élan how, because of its failure to reflect the complexities of our world, economism has had a deleterious influence on policies that affect hundreds of millions of Americans.