The base for direct taxation

AUTHORS: James Banks
COMMENTATORS: John Kay

The discussion of the tax base will cover both traditional income tax vs expenditure tax issues (including the taxation of savings, capital gains, pensions, inheritance, housing etc) and an analysis of dynamic optimality, risk and returns, and different approaches to wealth taxation. The discussion will attempt to address some of the big issues of income vs. consumption as the tax base: for example, it will consider arguments suggesting that only the riskless return is not taxed under a consumption tax, and thus whether the fundamental difference in tax bases is just a tax on real return of a percent or two. It will also consider more specific questions of what gets included in the tax base: for example, how to handle employee business expenses, charity, taxes to other jurisdictions, etc. It will have a guiding principle of looking back to the Meade Report and seeing what issues if any require 'updating'. The material will nevertheless be self-standing and not require reference back to the Meade Report to be comprehensible.

Related papers and presentations

PLEASE NOTE: presentations from the September meeting represent draft work in progress. Factual accuracy is not guaranteed, and opinions may not be the fully-formed views of authors. They are posted here to stimulate discussion, and should not be quoted or cited without the authors' permission.

The base for direct taxation
Pierre Pestieau
This presentation was delivered at the IFS Residential Conference 2007.
24 Apr 2007 , Presentations

Commentary: The main household tax base
John Kay
This presentation was delivered at the IFS Residential Conference 2007.
24 Apr 2007 , Presentations

The base of direct taxation
James Banks, Peter Diamond and James Mirrlees
This draft paper forms part of the Mirrlees Review and was presented at the IFS Residential Conference 2007.
20 Apr 2007 , Conference Papers

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