Toward Fundamental Tax Reform

With tax reform once again on the political agenda, the American Enterprise Institute asked nine of the world’s leading tax policy scholars, including a Nobel Prize winner, to prepare papers outlining their own ideas about fundamental tax reform. After preparing these papers, the scholars gathered in Washington with the editors to discuss their differences and seek common ground.

Toward Fundamental Tax Reform provides readers with concise but varying perspectives on the possibilities of tax reform. It also focuses attention on key questions in the scholarly debate: Would a different tax code dramatically alter the functioning of the economy? How much damage does current law do? Can relatively small changes to the tax code deliver most of the benefits of more dramatic reforms such as the flat tax? Are political forces that oppose efficient tax systems simply too powerful to overcome? Will tax reform inevitably harm the poor? Can a tax reform, if enacted, be sustained?

Toward Fundamental Tax Reform collects these landmark papers in a single volume and includes two additional chapters by the editors that draw on a lively interplay that occurred among the scholars. Together, these efforts provide an invaluable and often entertaining glimpse of the future of tax reform, as well as a guide to the current thinking of our nation’s leading scholars.


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About the Author

 

Kevin A.
Hassett
  • Before joining AEI, Mr. Hassett was a senior economist at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and an associate professor of economics and finance at the Graduate School of Business of Columbia University, as well as a policy consultant to the Treasury Department during the George H. W. Bush and Clinton administrations. He served as an economic adviser to the George W. Bush 2004 presidential campaign, chief economic adviser to Senator John McCain during the 2000 presidential primaries, senior economic adviser to the McCain 2008 presidential campaign, and economic adviser to the Mitt Romney 2012 presidential campaign.   Mr. Hassett is a columnist for National Review.

  • Phone: 202-862-7157
    Email: khassett@aei.org
  • Assistant Info

    Name: Emma Bennett
    Phone: 202-862-5862
    Email: emma.bennett@aei.org

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