The distribution of taxes over different income groups has, rightly or wrongly, assumed a central position in tax policy decisions. All serious tax proposals are now accompanied by tables illustrating this distribution. This volume shows how these tables can be improved. David Bradford proposes expanding the distributional tables to reflect a wider measure of individuals' loss or gain from changes in taxation.

The fifteen authors and commentators include current and former senior members of three key agency staffs--the Office of Tax Analysis, the Joint Committee on Taxation, and the Congressional Budget Office. These experts clarify the methods used by the three agencies and consider such improvements as generational acccounting, lifetime rather than snapshot profiles of taxpayers, comprehensive estimation of behavioral effects, and refined measures of incentives built into tax and transfer systems.

David Bradford is an adjunct scholar at AEI.