Learning to Love Form 1040: Two Cheers for the Return-based Mass Income Tax - Hardcover

Zelenak, Lawrence

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 022601892X ISBN 13: 9780226018928

Verlag: University of Chicago Press, 2013

Inhaltsangabe

No one likes paying taxes, much less the process of filing tax returns. For years, would-be reformers have advocated replacing the return-based mass income tax with a flat tax, federal sales tax, or some combination thereof. Congress itself has commissioned studies on the feasibility of a system of exact withholding. But might the much-maligned return-based taxation method serve an important yet overlooked civic purpose?

In Learning to Love Form 1040, Lawrence Zelenak argues that filing taxes can strengthen fiscal citizenship by prompting taxpayers to reflect on the contract they have with their government and the value—or perceived lack of value—they receive in exchange for their money. Zelenak traces the mass income tax to its origins as a means for raising revenue during World War II. Even then, debates raged over the merits of consumption-based versus income taxation, as well as whether taxes should be withheld from payroll or paid at the time of filing. The result is the income tax system we have today—a system whose maddening complexity, intended to accommodate citizens in widely different circumstances, threatens to outweigh any civic benefits.

If sitcoms and political cartoons are any indication, public understanding of the income tax is badly in need of a corrective. Zelenak clears up some of the most common misconceptions and closes with suggestions for how the current system could be substantially simplified to better serve its civic purpose.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Lawrence Zelenak is the Pamela B. Gann Professor of Law at Duke University School of Law.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: University of Chicago Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2013
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 022601892X
• ISBN 13: 9780226018928
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 168
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar