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RICHARD MUSGRAVE VISITING PROFESSORSHIP

In 2008, the CESifo Group and the International Institute of Public Finance (IIPF) established the Richard Musgrave Visiting Professorship to honor the memory of one of Public Finance's greatest scholars.  This annual prize honors an outstanding scholar in the area of Public Finance.  With this award the prize winner is also names a Distinguished CESifo Fellow.  The award winner is chosen through a formal selection process by the President and Vice Presidents of IIPF together with the President of the CESifo Group.

The 2013 award winner is Professor Joel Slemrod.  Professor Slemrod has made vast contributions to research on all aspects of taxation and tax policy. Based on his expertise, Professor Slemrod has also served as a consultant to the U.S. Department of the Treasury, the Canadian Department of Finance, the New Zealand Department of Treasury, the South African Ministry of Finance, the World Bank, and the OECD. 

On April 11, 2013, as part of his visiting professorship, hedeliver the fifth Richard Musgrave Lecture on the topic of "Insights from a Tax-Systems Perspective."

	The March, 2012 Journal of Economic Literature article, "The Elasticity of Taxable Income with Respect to Marginal Tax Rates:  A Critical Review, written by Emmanuel Saez, Joel Slemrod, and Seth H. Giertz was recently cited in the 2013 Economic Report of the President.  Chapter 3 highlights federal income tax reform and cites page 4 of the JEL article to support how "High tax rates, combined with a complex tax system and a narrow base...provide incentives for taxpayers to...alter behavior in...ways to reduce tax liability."  For more information, see Slemrod's latest book (co-authored with Leonard E. Burman) titled Taxes in America: What Everyone Needs to Know published by Oxford University Press.
	Joel Slemrod and co-author Leonard E. Burman recently published Taxes in America: What Everyone Needs to Know by Oxford University Press. This book offers a clear, concise explanation of how our tax system works, how it affects people and businesses and how it might be improved.  Since federal policymakers often flirt with the idea of comprehensive tax reform, and this year is not exception, this publication is for anyone who wants to be more than a passive bystander in the upcoming debate about tax reform.

CLOSING LOOPHOLES ISN'T ENOUGH (New York Times - 12/28/12)

Republicans in Congress say they will do anything rather than raise tax rates. Apparently, that includes rushing headlong over the fiscal cliff and throwing the economy into a possible recession.  MORE

CHANGING THE COST-BENEFIT CALCULUS ON TAXES (Boston Globe-12/28/12)

A revealing thing has happened on the way to the fiscal cliff: A bloc of GOP House members rejected their own leader’s proposal to extend the Bush tax cuts for all but millionaires. Speaker John Boehner expected opposition from Democrats. Instead, he was thwarted by the intransigence of his own members, whose aversion to taxes trumps all other concerns. Although Republicans purport to care about more than low taxes, the party’s anti-tax ideology easily trumps its other concerns. MORE

FISCAL CLIFF?  MORE LIKE A FISCAL MOUNTAIN

Joel Slemrod says the U.S. Has a long climb ahead to get spending and taxes right. He says there's probably not enough time to reach a grand solution on the long-term fiscal imbalance. Instead, one or more stop-gap agreements are more likely. While he agrees that now might not be the best time to raise taxes and cut entitlements, it's a pill the country has to swallow eventually. That's why Slemrod thinks "climbing a mountain" is a better metaphor for the situation. To read more, click here.

LESSONS ABOUT TAX REFORM FROM 1986

Everyone seems to agree that it's a good idea to place tax reform at the heart of a package of policies to stave off the fiscal cliff and address the long-term fiscal imbalance.  But what can it accomplish other than raising revenue without raising tax rates?  One set of lessons comes from the consequences of the last major income tax reform in the United States, the Tax Reform Act of 1986.  In a survey article published in the 1997 Journal of Economic Literature, Alan Auerbach and Joel Slemrod investigated this issue.  Read what they concluded in:  http://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/jeclit/v35y1997i2p589-632.html

TAXING THE RICH

How much and how the rich should be taxed often plays a critical role in tax policy debates.  It comes up with regard to incremental tax proposals, which are always scrutinized for how much benefit goes to high-income individuals. It also figures prominently in the debate about fundamental tax reform -- whether to abandon the income tax in favor of a value-added tax, retail sales tax, or flat tax; while it is generally agreed upon that any of these alternatives would reduce the tax burden on the rich, there is much less agreement about whether the economic benefits would be significant, and on how critical the reduction of tax progressivity is to the economic benefits these reforms promise. In his introductory chapter of Does Atlas Shrug: The Economic Consequences of Taxing the Rich, OTPR Director Joel Slemrod discusses the issue of income tax rates on affluent households.