Taxing Ourselves, 3rd Edition

May 2004
6 x 9, 396 pp., 15 illus.
(PAPER)
Trade

ISBN-10:
0-262-69302-X
ISBN-13:
978-0-262-69302-8

Out Of Print

Cloth (2004)

Related Links

Joel Slemrod on Three Ways to Increase the Fairness and Simplicity of the Tax System

Taxing Ourselves, 3rd Edition
A Citizen's Guide to the Debate over Taxes
Joel Slemrod and Jon Bakija

Table of Contents and Sample Chapters

"Citizens should read Taxing Ourselves before casting their votes in local, state, and national elections. Politicians should read Taxing Ourselves before taxing us."
—Richard C. Schiming, Business Library Review

To follow the debate over tax reform, the interested citizen is forced to choose between misleading sound bites and academic treatises. Taxing Ourselves bridges the gap between the two by presenting in clear nontechnical language the key issues in tax reform: who should pay taxes, how taxes affect the economy, and whether to reform or replace the current tax system. The authors discuss various alternative proposals in detail, including the flat tax and the sales tax, but they are not advocates for any of them; instead, they provide readers with the knowledge and the tools—including an informative overview of the U.S. tax system and an invaluable voter's guide to the tax policy debate—to make their own informed choices about how we should tax ourselves.

The third edition of this popular guide has been extensively revised and updated to cover all changes in tax laws through May 2003 and to reflect the most recent research and relevant data. It also provides new or expanded treatment of issues in the current debate, including tax cuts and whether they stimulate the economy, savings incentives, double taxation of corporate income, the estate tax, corporate tax shelters, and the economic and political effects of budget deficits.

About the Authors

Joel Slemrod is Paul W. McCracken Collegiate Professor of Business Economics and Public Policy and Director of the Office of Tax Policy Research at the University of Michigan.

Jon Bakija is Associate Professor of Economics at Williams College and Visiting Associate Professor of Law at Cornell University Law School, 2007-2008.

"Citizens should read Taxing Ourselves before casting their votes in local, state, and national elections. Politicians should read Taxing Ourselves before taxing us."
—Business Library Review, Richard C. Schiming

"In the ever-changing world of tax policy, Taxing Ourselves remains a constant. It is an indispensable guide to the current U.S. tax system and an accessible and insightful introduction to options for reform."
—James M. Poterba, Mitsui Professor of Economics, MIT

"Slemrod and Bakija provide a comprehensive—and comprehensible—analysis of the U.S. tax system, its effects, and its defects. Their evenhanded presentation offers the reader a broad perspective on how the income tax arrived at its current state and what the options are for reform. This book should interest tax specialists, students, and frustrated citizens alike."
—Alan Auerbach, Robert D. Burch Professor of Economics and Law, and Director, Burch Center for Tax Policy and Public Finance, University of California, Berkeley

"Slemrod and Bakija have made their splendid guide to the federal tax system as fresh and current as this morning's newspaper. Careful readers will be immunized against the easy sophistries that too often masquerade as tax policy debate. This third edition lays out sophisticated economic analysis in simple language that should make it an oft-consulted companion of students, journalists, lawyers, officials, and virtually anyone else who wants to make their way through the weird terrain of the U.S. tax system."
—Henry J. Aaron, The Brookings Institution

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