Taxing Ourselves: A Citizen's Guide to the Debate over Taxes

As Albert Einstein may or may not have said, "The hardest thing in the world tounderstand is the income tax." Indeed, to follow the debate over tax reform, the interestedcitizen is forced to choose between misleading sound bites and academic treatises. Taxing Ourselvesbridges the gap between the two by discussing the key issues clearly and without a political agenda:Should the federal income tax be replaced with a flat tax or sales tax? Should it be left in placeand reformed? Can tax cuts stimulate the economy, or will higher deficits undermine any economicbenefit? Authors and tax policy experts Joel Slemrod and Jon Bakija lay out in accessible languagewhat is known and not known about how taxes affect the economy, offer guidelines for evaluating taxsystems, and provide enough information to assess both the current income tax system and the leadingproposals to reform or replace it (including the flat tax and the consumption tax). The fourthedition of this popular guide has been extensively revised to incorporate the latest information,covering such recent developments as the Bush administration's tax cuts (which expire in 2011) andthe alternatives proposed by the President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform. Slemrod andBakija provide us with the knowledge and the tools--including an invaluable voter's guide to the taxpolicy debate--to make our own informed choices about how we should tax ourselves. Joel Slemrod isPaul W. McCracken Collegiate Professor of Business Economics and Public Policy and Director of theOffice of Tax Policy Research at the University of Michigan. Jon Bakija is Associate Professor ofEconomics at Williams College and Visiting Associate Professor of Law at Cornell University LawSchool, 2007-2008. [as per authors 7/12/07]

Tim Miller is a solo performer and the author of the books Shirts & Skin (Alyson,1997), and Body Blows (University of Wisconsin, 2002). He can be reached at http://hometown.aol.com/millertale/timmiller.html.