A Citizen's Guide to the Great Debate Over Tax Reform . MIT Press, 1996. Tables, notes, bibliography, and index. This book is written as an overview and at times a detailed survey of the United States income tax system, and its proposed alternatives. The authors use concepts primarily from economics and supported by references, and statistics consistent with the intended depth of the subject matter.
Statistical information is presented in a basic and non-rigorous manner.
It is necessary to add a note of caution on the authors' interpretations of the literature and of statistical data. The resulting conclusions are somewhat biased due to their selective use of data and references. However, they selected a time series showing the relationship between net private saving as a percentage of disposable income, and interest rates on Baa corporate bonds, adjusted for expected inflation, and the average marginal tax rate on personal interest income, plus a fixed equity premium. The target audience is given the impression that the studies presented are the generally accepted ones amongst the experts which is not necessarily the case. Some mention of the differences of opinions and conflicting studies were made but there was little explanation of the bias the authors brought to the discussion by their econometric selections.