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This paper examines the relationship between the procedural tax administration system and the characteristics of the decision-maker in the decision to comply with the tax code. Specifically, we examine the motor fuel tax system. The motor fuel tax system requires an organization to collect and remit taxes at both the federal and state levels. Using a path model, we find that the procedural complexity of the tax system contributes to an increase in tax non-compliance.

The International Fuel Tax Agreement (IFTA) was established to reduce the complexities of reporting, allocating, and collecting diesel fuel taxes from interstate commercial carriers operating in multiple jurisdictions. This paper examines IFTA’s effectiveness as a multistate tax administration model from the perspective of the states. We identify three criteria of effectiveness and use a survey of IFTA officials in the member states and provinces as well as additional data provided by IFTA, Inc to assess IFTA’s effectiveness. We conclude that (1) IFTA promotes inter-jurisdictional cooperation and revenue transfers; (2) carriers do not locate disproportionately in low tax jurisdictions; and (3) IFTA’s audit system, which relies on carrier record-keeping, may not be effectively preventing tax evasion.

Although the federal gasoline tax played multiple roles in financing surface transportation infrastructure in the United States, experts did not agree on the tax's purpose. Some argued that it was essentially a fee for users of the nation's federally supported highways. Others suggested that it should play a more prominent role in environmental, energy, and transportation policy by correcting for driving-related externalities. Still others suggested that it should be used to reduce the federal budget deficit. Finally, the tax itself had remained at the same level since 1993, and with the Highway Trust Fund virtually insolvent, many experts believed it was time for an increase. The case presents a background on the U.S. federal gasoline tax, an overview of the market for gasoline in the United States, and survey of gasoline taxes in U.S. states as well as several other countries around the world.

The case can be used to discuss the incidence of the gasoline tax, as well as its role as a Pigouvian tax to deal with negative externalities related to gasoline consumption and driving. There is sufficient data in the case to enable students to analyze the incidence of the federal gasoline tax and to determine the socially efficient level of the tax in light of externalities related to gasoline consumption and driving.

This paper focuses on the American states and the sources of the expanding structural imbalance between their highway-related revenues on the one hand and expenditures for transportation infrastructure needs on the other. The paper describes the roots of the funding problem over recent decades, looks at some of the responses taken at the state and federal level, and discusses their inherent limitations as solutions to this funding crisis. The paper also presents several policy recommendations for increasing revenues. We demonstrate that a variable rate gas tax indexed to the construction cost index and improvements in automobile fuel efficiency and a tax on large commercial trucks based on equivalent standard axle loads (an esal-mile tax) would more effectively fund the state highway system and reduce the need for more spending on maintenance and new facilities.

This paper analyzes the impact of economic downturns on the revenue and expense sides of city financing for the period 2003 to 2009 using a convenience sample of the audited end of year financial reports for thirty midsized US cities. The analysis focuses on whether and how quickly and how extensively revenue and spending directions from past years are altered by recessions. A seven year series of Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) data serves to explore whether citiesʼ revenues and spending, especially the traditional property tax and core functions such as public safety and infrastructure withstood the brief 2001 and the persistent 2007 recessions? The findings point to consumption (spending) over stability (revenue minus expense) for the recession of 2007, particularly in 2008 and 2009.

Local governments in the U.S. rely less on the property tax than they have historically. This long-term trend has been accompanied by important shifts in the composition of local revenues. While the property tax still serves as one primary source of local government revenue, increasingly other sources are used to pay for local government. This paper first examines that trend, the forces behind it, and its regional impact. We then explore trends in three central states - - Iowa, Nebraska, and Arkansas -- that have experienced substantial revenue shifts in recent years. A concluding section discusses the options for the future.

A tax based on land value is in many ways ideal, but many economists dismiss it by assuming it could not raise enough revenue. Standard sources of data omit much of the potential tax base, and undervalue what they do measure. The purpose of this paper is to present more comprehensive and accurate measures of land rents and values, and several modes of raising revenues from them besides the conventional property tax.

The paper identifies 16 elements of land's taxable capacity that received authorities either trivialize or omit. These 16 elements come in four groups.

In Group A, Elements 1‐4 correct for the downward bias in standard sources. In Group B, Elements 5‐10 broaden the concepts of land and rent beyond the conventional narrow perception, while Elements 11‐12 estimate rents to be gained by abating other kinds of taxes. In Group C, Elements 13‐14 explain how using the land tax, since it has no excess burden, uncaps feasible tax rates. In Group D, Elements 15‐16 define some moot possibilities that may warrant further exploration.

This paper shows how previous estimates of rent and land values have been narrowly limited to a fraction of the whole, thus giving a false impression that the tax capacity is low. The paper adds 14 elements to the traditional narrow “single tax” base, plus two moot elements advanced for future consideration. Any one of these 16 elements indicates a much higher land tax base than economists commonly recognize today. Taken together they are overwhelming, and cast an entirely new light on this subject.