The Conclusion emphasizes the book’s primary argument, that its proposed system of means-based adjustments to the tax compliance rules would more effectively deter tax avoidance and evasion by the rich than would reforms focused solely on increasing the IRS’s funding or on rules targeting specific potentially abusive activities. It notes that the book has provided four practical applications of this approach – as adjustments to tax penalties, penalty defenses, the statute of limitations, and information reporting – but that these examples are just the beginning. The book concludes that its analysis and new approach to tax administration should be relevant to legislators and other tax policymakers, scholars of both tax law and progressivity, and federal and state tax administrators.

This chapter outlines the advantages and limitations of both third-party and first-party reporting requirements. We begin by evaluating the Biden Administration’s 2021 bank information reporting proposal as an example of a third-party information reporting reform. Then, we provide a model for introducing first-party information reporting from high-end taxpayers regarding their finances through an annual wealth reporting form, which we call the Annual Net Asset Statement. Next, we introduce a hybrid system that incorporates both first- and third-party information reporting and explain how this system would have offered an alternative approach to the Biden Administration’s proposal for reporting inflows and outflows from financial accounts. Finally, we describe how this framework can help improve the tailoring of penalties for noncompliance in two areas: with information-reporting obligations, and in the use of audit resources. We explain how a means-adjusted approach can improve the operation of these information-reporting rules and complement the activity-based focus in current law.

The Introduction sets the stage by describing the intense focus on abusive tax avoidance and tax evasion by the rich among political figures, legal scholars, and the general public. The Introduction also describes the stakes for the tax system in addressing high-end tax noncompliance. It then provides an overview of two conventional approaches to the problem of high-end tax noncompliance: increasing IRS funding and “activity-based rules” targeting specific strategies that enable tax avoidance and evasion. The Introduction describes the book’s argument that both of these responses are incomplete solutions. It then describes the overlooked role that tax compliance rules – which govern critical aspects of tax administration and enforcement but that currently apply to all taxpayers without regard to their income or wealth – play in enabling tax avoidance and evasion by the rich. The Introduction provides a summary of the core argument and contribution of the book: that policymakers should introduce a system of means-based adjustments to the tax compliance rules for high-end taxpayers.

Policymakers face many design possibilities when implementing means-adjusted tax compliance rules. This chapter serves as the bridge from theory to legal design. We begin this transition by identifying some of the key design considerations that policymakers should take into account when attempting to introduce means adjustments to the tax compliance rules. In general, we propose means adjustments to certain tax compliance rules that favor high-end taxpayers when they are applied the same to everyone. These adjustments should also be designed to preserve core prerequisites of procedural fairness, and should also include an underpayment-based threshold to exempt less consequential tax offenses from these heightened tax compliance rules.

In the first chapter in Part III, Frances Lee shifts the focus from elections to governing in the context of contemporary American politics. She examines the strategies of coalition leaders in Congress, who now operate in a world of highly polarized congressional parties. She scrutinizes the two major legislative efforts of the 115th Congress (2017-18): tax reform and the repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act. Lee finds that coalition leaders used many of the same techniques as in earlier periods. In particular, coalition leaders substantially modified their proposals to reduce the costs imposed on the constituents of legislators whose votes they needed. Similarly, leaders deployed procedural tactics to break the linkage between Congressional action and painful policy effects. These efforts were successful on tax reform but ultimately failed with the efforts to repeal the ACA, and Lee finds the failure was related to the traceable costs of the proposed policy change. She concludes that although polarization has arguably created new challenges for enacting major legislation, the strategies of coalition builders exhibit a good deal of continuity.

The chapters in this volume provide insightful and provocative discussion of many of the issues related to whether the United States is likely to continue on the robust growth path of earlier years or whether economic growth is likely to decelerate or even enter an extended period of “secular stagnation.” In this concluding chapter, the editors of the volume tie together some of the threads that appear in the various chapters, extend the analyses in several directions, and discuss some policy implications. The discussion is organized around three themes: (i) technology and productivity growth; (ii) labor markets and economic growth, including the importance of human capital accumulation and the role of immigration; and (iii) fiscal policy, including both expenditure and tax reform.

This chapter examines and compares the cases situated in the Swiss political system. The Swiss blame game style is characterized by rather unaggressive interparty conflict that spares the politically responsible executive from a large share of the blame. This conflict form is significantly different from the government–opposition conflict that characterizes parliamentary systems. Because opponents cannot usually bring incumbents to resign, they concentrate on achieving their policy goals and, for this purpose, attempt to forge ‘pressure majorities’ in parliament. A pressure majority consists of several parties that acknowledge the need for policy change in response to a controversy. Successfully forging a pressure majority greatly increases the likelihood that the collective executive government will act in the interest of opponents. Due to its collective and nonpartisan nature, the Swiss government is eager to signal its cooperation with as many parties as possible, thus making it very sensitive to the parliamentary majority’s stance during a blame game. Interparty conflict creates a comfortable situation for political incumbents.