My latest book is now available

My latest book, Decoding the Corporate Tax, is now available here on the Urban Institute Press website.

Not to lay it on too thick, but the cover blurbs are as follows. From David Weisbach:

"Decoding the U.S. Corporate Tax is a concise and clearly written review of the corporate tax structure and its economic and distributional consequences. The book covers perennial issues (such as corporate integration) as well as issues raised by the recent increases in capital mobility, the interaction of the corporate tax and corporate governance, and more. Reform of the corporate tax will be central to any significant long-term reform of our tax system. Shaviro provides a roadmap."

Joel Slemrod says:

"Right out of the blocks, Decoding the U.S. Corporate Tax by Daniel Shaviro is the indispensable guide to this most complex and politically divisive tax. It addresses the key issues with sophisticated economic and legal reasoning and a keen knowledge of how the world really works, yet makes its points clearly—and often amusingly—with a minimum of jargon. Start here to understand where corporate tax policy should head in a world marked by increasing globalization and financial innovation, and where it probably will end up instead.”

Harvey Rosen says:

“Daniel Shaviro has produced a clearly written, insightful, and comprehensive discussion of the economic and legal issues surrounding corporate taxation. It is sure to become a highly valued resource for both students and researchers.”

And Kevin Hassett says:

"Daniel Shaviro is a giant in the tax community because his analysis is always novel and always convincing. He understands that to develop a smarter and more efficient code, we must fully understand the code we have and why it emerged. Yes, the tax code is a horrific and comical mess, but a mess that has often been made for practical reasons. Decoding the U.S. Corporate Tax is a priceless addition to the literature and just cause for optimism—the hard work of fixing the tax code just got a lot easier.”

One reason I wrote this book was so I could assign it to students in Tax Policy and Corporate Tax classes, as otherwise there was nothing available that concisely and clearly explains the important economic models in the area, including why they're all over the map and why (though none of their alternative assumptions fully hold) they matter. Another reason was to argue that corporate integration, though all very well in principle, probably isn't the best place to focus corporate tax reform efforts these days, for reasons that readers of the full text (and particularly the last couple of chapters) can evaluate for themselves.

You can see the introduction here and the table of contents here.