Tax policy

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Tax policy is the study of the best way to collect a tax for government revenue, a positive question as well as the study what what type of tax is best from theories of fairness, efficiency and utility (a normative question). It is a subset of the study of government or public policy but is usually categories inside economics departments for public economics or welfare economics or law departments under government policy or philosophy of state. Currently in western economies, the common policy issue surrounds that of fiscal deficits and the underlying debt in the face of projected large increases in old age spending in the next three decades.

Practitioners are professors Daniel Shaviro, Alan Auerbach, Lester Kaplow, William Andrews, policy wonks Eugene Struele at the Urban Institute, William Gale at the Brookings Institution, and incoming CBO chief Peter Orzsag, among others.