By its own account, the federal government spends more than $500 billion every year to subsidize retirement savings in 401(k) plans, IRAs and similar arrangements. That figure is larger than the annual budget of every government agency other than the four largest. The theory behind this massive subsidy is that it gives workers at all income levels an incentive to save money that they would otherwise spend, thereby enhancing retirement security, reducing old-age poverty and easing dependence on Social Security. But the theory is wrong. The retirement tax subsidy is anything but egalitarian. Less than five percent of the subsidy goes to households in the bottom 40 percent of the income distribution scale, and more than 60 percent goes to households in the top 20 percent. And among higher-income households, the subsidy generally does not encourage saving. Instead, the affluent respond to the subsidy primarily by moving assets from taxable investment accounts to tax-exempt retirement accounts. In short, the federal government spends more than half a trillion dollars every year to provide windfalls to higher-income households with little meaningful increase in retirement security for lower-income and middle-income households. It is time to acknowledge that the retirement tax subsidy is a tax shelter, nothing more and nothing less, and to reset tax policy accordingly.
Income inequality is a national preoccupation, and the public’s imagination is captured by the astronomical incomes of Valley tech billionaires and...
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This collection brings together tax law and religion scholars to provide theological analyses of the ends and purposes of taxation. It includes...
Thinking clearly about tax law and policy requires attending both to what is seen and what is unseen. In one respect, taxation is one of the most...
For Christians throughout the centuries, tax has usually been a given—that is, something that Christians have encountered as a reality of the social...
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This Chapter discusses citizenship taxation as a potential solution to the challenges posed by increasing global mobility and the digitalization of...
Treating a tax or tariff as different from a confiscation is an interpretive issue that should be decided by Congress, not the judiciary.
On Nov. 5...
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This is the text of Ruth Mason's Tillinghast Lecture, delivered at NYU School of Law in October 2025. The lecture frames the EU's anti-subsidy rules...
In Cunningham vs. Cornell University, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on the pleading requirements for a prohibited transaction claim under ERISA section...
The Court of Justice decision in the Apple state aid case has been roundly criticized by tax experts. In two Articles in this Issue, we describe and...
The Court of Justice decision in the Apple state aid case has been roundly criticized by tax experts. In two Articles in this Issue, we describe and...
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By its own account, the federal government spends more than $500 billion every year to subsidize retirement savings in 401(k) plans, IRAs and similar...
This article takes an in-depth look at the deeply flawed EU Court of Justice decision in the Apple state aid case. We discuss whether any legitimate...
Last month the European Court of Justice ended an eight-year tax battle involving Apple and Ireland. In a dramatic upset, the court handed the EU...
Liberalism is back on its heels, pushed there by political movements in the United States and Europe and by the critiques of legal scholars and...