View Research by Author - Joseph J. Thorndike

Publications

Since the charitable deduction first appeared in 1917, its fate has been bound up with arguments over the nature and size of government, as well as the relationship between government and the private sector. This paper examines historical debates over the deduction for charitable giving, focusing on three key periods: 1917, when the deduction was first added to the tax system; 1944, when the introduction of the standard deduction seemed to threaten the efficacy of the charity deduction; and 1981-1986, when the extension of the deduction to non-itemizers was quickly followed by a debate over curbing the deduction substantially as part of general tax reform.

Joseph J. Thorndike's history of the U.S. federal tax system from the 1920s until the end of World War II might feel familiar: the president with a progressive reputation who proves more pragmatic than his ardent supporters hoped, the legislators who serve the media apoplectic rhetoric, the magnates who pay no income tax and defend themselves with the perfectly true argument that doing so is 100 percent legal, and the public interested seeing everyone pay their fair share. Thorndike mines governmental and popular media archives to explore both the scholarship of taxes and the way we feel about paying them.

The history of America’s tax system can be written largely as a history of America’s wars. During World War II, Americans were urged to ration food, raise money, and accept higher taxes. After September 11, we were given tax cuts and asked to shop. Has the United States broken a noble tradition of fiscal sacrifice with the current, unprecedented wartime tax cuts, or are they the mark of new economic, and social forces at work? War and Taxes weighs the question by considering six conflicts that span the American Revolution to the present war in Iraq.

Perhaps the most important quality of a tax system is that citizens consider it fair. Yet agreement on what a just tax would look like is one of the most difficult questions in economics. This book advances knowledge considerably on this controversial topic by providing a variety of new perspectives culled from economics, law, history, and religion.

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