Husband, tenured full professor and scholar, father, grandfather, and mentor to thousands of undergraduate and graduate students since 1969. Two presidential pens and other awards for constructively helping change current tax law at the federal, state, and local levels.For details, go to: www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/rs9f
This Final Report of the Pennsylvania Local Tax Reform Commission contains a series of recommenda... more This Final Report of the Pennsylvania Local Tax Reform Commission contains a series of recommendations for the fundamental reform of local taxing authority of Pennsylvania's school districts, municipalities, and county governments. The Report responds to Governor Casey's charge that the Commission find ways to meaningfully reform the Commonwealth's local tax structure.
This paper explores, through the use of a sequence of computable general equilibrium models, what... more This paper explores, through the use of a sequence of computable general equilibrium models, what harm or good, as measured both in terms of real output and utility, might be accomplished through coordinated perturbations in excise and income tax policy among sovereign jurisdictions. We focus on two issues: the taxation of below-retail transactions and the taxation of E-commerce across state lines for jurisdictions that are comparable in fiscal structure and size, and for circumstances when both fiscal structure and size systematically vary. JEL Classification: H2, H7, C68, F1 ∗This is a revised version of a paper presented at the 2003 Public Economic Theory conference, Duke University. We wish to thank participants for helpful comments. Responsibility for the paper rests with the authors and not with the University of Alabama and/or Carnegie-Mellon University (or their Trustees). †Corresponding Author: Robert P. Strauss, Hamburg Hall, Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890; phone: 412-268-4798, fax: 412-268-5098.
Nationally, internet commerce amounts to trillions of dollars of sales per year, and business and... more Nationally, internet commerce amounts to trillions of dollars of sales per year, and business and consumer purchases from internet retailers are increasing rapidly. However, Pennsylvania has a limited ability to compel remote vendors without a physical presence in Pennsylvania to collect and remit sales and use taxes for internet transactions, 1 and for 2012, it is estimated that such uncollected revenues range from $254 to $410 million for Pennsylvania. In addition to this uncollected revenue and its obvious impact on the Commonwealth's finances, the non-collection of sales taxes by some internet retailers shifts sales away from tax-collecting retailers, which importantly includes in-state brick-and-mortar stores. The lower sales for brick-and-mortar stores in turn reduces the economic impact of these stores on the rest of Pennsylvania. If all internet retailers were required to collect sales tax, placing them on equal footing with taxcollecting retailers, it would increase tax...
This report responds to an invitation by the Controller of the City of Philadelphia, effective Ap... more This report responds to an invitation by the Controller of the City of Philadelphia, effective April 11, 2013, to perform a timely and independent review of the pending reassessment of real property in the City of Philadelphia. The recent mailing of proposed 2014 assessed values, and the pending legislative decision to be effected by ordinance by Philadelphia City Council and the Mayor to certify the proposed 2014 assessed values for tax year 2014 makes such an independent review of broad interest. This report focuses on the relationship between the old and proposed assessed values and recently observed sales prices. Such comparisons inform on the accuracy and fairness of the results of the reassessment process. An examination of the plausibility and accuracy of the underlying data publicly available and used by the Office of Property Assessments of the City of Philadelphia to perform the reassessments, and a spatial analysis of aspects of old and new assessed values provide insight...
In the United States, the real estate tax continues to be the most important own-source local tax... more In the United States, the real estate tax continues to be the most important own-source local tax revenue. As a consequence, there is a vast practitioner literature about how a local real estate tax can be administered most fairly and inexpensively. The International Association of Assessing Officers has promulgated manuals, training, standards of practice, and statutory language that define and enable best assessment practice . Until 1982, the Governments Division of the US Census Bureau measured and reported the quality of residential property assessment by metropolitan area and state4 . Beyond these two important research enterprises, other public finance researchers have explored a wide variety of questions about the valuation mechanism that underlies application of local real estate taxation.
Ribich for their comments. I would like to thank the Institute for their generous support of comp... more Ribich for their comments. I would like to thank the Institute for their generous support of computing and programming , and Karl and Alma Taeuber who originally interested me in this subject and graciously provided me with unpublished Census data. employment, 1950 to 1960. The impact of these variables depends on the occupation in question: Industrial concentration had a generally depressing effect on employment in the midd1e-and high-level occupations and a favorable effect in the low-level occupations. Unions, as expected, have a depressing, occupation-specific effect on Negro employment. Expansion of employment had a depressing effect on Negro employment. Because educational attainment was standardized when measuring employment representation, it follows that attitudes or prejudice, reinforced by monopoly power, are the primary obstacles to increased Negro employment. Thus, where Negroes have been employed, it would seem attitudes of white employers and employees have been moder...
The retirement behavior of Pennsylvania public school teachers is modeled using a choice framewor... more The retirement behavior of Pennsylvania public school teachers is modeled using a choice framework that emphasizes both pecuniary and non-pecuniary factors. We find each to have large and statistically significant effects on the decision to retire. The present value of inflation adjusted pension benefits is found to be an important determinant of retirement. A $1,000 (or .4 percent) increase in the value of pension benefits is estimated to increase the probability of retirement by .029 to .078 percentage points; this implies an elasticity of retirement with respect to the present value of real pensions of between 2.1 to 2.9. Estimated pension elasticities for female teachers are somewhat lower than for male teachers. A $1,000 increase in current salary is found to reduce the mean probability of retirement by .1 percentage points, implying an elasticity of –1.4. Student achievement (but not student poverty) is also significantly related to teacher retirement; a one standard deviation...
Income Division of the IRS for providing a variety of summary information about county migration ... more Income Division of the IRS for providing a variety of summary information about county migration patterns. Responsibility for the research findings and any errors in this paper, however, are the sole responsibility of the authors. It is now almost a decade since the prospect of the end of the Cold War led optimists to predict a domestic policy renaissance in the US which would result from redirecting some federal defense spending to a wide range of domestic public service needs. In retrospect this seems naive, especially in light of the increased skepticism which the voting public have expressed for
Foundation. The data used in this paper were obtained under signed confidentiality agreements wit... more Foundation. The data used in this paper were obtained under signed confidentiality agreements with the Pennsylvania Department of Education, and the Pennsylvania School Employee Retirement System. The authors benefited from discussions with Dave Davare about public retirement systems in Pennsylvania. Responsibility for
The US federal individual income tax allows households that forgo the standard deduction for item... more The US federal individual income tax allows households that forgo the standard deduction for itemized deductions to deduct qualified medical expenses above a floor (linked to their adjusted gross income). In this paper, we examine large cross sections of federal tax returns from the 1980s to study the responsiveness of medical deductions with respect to taxpayers’ income, the tax price, and the floor. The 1980s are well suited to conduct this inquiry. Tax reforms changed marginal tax rates and income floors several times, and thus provide suitable “experiments.” Our empirical strategy uses standard instrument choices to identify statistically the tax price effects. We also take an additional methodological step by explicitly endogenizing the taxpayer’s decision to itemize and correcting the results for selectivity. We estimate an income elasticity for medical deductions close to 0.4, a tax price elasticity near –1.1 and an income floor elasticity of –2.3 after applying Heckman’s eco...
The authors analyze the expenditures and revenues associated with the potential consolidation of ... more The authors analyze the expenditures and revenues associated with the potential consolidation of nine small, fiscally distressed municipalities in western Pennsylvania that have lost substantial portions of their tax base as a result of the closing of steel mills and related heavy industry. The analysis includes the collection of consistent financial information, the creation of forecasted base-case 1989 revenue-and-expenditure scenarios, and their juxtaposition for the nine jurisdictions against consolidation scenarios that might provide cost savings while maintaining critical service levels. Consolidation may provide a method for eliminating chronic operating deficits; economies of scale could be realized for small municipalities should they consolidate.
This Final Report of the Pennsylvania Local Tax Reform Commission contains a series of recommenda... more This Final Report of the Pennsylvania Local Tax Reform Commission contains a series of recommendations for the fundamental reform of local taxing authority of Pennsylvania's school districts, municipalities, and county governments. The Report responds to Governor Casey's charge that the Commission find ways to meaningfully reform the Commonwealth's local tax structure.
This paper explores, through the use of a sequence of computable general equilibrium models, what... more This paper explores, through the use of a sequence of computable general equilibrium models, what harm or good, as measured both in terms of real output and utility, might be accomplished through coordinated perturbations in excise and income tax policy among sovereign jurisdictions. We focus on two issues: the taxation of below-retail transactions and the taxation of E-commerce across state lines for jurisdictions that are comparable in fiscal structure and size, and for circumstances when both fiscal structure and size systematically vary. JEL Classification: H2, H7, C68, F1 ∗This is a revised version of a paper presented at the 2003 Public Economic Theory conference, Duke University. We wish to thank participants for helpful comments. Responsibility for the paper rests with the authors and not with the University of Alabama and/or Carnegie-Mellon University (or their Trustees). †Corresponding Author: Robert P. Strauss, Hamburg Hall, Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890; phone: 412-268-4798, fax: 412-268-5098.
Nationally, internet commerce amounts to trillions of dollars of sales per year, and business and... more Nationally, internet commerce amounts to trillions of dollars of sales per year, and business and consumer purchases from internet retailers are increasing rapidly. However, Pennsylvania has a limited ability to compel remote vendors without a physical presence in Pennsylvania to collect and remit sales and use taxes for internet transactions, 1 and for 2012, it is estimated that such uncollected revenues range from $254 to $410 million for Pennsylvania. In addition to this uncollected revenue and its obvious impact on the Commonwealth's finances, the non-collection of sales taxes by some internet retailers shifts sales away from tax-collecting retailers, which importantly includes in-state brick-and-mortar stores. The lower sales for brick-and-mortar stores in turn reduces the economic impact of these stores on the rest of Pennsylvania. If all internet retailers were required to collect sales tax, placing them on equal footing with taxcollecting retailers, it would increase tax...
This report responds to an invitation by the Controller of the City of Philadelphia, effective Ap... more This report responds to an invitation by the Controller of the City of Philadelphia, effective April 11, 2013, to perform a timely and independent review of the pending reassessment of real property in the City of Philadelphia. The recent mailing of proposed 2014 assessed values, and the pending legislative decision to be effected by ordinance by Philadelphia City Council and the Mayor to certify the proposed 2014 assessed values for tax year 2014 makes such an independent review of broad interest. This report focuses on the relationship between the old and proposed assessed values and recently observed sales prices. Such comparisons inform on the accuracy and fairness of the results of the reassessment process. An examination of the plausibility and accuracy of the underlying data publicly available and used by the Office of Property Assessments of the City of Philadelphia to perform the reassessments, and a spatial analysis of aspects of old and new assessed values provide insight...
In the United States, the real estate tax continues to be the most important own-source local tax... more In the United States, the real estate tax continues to be the most important own-source local tax revenue. As a consequence, there is a vast practitioner literature about how a local real estate tax can be administered most fairly and inexpensively. The International Association of Assessing Officers has promulgated manuals, training, standards of practice, and statutory language that define and enable best assessment practice . Until 1982, the Governments Division of the US Census Bureau measured and reported the quality of residential property assessment by metropolitan area and state4 . Beyond these two important research enterprises, other public finance researchers have explored a wide variety of questions about the valuation mechanism that underlies application of local real estate taxation.
Ribich for their comments. I would like to thank the Institute for their generous support of comp... more Ribich for their comments. I would like to thank the Institute for their generous support of computing and programming , and Karl and Alma Taeuber who originally interested me in this subject and graciously provided me with unpublished Census data. employment, 1950 to 1960. The impact of these variables depends on the occupation in question: Industrial concentration had a generally depressing effect on employment in the midd1e-and high-level occupations and a favorable effect in the low-level occupations. Unions, as expected, have a depressing, occupation-specific effect on Negro employment. Expansion of employment had a depressing effect on Negro employment. Because educational attainment was standardized when measuring employment representation, it follows that attitudes or prejudice, reinforced by monopoly power, are the primary obstacles to increased Negro employment. Thus, where Negroes have been employed, it would seem attitudes of white employers and employees have been moder...
The retirement behavior of Pennsylvania public school teachers is modeled using a choice framewor... more The retirement behavior of Pennsylvania public school teachers is modeled using a choice framework that emphasizes both pecuniary and non-pecuniary factors. We find each to have large and statistically significant effects on the decision to retire. The present value of inflation adjusted pension benefits is found to be an important determinant of retirement. A $1,000 (or .4 percent) increase in the value of pension benefits is estimated to increase the probability of retirement by .029 to .078 percentage points; this implies an elasticity of retirement with respect to the present value of real pensions of between 2.1 to 2.9. Estimated pension elasticities for female teachers are somewhat lower than for male teachers. A $1,000 increase in current salary is found to reduce the mean probability of retirement by .1 percentage points, implying an elasticity of –1.4. Student achievement (but not student poverty) is also significantly related to teacher retirement; a one standard deviation...
Income Division of the IRS for providing a variety of summary information about county migration ... more Income Division of the IRS for providing a variety of summary information about county migration patterns. Responsibility for the research findings and any errors in this paper, however, are the sole responsibility of the authors. It is now almost a decade since the prospect of the end of the Cold War led optimists to predict a domestic policy renaissance in the US which would result from redirecting some federal defense spending to a wide range of domestic public service needs. In retrospect this seems naive, especially in light of the increased skepticism which the voting public have expressed for
Foundation. The data used in this paper were obtained under signed confidentiality agreements wit... more Foundation. The data used in this paper were obtained under signed confidentiality agreements with the Pennsylvania Department of Education, and the Pennsylvania School Employee Retirement System. The authors benefited from discussions with Dave Davare about public retirement systems in Pennsylvania. Responsibility for
The US federal individual income tax allows households that forgo the standard deduction for item... more The US federal individual income tax allows households that forgo the standard deduction for itemized deductions to deduct qualified medical expenses above a floor (linked to their adjusted gross income). In this paper, we examine large cross sections of federal tax returns from the 1980s to study the responsiveness of medical deductions with respect to taxpayers’ income, the tax price, and the floor. The 1980s are well suited to conduct this inquiry. Tax reforms changed marginal tax rates and income floors several times, and thus provide suitable “experiments.” Our empirical strategy uses standard instrument choices to identify statistically the tax price effects. We also take an additional methodological step by explicitly endogenizing the taxpayer’s decision to itemize and correcting the results for selectivity. We estimate an income elasticity for medical deductions close to 0.4, a tax price elasticity near –1.1 and an income floor elasticity of –2.3 after applying Heckman’s eco...
The authors analyze the expenditures and revenues associated with the potential consolidation of ... more The authors analyze the expenditures and revenues associated with the potential consolidation of nine small, fiscally distressed municipalities in western Pennsylvania that have lost substantial portions of their tax base as a result of the closing of steel mills and related heavy industry. The analysis includes the collection of consistent financial information, the creation of forecasted base-case 1989 revenue-and-expenditure scenarios, and their juxtaposition for the nine jurisdictions against consolidation scenarios that might provide cost savings while maintaining critical service levels. Consolidation may provide a method for eliminating chronic operating deficits; economies of scale could be realized for small municipalities should they consolidate.
Uploads
Papers by Robert Strauss