Getting a Poor Return by Robert M Howard
Public policy often favors one group over another. In the case of tax policy, the conventional wisdom has been that the dominant political coalition will offer policies that favor their primary constituents. The longstanding belief has been that the disfavored group may always assert their rights in court, the expectation being, as Justice John Marshall Harlan wrote, that all citizens are equal before the law. In this revealing and insightful study, Robert M. Howard demonstrates that long-cherished beliefs such as equality before the law are more wishful thinking than reality. Courts, he argues, differ little from national policy makers in their approach to tax policy and tax enforcement. Examining the tax litigation process, particularly the influence and impact of competing courts, Howard discovers that fairness before the law may be a laudable goal, but the appointment process ensures that tax policy and tax enforcement rulings by the courts reflect the perspectives of the dominant political coalition."…Howard provides a most insightful examination of how US. tax policy is shaped by the U.S. District Court and the more specialized U.S. Tax Court … this book has implications far beyond tax policy. Most impressively, it investigates why litigants choose to file their tax suits in particular venues, as well as how those courts render their decisions. In so doing, it advances our understanding of two of the most significant aspects of the study of law and courts: litigation strategies and judicial decision making." — American Review of Politics
"The book fits nicely at the intersection of several well-developed and important literatures, including judicial decision-making, litigant choice, 'upperdogs versus underdogs,' bureaucratic discretion, and congressional-executive relations … the emphasis on the low-income litigant's plight is a powerful way of contextualizing the larger study and accentuating why such an inquiry is so important." — Law and Politics Book Review
Robert M. Howard is Associate Professor of Political Science at Georgia State University.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781438428888 |
| ISBN 10 | 143842888X |
| Title | Getting a Poor Return |
| Author | Robert M Howard |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | State University of New York Press |
| Year published | 2010-07-02 |
| Number of pages | 138 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |