No more April 15 to look forward to? Not if Ross School tax expert Joel Slemrod's "beautiful tax reform" is adopted. The policy, named after the idea that artists and writers often embrace simplicity as being beautiful, would mean Americans would not have to file tax returns, but would enjoy a low, basic rate with the usual tax credits built in, thus relieving government of heavy administrative burdens.
Business and capital income would be systematically subject to progressive taxation by eliminating the benefit of graduated corporation income tax rates, offering a credit for corporation taxes paid by tax-paying public corporations, and cleaning the corporate tax base.
In his paper, "My Beautiful Tax Reform," Slemrod, director of the Office of Tax Policy Research and the Paul W. McCracken Collegiate Professor of Business Economics and Public Policy, discusses economic assumptions and value judgments on tax systems such as the national retail sales tax, value added tax and flat tax.
Unobserved Actions of Mutual Funds Mutual fund investors should consider more than a fund's past returns or expenses. They also should account for the unobserved actions of mutual fund managers, say assistant professors of finance Lu Zheng and Clemens Sialm.
"Mutual fund investors do not observe all actions of fund managers," said Zheng. "They do not observe the exact timing of the purchases and the sales of securities and the corresponding transaction costs." More...
Moving Beyond Reactive Firing-Squad Mentality Organizational crises can spell disaster for many companies. However, bumps in the road also can provide executives with valuable opportunities to learn from missteps and take strategic measures to rebuild and renew their organizations. New research by Lynn Wooten, clinical assistant professor of corporate strategy and management and organizations, suggests that company leaders can benefit from framing crisis management through multiple lenses. More...
Client Defections: Companies Are Careful about the Company They Keep
Many firms that dissolve business relationships, such as when companies dropped accounting firm Arthur Andersen after the Enron audit failure, do so to avoid the perception of impropriety.
In a new study, Michael Jensen, assistant professor of corporate strategy and international business, says that the dissolution of interfirm relationships does not depend necessarily on the uncertainty surrounding a firm whose business practices are called into question. More...
New Building: 
