The Tax and Expenditure Program of the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University hosts a two-day conference beginning today on Is It Time For Fundamental Tax Reform? The Known, the Unknown and the Unknowable.  Today’s panels and papers are:

Session 1: What Does Empirical Analysis Teach Us about Past Tax Changes: The Known, The Unknown and The Knowable

• Is Tax Reform Good for Business? Is a Pro-Business Tax Policy Good for America?, by Joel B. Slemrod (Michigan)
  • Discussants:
    • Robert Dennis (Congressional Budget Office)
    • Thomas S. Neubig (Ernst & Young)
• Empirical Evidence of Tax-Induced Individual Behavioral Responses, by Thomas J. Kniesner (Syracuse) & James P. Ziliak (Kentucky)
  • Discussants:
    • Emmanuel Saez (Cal-Berkeley)
    • Robin Sickles (Rice)
• Empirical Evidence of Corporate or Business Responses to Taxes, by Kevin A. Hassett (American Enterprise Institute) & Kathryn Newmark (American Enterprise Institute)
  • Discussants:
    • Robert Chirinko (Emory)
    • Andrew B. Lyon (PricewaterhouseCoopers)

Session 2: The Taxation of Capital Income: The Known, The Unknown, and The Unknowable

• Reinventing Corporate (or Capital) Income Taxation in an International Setting Conference, by Harry Grubert (U.S. Treasury Department, Office of Tax Analysis) & Rosanne Altshuler (Rutgers)
  • Discussants:
    • Roger H. Gordon (Cal-San Diego)
    • Charles L. Ballard (Michigan State)
• Comparing Average and Marginal Tax Rates Under the Fair Tax and the Current System of Federal Taxation, by Laurence J. Kotlikoff (Boston University) & David Rapson (Boston University)
  • Discussants:
    • Jane G. Gravelle (Congressional Research Service)
    • Peter Mieszkowski (Rice)
• The Economic Incidence of Corporate Tax Reform Conference, by Arnold Harberger (UCLA)
  • Discussants:
    • Malcolm Gillis (Rice)
    • Jane G. Gravelle (Congressional Research Service)

A live webcast of today’s proceedings is available here.