guidingprinciplesfortaxequityandfairness-aicpa.docVIP

Tax Policy Concept Statement 4 Guiding Principles for Tax Equity and Fairness Issued by the Tax Division of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants  Copyright ? 2007 by American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, Inc. New York, NY 10036-8775 All rights reserved. For information about the procedure for requesting permission to make copies of any part of this work, please call the AICPAs authorized copyright permissions agency, the Copyright Clearance Center, at 978-750-8400. For your convenience, a CCC Internet permissions request form is now available at WWW.Copyright.Com/FirstTimeUsers.Asp. Table of Contents Page Forward ii Equity and Fairness: Desirable Attributes for a Tax System 1 Definitions of Equity and Fairness 1 The Seven Dimensions of Tax Equity and Fairness 3 Exchange Equity and Fairness 4 Process Equity and Fairness 4 Horizontal Equity and Fairness 5 Vertical Equity and Fairness 6 Time-Related Equity and Fairness 7 Inter-Group Equity and Fairness 8 Compliance Equity and Fairness 9 Challenges 9 Conclusion 10 Appendix – Desirable Attributes for Tax Systems 11 Bibliography 12 Foreword This is the fourth in a series of tax policy concept statements issued by the AICPA Tax Division on tax policy matters. It is intended to aid in the development of federal tax legislation in directions that the AICPA believes are in the public interest. Prior Tax Policy Concept Statements include: Guiding Principles of Good Tax Policy: A Framework for Evaluating Tax Proposals (2001) Guiding Principles for Tax Simplification (2002) Guiding Principles for Tax Law Transparency (2003) Tax Policy Concept Statements are approved by the Tax Executive Committee of the AICPA Tax Division, after they are developed and approved by the Division’s Tax Legislation and Policy Committee. Other Division committees and technical resource panels may dev