Tax and Time: On the Use and Misuse of Legal Imagination

by Anthony C. Infanti

Overview

How tax law perpetuates injustice but might instead be used as a powerful force for creating a more just and equitable society

The relationship between tax law and society, Anthony C. Infanti asserts, is too often overlooked by those who work outside of the field of fiscal policy. Yet, the way a country collects and spends its revenue can be viewed as a quantifiable reflection of how a country sees itself, sending messages about both what it values now and what it aspires to be in the future.

Tax and Time sheds light on two of the most misunderstood universal human experiences: time and taxes. Anthony C. Infanti asserts that time in tax law is the product of pure imagination and calls into question the world beyond time that we have created for ourselves. Written with clarity and powerful insight, Tax and Time demonstrates how the tax laws have been used to imaginatively manipulate time in ways that perpetuate economic and social injustice. With its social justice focus, the book brings a sorely needed critical perspective to technical tax policy discussions. Infanti calls for a systematic reexamination and reworking of the relationship between time and tax law, asserting that the power of the legal imagination to manipulate time in tax law can both correct past injustices and help us to envision—and actually work toward—a better and more just society.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781479800391
Publisher:	New York University Press
Publication date:	01/04/2022
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Anthony C. Infanti is the Christopher C. Walthour, Sr. Professor of Law at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law and author of Our Selfish Tax Laws: Toward Tax Reform That Mirrors Our Better Selves.
Anthony C. Infanti is the Christopher C. Walthour, Sr. Professor of Law at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law and author of Tax and Time: On the Use and Misuse of Legal Imagination and Our Selfish Tax Laws: Toward Tax Reform That Mirrors Our Better Selves.

Table of Contents

List of Figures ix

Preface xi

Introduction 1

1 Time Travel 29

2 Time Travel Avoided (or, Justice Denied) 63

3 Time as Money 95

4 Bartering with Time 125

5 Fearing the Power of Tax Time 156

Conclusion 181

Notes 193

Index 241

About the Author 253

Editorial Reviews

"Tax and Time successfully makes the case that time has always influenced the structure and administration of tax laws both in the US and abroad. Infanti approaches these issues in a lucid and fascinating way."

Daniel N. Shaviro

"Anthony Infanti has long been a leading scholar of critical tax theory. With this new book, Infanti turns his analytical gaze to the myriad of ways in which our tax laws interact with the concept of time. Moving beyond the well-known, conventional ways that time affects taxation, Infanti creatively demonstrates how temporality is a central part of the modern legal imagination – and how we can use that imagination to challenge and perhaps even reconstruct how time and taxation shape social justice."

Ajay K. Mehrotra

"Infanti calls for a systematic reexamination and reworking of the relationship between time and tax law."

Law & Social Inquiry