Abstract
Some commentators have lamented that the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is undertheorized—that its purpose is unclear—and that its design is therefore suboptimal. This Note explores the credit’s path-dependent past, which has resulted in a present-day EITC that manifests a diverse, uncoordinated assortment of policy purposes. Although the EITC’s ambiguity of purpose may yield policy inefficiencies, this Note argues that it also produces significant political benefits that would-be reformers who value the EITC’s many societal benefits should take into account before they attempt to enact any major overhaul.
Citation
Michael B. Adamson,
Earned Income Tax Credit: Path Dependence and the Blessing of Undertheorization,
65 Duke Law Journal
1439-1476
(2016)
Available at: https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/dlj/vol65/iss7/3