Faculty of Law, University of Toronto
The James Hausman Tax Law & Policy Workshop Series
presents
Jacob Nussim
Global Hauser Fellow, New York University;
Assistant Professor, Bar-Ilan University (Israel).
Taxes, Prices, and Consumer Protection
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
12:30 – 2:00
Solarium (Room FA2)
84 Queen’s Park
Should market prices include or exclude taxes? Consumer protection laws in many countries regulate tax-inclusive pricing consistent with the general purpose of protecting consumers from confusing or misleading practices. This paper explains, on the basis of optimal tax analysis, that the opposite is true. To the extent that consumers are confused by tax-exclusive pricing and tend to ignore non-indicated taxes, they are better off, and hence tax-exclusive pricing is socially desirable. The argument is counter-intuitive, in particular to consumer protection advocates: confusion is actually good for consumers. The paper further investigates other potential rationales for tax-inclusive pricing, and extend the analysis to wage taxes and to non-tax misleading practices.
Dr. Jacob Nussim is an assistant professor of law at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, where he teaches courses on tax (income taxation, VAT, corporate taxation, tax policy), law and economics, regulations, and microeconomics. Dr. Nussim holds a, B.A. (econ.) magna cum laude, LL.B and LL.M. magna cum laude from Tel-Aviv University (Israel) and LL.M. and J.S.D. from the University of Chicago. Dr. Nussim’s main research interest is in the fields of tax and law and economics, and he has published articles in various journals such as the Yale law review, Virginia tax law review, International review of law and economics, Supreme Court economic review, European journal of law and economics, Review of law and economics.
Dr. Nussim was a visiting professor at UCLA during the fall semester of 2008 and joined the Hauser global program for the spring semester of 2009.
A light lunch will be served.
For more workshop information, please contact Nadia Gulezko at n.gulezko@utoronto.ca.
