There is more than one road up the mountain. Different countries find different solutions to raising revenues and taxing their citizens. The United States tends to be a bit inbred about tax policy decisions, rarely looking outside of its own borders for answers. Yet other countries may have looked at a given issue and come up with intelligent answers that could helpfully inform U.S. decisions. The converse is, of course, also the case. One of the striking things about doing comparative tax analysis is how differently, but legitimately, different countries can answer the same question. There also times when one country’s answer is demonstrably superior to that of another country. In this paper we will compare German and U.S. income taxation of individuals. Our focus is civil, not criminal law.

Please note that I have not included the CV of my co-author, Dr. Rolf Eicke of Universität Freiburg, as it would be in German. I am the contact person for purposes of the article.