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The Canadian tax system features exceptionally low rates of corporate taxation for small businesses, together with a system of corporate-personal tax integration. While in principle the system delivers low tax rates on active business income while ensuring equity and neutrality, there are substantial opportunities for tax avoidance by high-income professionals. This paper discusses the role of recent tax and regulatory changes in encouraging incorporation by high-income professionals, as well as the implications for the measurement of income inequality using tax data. Keywords: corporate taxation, capital gains taxation, ownership JEL Codes: H2, G3, I. INTRODUCTION Canada, while in many ways a high-tax country relative to its southern neighbor, offers a system of small business taxation that appears extremely advantageous by international standards. Small [...]

This paper exploits the potential of Global Positioning System datasets sourced from mobile phones to estimate the racial composition of road users, leveraging data from their respective Census block group. The racial composition data encompasses approximately 46 million trips in the Chicago metropolitan region. The research focuses on the relationship between camera tickets and racial composition of drivers vs. police stops for traffic citations and the racial composition in these locations. Black drivers exhibit a higher likelihood of being ticketed by automated speed cameras and of being stopped for moving violations on roads, irrespective of the proportion of White drivers present. The research observes that this correlation attenuates as the proportion of White drivers on the road increases. The citation rate measured by cameras better matches the racial composition of road users on the links with cameras than do stops by police officers. This study therefore presents an important contribution to understanding racial disparities in moving violation stops, with implications for policy interventions and social justice reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today’s teens are members of the first generation to have never known a world without instantaneous and nearly ubiquitous mobile phone access. They also must surmount greater hurdles to driver’s licensing than any previous generation faced. And they are struggling to transition into the most unwelcoming job market since the Great Depression. These tectonic happenings surely augur equally dramatic changes in the travel choices and patterns of young adults in the years ahead. Or will they? This report examines this question. While scholars have studied the travel choices and patterns of adults extensively over the years, our knowledge of youth travel behavior is surprisingly limited and uneven. There is a growing body of research on how children travel to school and a second body of research on youth and travel safety, in particular, the high rates of crashes and driving fatalities among teenagers. Beyond these two rather focused lines of inquiry, however, studies of travel by children, teens, and young adults are rare. Researchers have posited several factors to explain differences in the travel behavior of youth and adults, and to support the argument that such differences may persist as today’s youth move into adulthood. First, the rapid profusion and adoption of new communication technologies influences how people use their time and may affect how much they travel (Kwan, 2002), and young people tend to be early and frequent adopters of these technologies (Mans et al., forthcoming; Lenhart et al., 2005; Pew Research Center, 2010b). Second, all 50 states have now adopted graduated driver’s licensing programs, making teen licensing more difficult and restrictive (with respect to time, trip purpose, and passengers) than in previous eras (Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, 2012). Third, unemployment rates during the current recession are highest for youth, thereby reducing journey-to-work and work-related travel and limiting the resources teens and young adults have to pay for non-work activities (and associated travel) of all types. This prolonged economic downturn may also influence youth travel patterns indirectly; fragmentary evidence suggests that young adults struggling to find work increasingly “boomerang” back home to live with parents (Kaplan, 2009; Pew Research Center, 2010b; Wiemers, 2011), drawn by a free or steeply discounted bedroom, groceries, and, perhaps, access to parents’ cars.

While much of the scholarly literature on immigrants’ travel focuses on transit use, the newest arrivals to the United States make over twelve times as many trips by carpool as by transit. Using the 2001 National Household Travel Survey and multinomial logit mode choice models, we examine the determinants of carpooling. In particular, we focus on the likelihood of carpooling among immigrants—carpooling both within and across households. After controlling for relevant determinants of carpooling, we find that immigrants are far more likely to form household carpools than native-born adults and also are more likely than the native-born to form external carpools (outside the household). Moreover, when faced with the options of carpooling and public transit, immigrants—even recent arrivals—appear to prefer carpools over transit more strongly than the native born.

Many urban planners promote mixed-use developments as one component of a broader sustainable development strategy. Scholars and advocates argue that these neighborhoods have the potential to reduce traffic congestion by promoting fewer trips, shorter travel distances, and alternative modes of travel.With their mix of ethnic residents, businesses, services, and community institutions, many ethnic neighborhoods are mixed-use neighborhoods. We hypothesize, therefore, that residents of these ethnic neighborhoods will exhibit different travel behavior than those living outside of ethnic neighborhoods. Drawing on data from the 2000 U.S. Census, we examine whether residents of ethnic neighborhoods are more likely to commute by carpool and public transit than other workers. We find a significant relationship between residential location in ethnic clusters and travel behavior. The findings provide insight into the relationship among social networks, land use, and travel behavior.

This report presents the results of its research of interconnectivity among transportation modes in California and the development of a methodology to evaluate connectivity performance, which could provide a new and needed tool to improve passenger transit trips. The two key products of this research are the transfer penalties/travel behavior conceptual framework, which was based on our review of the state-of-the-practice for evaluating intermodal and intramodal connectivity, and a preliminary transit connectivity assessment tool. The framework allowed us to consider various attributes of transit stops, stations, and transfer facilities and guide us in our subsequent analysis of user perceptions of walking, waiting, and transferring experiences. Our research findings have taken substantive steps toward determining the connectivity of transit systems, its influences on travelers’ satisfaction with transit services, and ways that public transit systems can reduce the burdens of out-of-vehicle “travel” times to help make public transit more attractive resulting in ridership increases. In our research to learn more about how wait times at stations and stops are perceived, and how they can be made better, we surveyed approximately 750 passengers at stops and stations in Los Angeles County, as well as 175 transit operators nationwide. From our analysis of the passengers/users perspective, one principal finding stands out clearly:The most important determinant of user satisfaction with a transit stop or station is frequent, reliable service in an environment of personal safety, and only indirectly the physical characteristics of that stop or station.Our principal finding from our analysis of transit managers perspective precisely matches that of the transit user investigation:For operators, safety- and security-related factors far outweighed other attribute factors at transit stops, stations, and transfer facilities.This report further develops a Preliminary Assessment Tool that transit operators can use to guide their efforts at improving existing transit stops and stations, or in developing plans for new facilities. The Preliminary Assessment Tool, sketched briefly, guides the operator in:1.Determining the priority of improvements to stops and stations2.Devising a user perception survey for stations and stops of particular interest, and3.Analyzing the survey results to produce a ratings matrix using Importance-Satisfaction Analysis