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65 Duke L.J. 1439 (2015-2016)
Earned Income Tax Credit: Path Dependence and the Blessing of Undertheorization

handle is hein.journals/duklr65 and id is 1467 raw text is: Notes EARNED INCOME TAX CREDIT: PATH DEPENDENCE AND THE BLESSING OF UNDERTHEORIZATION MICHAEL B. ADAMSONt 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. INTRODUCTION Commentators have bemoaned that the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is drastically undertheorized.' Though this may sound unequivocally bad, this Note shows that the EITC's undertheorization2 may actually be an advantage that policymakers should not abandon lightly. Copyright © 2016 Michael B. Adamson. t Duke University School of Law, J.D. expected 2016; Brigham Young University, B.S. 2011. Thank you to Professor Richard Schmalbeck for inspiring this Note's topic and to my Duke Law Journal colleagues for guiding and motivating my many revisions. Thanks most of all to my wife, Lauren, and my daughter, Sloane, for their love, patience, and encouragement. 1. See infra Part I.B. 2. Professor Lawrence Zelenak uses the term undertheorized to describe how Congress has never explained the purpose of the EITC, except in the vaguest and most general terms. Lawrence Zelenak, Redesigning the Earned Income Tax Credit as a Family-Size Adjustment to the Minimum Wage, 57 TAX L. REV. 301, 301 (2004). Because the purpose of the EITC is unclear, Professor Zelenak believes its design must be far from optimal. See id. (Without a clear idea of what the EITC is supposed to do, it is impossible to determine how it should be designed.).

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