Professor Ventry Travels to Japan to Speak on U.S./Japanese Tax Policy

Professor Dennis J. Ventry, Jr. participated in December in a four-day symposium in Japan that explored the development of international taxation in the 20th century with particular emphasis on the influence of U.S. economists and lawyers on the Japanese tax system after World War II. The gathering was co-sponsored by Yokohama National University and Keio University.  

In the postwar period, the United States government sent official tax "missions" composed of tax luminaries around the globe to help countries set up modern tax systems. The mission to Japan during the occupation period - headed by Columbia University economist Carl Shoup - has long been viewed as the most successful of these efforts, both from the standpoint of forging a lasting and coherent system and of appreciating cultural and historical factors.

Ventry's presentation, "Balancing the Equities: Carl Shoup and the Taxable Unit in the United States and Japan," examined the mission's recommendations on family taxation as a way to evaluate its sensitivity to cultural issues. Ventry's project shows that this sensitivity prompted the mission to propose a tax system for Japan that used the individual as the unit of taxation rather than the family which was the preferred approach in the United States.

Professor Ventry is an expert in tax policy and has written widely in the field. His research interests include family taxation, tax expenditure analysis, legal ethics and professional standards, tax and legal history, tax compliance, and administration, and public finance.