Federal Revenue Research Articles

Examining degree production and financial context at public master’s colleges and universities in the United States: a distance function approach

Using an output distance function as an analytic framework, stochastic frontier analysis (SFA), and a generalized true random effects (GTRE) model, this study examines the financial context of bachelor’s degree production efficiency among public master’s colleges and universities (MCUs) in the United States. Employing a GTRE model, degree production inefficiency is decomposed into transient (short-run) and persistent (long-run) components. This investigation finds that bachelor’s degree production is positively and non-linearly related to doctoral degree production. Persistent efficiency is positively related to tuition revenue, state appropriations, and Pell grant revenue and negatively related to federal grant and contract revenue. This study finds that bachelor’s degree production efficiency scores that take into account the financial context of public MCUs should be considered as “pure” efficiency scores, which differ from the “technical” efficiency scores that don’t adjust for the financial context. Using efficiency scores, this research allows for the ranking of public MCUs, which may be used to further identify best management practices.

The quantitative effects of tax foresight: Not all states are equal

This paper explores the effect of federal tax news on state economic activity. We estimate a factor-augmented vector autoregression (FAVAR) model, which allows us to consider the possibility that unobserved factors – such as credit and fiscal conditions – might be relevant for modeling the dynamic response of aggregate and state-level economic activity. We identify tax foresight as a shock to the implicit tax rate, measured by the yield spread between the one-year tax-exempt municipal bond and the one-year taxable Treasury bond. Our results suggest that an increase in the implicit tax rate raises national output over much of the anticipation period. In addition, anticipated tax increases give rise to expansions in state personal income and employment. We find that the variation in the responsiveness of economic activity across states is mostly explained by differences in industrial composition and income distribution, as well as by some demographic characteristics such as median income and education. Finally, using a proxy for exogenous changes in federal tax revenues, we investigate the dynamics of state-level personal income and employment. Our results point to considerable heterogeneity in the response across U.S. states. Moreover, they reveal that the long-run multiplier for an anticipated increase in tax revenues is about a tenth of the short-run multiplier for an unanticipated increase in taxes.

The Qualified Small Business Stock Exclusion: How Startup Shareholders Get $10 Million (Or More) Tax-Free

The IPO parade of 2019 is making the early shareholders of technology startups such as Uber, Lyft, Slack, and Pinterest (among others) staggeringly wealthy. Now that these companies are publicly traded, equity owners can cash out at a huge profit. This profit would normally be taxed at long-term capital gains rates. But the qualified small business stock exclusion of Section 1202 of the Internal Revenue Code, a provision whose ostensible purpose is to promote investment in small businesses, will result in many of these millionaires paying zero federal taxes on much of this sudden wealth. This Essay demonstrates that the loss in federal tax revenue due to Section 1202 is far greater than previously estimated, with the provision almost exclusively benefitting the wealthy. Section 1202 represents flawed tax policy in that even if catalyzing investment in small businesses is normatively desirable, the provision does little to promote that result. Though putatively applicable to investors in “small businesses,” most truly small businesses are precluded from using Section 1202. Instead, this Essay shows that tech startups with valuations in the billions are common beneficiaries, and suggests how both federal and state actors could mitigate the provision’s effects.

Left Behind: District Secession and the Re-segregation of American Schools

ABSTRACT Sixty-five years after the Brown v. Board decision, American schools are re-segregated and re-segregating. The mechanisms of this re-segregation are legal action, voluntary moves towards unitary status, unintended consequences of integration-oriented strategies, and an increasing trend towards the fracturing, or splintering of school districts. Both economic and political theory would indicate that splintering districts would work to pull racial and economic advantage out of the remaining district and into their own. To test this theory, we created a dataset that captures the fiscal and demographic status of U.S. school districts between 2000 and 2014 and analyzed the effect of district separation on the remaining districts in terms of student body composition, overall integration and local, state, and federal resources. Our findings indicate that separating districts are less diverse than the districts left behind. We further find that separating districts gain resources from local revenue and that remaining districts gain federal revenue in insufficient amounts to account for the loss of local funds. We find that these relative disadvantages for left behind districts and relative advantages for seceding districts persist when compared to the general population of school districts.

Box 12, IRS W-2, to the Rescue: The Effect of Transferring Pre-Tax Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance Funds to Employees On After-Tax Income, Federal Income and Payroll Taxes, Health Insurance Premiums, and Health Care Costs

Current tax law prevents workers from trading pre-tax employer-sponsored insurance (ESI) premiums for greater after-tax take-home income. Many workers thus may pay for health plans that are more expensive or have different features from plans they would directly choose for themselves. The tax subsidization of ESI also likely leads to excessive spending on health care because it lowers its costs relative to other non tax-subsidized goods and services. Some propose limiting or eliminating this employer-based health insurance tax exemption for these reasons; its regressivity; and its drain of potential tax revenues. Because of the long history and popular support for ESI, we consider these proposals as practically and politically infeasible. Instead, we simulate the financial results of expanding employee choice and ability to control costs within the traditional structure of ESI by allowing employees, either through Health Reimbursement Accounts (HRAs) or other tax-free mechanisms, to receive their employers’ premium contribution directly and then purchase health insurance themselves from a larger number of health plans than those currently offered to them. The minimal choice in most current ESI plans may force enrollees into plans that do not reflect their preferences and thus imposes an allocative cost. Some empirical research indicates that enrollees would welcome expansion in their choice of plans and that it yields beneficial financial results. Other research, however, indicates that choice overload leads to sub-optimal selection results. It is likely that differences in the educational and transparency support resources partially explain these conflicting results. In our simulation, employees could deduct for income tax purposes the amount used for insurance and, if they spend less than the amount transferred, adjusted for a cross-subsidization holdback from lower-cost employees to higher-cost ones, take the remainder as taxed income. The simulation indicates that annual after-tax household income would have grown by $101–$252 billion and federal tax revenues increased by $39–$163 billion, depending on the concentration of risk in the ESI pool. Lower- and middle-income households gained proportionately more income than higher income ones. The greater take-up of slimmed down policies leads to reduced net spending in the health care delivery system, which, because of the large size of the ESI enrollee pool, would likely spill over to governmental health care programs. These results are based on three specific assumptions about the concentration of risk in the corporate pool and complete ESI implementation of our proposal. Research about the impact of reduced coverage insurance policies generally indicates that they are significantly lower priced. As for health status, the nation’s largest social science experiment, conducted primarily in the 1970s, found that reduced coverage had no impact except for low-income people who are currently covered by Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act. However, subsequent analysis revealed that reduced coverage affected the use of preventive care, even if it was fully insured. Harnessing consumer choice requires a fully transparent and informative ESI system. Informed employee insurance selections require an adequate choice of reasonable insurance plans, disclosure by employers of their contributions, how much employee take-home wages are reduced to pay for ESI, the actuarial value of the plans, and how those employee contributions and actuarial values compare to peer firms and change over time. This enhanced disclosure will likely cause an increase in plan choice. Instructional and navigational support also appear to be key to effective choice of insurance plans.

Afterlife of the Death Tax

More than a century ago, Congress enacted the modern estate tax to help pay for World War I. Unlike previous iterations of the estate tax, though, this one outlived the war and accumulated additional goals beyond merely raising revenue. The estate tax helped ensure the progressivity of the tax system as a whole, and it limited the hereditary ability to accumulate wealth. This modern estate tax almost instantly met with opposition, though. The opposition has never been sufficient to entirely eliminate the estate tax, but it has severely weakened its ability to raise revenue and to prevent the accumulation of wealth. As a result, today’s estate tax is functionally a zombie: it accounts for less than one percent of federal revenues and does little to prevent the accumulation of wealth among a small group of citizens. The estate tax largely serves to evoke fear and costly tax planning, but it only manages to bite the largest and slowest estates. Although the estate tax has proven hard to kill, it is time for Congress to end it definitively, and transfer its functions as revenue-raiser and impediment to wealth accumulation to the income tax. To effect that transfer, Congress needs to do three things: first, it should treat death as a realization event, and tax estates on their assets’ unrealized appreciation. Second, it should treat the receipt of an inheritance as gross income in the hands of heirs, thereby requiring heirs to pay income tax on their inheritance. Third, Congress should eliminate the step-up in basis, and instead assign basis to inherited property under ordinary basis rules. By making these three changes, Congress can put to rest the zombie estate tax, while, at the same time, revivifying taxation at death.

Will the Cadillac Tax Generate Revenue?

When the ACA passed in 2010, the Cadillac tax, a nondeductible 40 percent excise tax imposed on the portion of health coverage costs that exceeds $10,200 for single coverage and $27,500 for family coverage, was scheduled to take effect in 2018. It has since been delayed twice and is currently scheduled to take effect in 2022. At that point, the portion of health coverage costs that exceeds $11,200 for single coverage and $30,150 for family coverage will be subject to the tax. The Cadillac tax is controversial. It is the first time that the historically unlimited tax exclusion for employment-based health benefits has been impacted. Although it has its enthusiasts, there has been bipartisan support for repealing it. In May 2018, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that the tax would generate $168 billion in tax revenue from 2022 to 2028. The Joint Tax Committee (JCT) and CBO assume that when employers reduce the comprehensiveness of health benefits to avoid the tax that they will in turn increase worker taxable wages such that total compensation is unchanged. Shifting the composition of compensation toward a higher proportion of taxable wages will translate into additional tax revenue. Repealing the tax would mean finding $168 billion (or the equivalent in today’s dollars) in new tax revenue. Why is understanding the wage-benefit tradeoff so important? Research on the tradeoff has focused almost exclusively on what happens to worker wages when the cost of health insurance increases. The literature on the wage-benefit tradeoff is being used in such a way that it assumes that wage responses to health insurance cuts and health insurance cost increases are symmetric. Only one study on the wage-benefit tradeoff has been found that examines what happens to worker wages when the cost of health insurance decreases, as would be the case with the Cadillac tax. It examined the impact of community rating in New York State on the wages of older workers in small firms, firms that would see premium reductions as a result of community rating, and found that older workers in small firms saw their wages increase relative to workers in large firms and workers in other states. However, it is possible that wages do not respond symmetrically to increases and decreases in the cost of employment-based health insurance. There is evidence of asymmetric effects in other aspects of health care, labor markets, and elsewhere that could inform the economic theory on wage-benefit tradeoffs. Even if workers’ taxable wages do not increase as a result of employers reducing the comprehensiveness of health benefits, the added tax revenue may still be realized. If employers kept the savings and those savings became corporate profits, they might become partially taxable as dividends and increased capital gains, thus producing higher federal tax revenue. If employers use the savings to purchase capital equipment, the seller of that equipment would see higher sales, which would result in federal tax revenue through a combination of profits, higher worker wages from sales bonuses, and worker wages possibly associated with the cost of installing the equipment. If employers used the savings to grow the business and hire additional workers, those workers would be paid wages that were taxable.

Effect of Apportioned Federal Revenue on Economic Growth: The Nigerian Experience

The major objective of income distribution to the federal, state and local governments in Nigeria is to achieve economic growth which leads to economic development. This ultimate aim of governance in Nigeria appears not to have been achieved due to alleged corruption and mismanagement of the monthly allocated funds. Thus, this study investigates the effect of revenue apportioned to the three levels of government on economic growth in Nigeria. The study employs annual time series data which cover a period from 1981-2016 and have been collected from CBN Statistical Bulletin, 2016 edition. Ordinary Least Square (OLS) method is used to perform the multi-regression analysis with the aid of e-views version 9. The findings of the study reveal that the federally apportioned revenue to the federal government (FAFG) has a significant positive impact on RGDP while FALG has a robust significant positive impact on RGDP. The result also indicates that FASG has a significant negative influence on RGDP. This leads to a conclusion that mismanagement of funds by the state governments is a cause for concern. Therefore, the study suggests, among others, that revenue sharing formula in the country should be based more on impact of expenditure incurred on executed projects (long term and short term) by each tier of government than on any other parameter to achieve fairness and efficiency in public service delivery at all levels of governance.

Dynamic tax externalities and the U.S. fiscal transformation

We propose a theory of tax centralization in politico-economic equilibrium. Taxation has dynamic general equilibrium implications which are internalized at the federal, but not at the regional level. The political support for taxation therefore differs across levels of government. Complementarities on the spending side decouple the equilibrium composition of spending and taxation and create a role for inter governmental grants. The model provides an explanation for the centralization of revenue, introduction of grants, and expansion of federal income taxation in the U.S. around the time of the New Deal. Quantitatively, it accounts for approximately 30% of the federal revenue share’s doubling in the 1930s, and for the long-term increase in federal grants.

Independent bodies specialized in ensuring the principle of participation in the federal system Study under the permanent Iraqi constitution for 2005

The Constitution of Iraq in 2005 has restructured the Iraqi state in accordance with two main and interrelated demands for the Iraqis, namely the democratization and federalism of the Iraqi state. The constitutional legislator resorted to many principles, institutions and procedures to achieve the two previous demands. Among these institutions that the Constitution required to be established are the Independent Commissions, Some of These Independent commissions related to technical issues and others concerned with the democratization of the state. Two of them were dedicated to the new federalism of Iraq, by ensuring the realization and application of one of the main principles of the federal state which is the principle of participation, these two Independent Commissions are (The Public Commission of Guarantee the rights of regions and governorates that are not organized in the region) which provided for in Article (105) of the Constitution and (The Public Commission of auditing and appropriation of federal revenues) which provided for in Article (106) of the Constitution. This study will examine these two Commissions and deal with them in all their aspects in light of both the Iraqi Constitution and the laws governing them, and marking down our observations on the law and propose what we consider necessary amendments for the purpose of development, due to their importance for the new phase of the Iraqi state

Effects of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act: A Preliminary Analysis

This paper examines the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) of 2017, the largest tax overhaul since 1986. The new tax law makes substantial changes to the rates and bases of both the individual and corporate income taxes, cutting the corporate income tax rate to 21 percent, redesigning international tax rules, and providing a deduction for pass-through income. TCJA will stimulate the economy in the near term. Most models indicate that the long-term impact on GDP will be small. The impact will be smaller on GNP than on GDP because the law will generate net capital inflows from abroad that have to be repaid in the future. The new law will reduce federal revenues by significant amounts, even after allowing for the modest impact on economic growth. It will make the distribution of after-tax income more unequal, raise federal debt, and impose burdens on future generations. When it is ultimately financed with spending cuts or other tax increases, as it must be in the long run, TCJA will, under the most plausible scenarios, end up making most households worse off than if TCJA had not been enacted. The new law simplifies taxes in some ways but creates new complexity and compliance issues in others. It will raise health care premiums and reduce health insurance coverage and will have adverse effects on charitable contributions and some state and local governments. Looking forward, the ultimate effects of TCJA will depend on the currently uncertain responses of other countries, the Federal Reserve Board, and future Congresses, among others.

Business Wealth and Tax Policy

This study has two major purposes. First, we extend capital structure model (CSM) research so that it can be applied to both ownership forms of for-profit organizations (FPOs): pass-throughs and C corp. We do this by deriving the first pass-through CSM equations. These equations complement the extant C corp CSM equations. Second, we derive new CSM equations to test tax policy reform. Since FPOs are responsible for most of federal tax revenue, these equations can produce outputs showing how FPO business wealth and federal tax revenue are changed when tax policy reform makes business growth more affordable by not taxing FPO earnings that are retained for growth. After deriving these new equations, we provide data in the form of effective tax rates and growth rates as well as a methodology to compute costs of borrowing. This data and methodology show how CSM equations can be applied to FPO studies. The major area of originality concerns the notion that both business wealth and federal tax revenue can increase if governments reform their tax policy by granting tax shields that promote growth while simultaneously doing away with tax shields that distorts owner efficiency caused by favoring debt over equity.

Tax Revenue and Budget Implementation in Nigeria

This study examined tax revenue and budget implementation in Nigeria. Secondary method of data collection was adopted for a period of 40 quarters from 2008Q1 to 2017Q4. The study made use of Fully Modified Least Square (FMOLS) and Error Correction Model (ECM) based on ARDL approach, after conducted pretest such as unit root test, and co-integration test. Result showed that tax revenue including petroleum profit tax and company income contributes positively and significantly to capital budget implementation in Nigeria, while custom and excise duties significantly and negative affect capital budget implementation in Nigeria; that custom & excise duties as well as value added tax contributes significantly and positively to recurrent budget implementation in Nigeria, while tax revenue from petroleum profit tax significantly and negatively influences recurrent budget implementation in the country. Hence the study recommends that government should engage more of tax revenue generated from both petroleum profit tax and company income tax toward capital projects in the country, rather than recurrent expenditure and collection cost minimization strategy should be device by government through the federal inland revenue services and other tax regulatory bodies especially in terms of both customs & excise duties and value added tax, so as to ensure that proceed from these sources can contribute largely to capital budget implementation.

User Experience Evaluation Using Mouse Tracking and Artificial Intelligence

Business platform models frequently require continuous adaptation and agility to allow new experiences to be created and delivered to customers. To understand user behavior in online systems, researchers have taken advantage of a combination of traditional and recently developed analysis techniques. Earlier studies have shown that user behavior monitoring data, as obtained by mouse tracking, can be utilized to improve user experience (UX). Many mouse-tracking solutions exist; however, the vast majority is proprietary, and open-source packages do not provide the resources and data needed to support UX research. Thus, this paper presents: 1) the development of an interaction monitoring application titled Artificial Intelligence and Mouse Tracking-based User eXperience Tool (AIMT-UXT); 2) the validation of the tool in a case study conducted on the Website of the Brazilian Federal Revenue Service (BFR); 3) the definition of a new relationship pattern of variables that determine user behavior; 4) the construction of a fuzzy inference system for measuring user performance using the defined variables and the data captured in the case study; and 5) the application of a clustering algorithm to complement the analysis. A comparison of the results of the applied quantitative methodologies indicates that the developed framework was able to infer UX scores similar to those reported by users in questionnaires.

Analyzing the Impact of Macro-Economic Factors and Taxation Manoeuvre on Federal Budget Revenues in the Russian Federation

The article studies the impact of macro-economic factors, such as the US dollar rate, inflation rate, changes in the physical volume of export, drop in world prices on oil and alteration of taxation and customs legislation of the Russian Federation on revenues of the federal budget. The authors use the integral factor analysis of the absolute growth in federal budget revenues in Russia in assumption of simultaneous changes in factors on the indicator function. Conventional methods of determinate factor analysis, including the method of chain substitution imply successive change in factors. The authors conducted qualitative estimation of the absolute growth (decline) in federal budget revenues in the Russian Federation under the influence of selected macro-economic factors and changes in taxation and customs legislation, while in conventional research only changes in factors themselves are estimated. They came to the conclusion about the insufficient compensation for the decline in customs duties on oil and oil products by the increase in tax on minerals extraction. The growth in budget revenues was shown at the expense of administrative control strengthening but not at the expense of economic growth. Recommendations were put forward aimed at the increase in investment activity through changing the procedure of depreciation charges and using resources of the foundation of national welfare.

Modelling alternative student loan schemes for Brazil

This paper simulates student loan schemes for Brazil. A copula approach is applied to simulate dynamic earnings paths for graduates. Repayment patterns are then simulated for time-based and income-contingent loan designs. The results show that the Brazilian time-based scheme involved unsustainable repayment burdens for many graduates and contributed to the scheme's high default rates. We also show that the new income-contingent scheme is also likely to involve high taxpayer subsidies. We consider alternative designs with different strengths and weaknesses but favour an income-contingent scheme with a loan fee, repayment rates at 50% of current income tax rates and an interest rate at the government's cost of borrowing upon graduation and above initial tax threshold. We conclude by emphasising that full involvement of the federal revenue system is more desirable than the present approach of employer withholding. This would increase the earnings base and reduce costs, which is important for Brazil's current precarious fiscal situation.

Bridging the Red-Blue Divide: A Proposal for U.S. Regional Tax Relief

Bridging the Red-Blue Divide: A Proposal for U.S. Regional Tax Relief

Editorial

Historical events and cultural practices, along with policymakers’ embrace of economic principles, all play formative roles in policy development, implementation, and success in addressing health outcomes in populations globally. In this issue of World Medical & Health Policy, our authors consider this complex interplay of factors from various angles. Petros, Abay, Desta, and O'Brien note the role of cultural factors in women's disempowerment, even in the face of intentional governmental and financial institution policy interventions. Women, particularly those living in poverty, are more likely than men to be exposed to adverse agricultural working conditions and consume compromised grains, burdening them with increased health risks on both counts. In order to reduce post-harvest loss in Ethiopia and improve population health broadly, the authors argue that impediments to women's empowerment must be meaningfully addressed. Despite the popularity of the adage “women and children first” it is more often the case that these groups suffer disproportionately in many categories of health and well-being. This is demonstrated in Petros et al.'s study of women and men farmers in Ethiopia, and in Mazecaite-Vaitilaviciene and Owens's service evaluation of the oral health of children with disabilities in post-Soviet Lithuania. Large-scale economic and political trends, even those that might be seen as politically positive, such as the restoration of the independent state of Lithuania, or the move toward a more market-based economy, can lead to disruptions that can compromise populations, particularly those with overlapping identities of marginalized groups. This study of oral health inequalities among children with disabilities in Lithuania points to what the authors convincingly characterize as an urgent need for policy reform. Even when it can be demonstrated that economic efficiencies are likely to accrue from certain categories of policy interventions, such as the provision of family planning in developing countries, historical and cultural factors hold sway in shaping such policies to a great extent. Harris examines how consideration of economic concepts such as efficiency, externalities, access to information and equity are also evident in policies providing for family planning in Uganda, Haiti, and the Philippines. She concludes that explicit consideration of economic policy concepts can complement rights-based policy rationales, to the benefit of nations applying such analysis. With regard to access to information, Patanavanich, Suriyawongpaisal, and Aekplakorn, note that the lack of a national database for malpractice claims in Thailand has hampered the ability of policymakers there to develop policy related to malpractice. Their findings with regard to the timing and location of wrongful death claims suggest the importance of such information in crafting meaningful policy. In addition to the policy importance of collecting pertinent information, Wiist points out that tax collection is critical to the provision of public health services and the funding of research to protect the public health. He identifies corporate income tax avoidance as one important cause of unrealized federal tax revenue that contributes to chronic fiscal and public health deficits. By defining the issue as a social determinant of health, he seeks to impel research and political interest in the issue to address its role in perpetuating inequality. Finally the review of Nora Kenworthy's Mistreated: The Political Consequences of the Fight Against AIDS in Lesotho by a physician with personal experience in the field, makes note of how closely intertwined political, social, and medical structures influence the design and implementation of HIV programs. Kaddis relates the book's coverage of factors ranging from disease stigma to misappropriation of funds from international aid organizations as being implicated in the country's flawed policy response to the public health crisis in its midst. These themes comport with World Medical & Health Policy's ongoing interest in advancing understanding of social determinants of health, most recently highlighted in an open access virtual issue available through June 2019 at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/toc/10.1111/(ISSN)1948-4682.social-determinants-of-health

Public Health and Corporate Avoidance of U.S. Federal Income Tax

The amount of U.S. federal revenue affects the government's ability to provide public health services, programs, infrastructure, and research to adequately protect the public's health. Public health funding shortages are chronic. Corporate income tax avoidance is one source of unrealized federal tax revenue that, if collected and allocated to public health, could help offset those shortages. Major corporate methods of tax avoidance, their effect on federal revenue, and recommended policy changes are described. Corporate tax avoidance and government revenue shortages are framed as social determinants of health, and research questions and data sources for public health researchers for examining the issue are suggested. Although there is no guarantee that any additional corporate income tax revenue would be directed to public health, the subject warrants the attention of public health researchers and policy advocates. The United States serves as a case study for public professionals in other countries to conduct similar analyses.

Fator de Risco Ruí­do: Barulho Normativo e Silêncio Governamental

Este artigo aborda de forma crí­tica e propositiva a inércia governamental quanto à necessária harmonização dos parâmetros, metodologia, procedimentos e limites de tolerância pertinentes ao fator de risco ruí­do. No âmbito do governo federal, há uma anômala bifurcação do ponto de vista jurídico-normativo, bem como técnico-procedimental de avaliação e tolerância ao ruído, pois o que vale para a Receita Federal do Brasil - RFB e Instituto Nacional de Seguro Social - INSS não vale para o Ministério do Trabalho MTb, de forma que o direito à redução no tempo de contribuição para 25 anos junto ao INSS e o respectivo recolhimento pela empresa à RFB, de 6% da remuneração do trabalhador, seguem regra da NHO-01 da Fundacentro, enquanto o pagamento de adicional de remuneração pela empresa (20% do salário mí­nimo) ao trabalhador adota o anacrônico, evasivo e equivocado Anexo I da NR15. Faz-se um apanhado histórico, inclusivo normativo, que contextualiza e explica o procedimento fiscal e o reconhecimento de direitos adstritos ao ruído. Discorre-se sobre a definição e significados dos principais parâmetros de avaliação (Critério de Referência - CR, Fator de Dobra (q) e Ní­vel Limiar de Integração - NLI). Apresentam-se exemplos práticos que evidenciam as consequências nefastas ao trabalhador decorrente desse barulho normativo proveniente da temerária vigência do Anexo I da NR 15. Finalmente, este artigo suscita soluções que harmonizam os atos normativos interministeriais, ao tempo que propõe retificações de normas do INSS que desrespeitam mandamentos superiores.