New Gang, Old Myths. (Correspondence).

ROBERT S. MCINTYRE inadvertently makes the progressive case for repeal of the double taxation of dividends ["New Gang, Old Myths," Jan. 13]. As he reports (and as many economists and law professors have noted), corporations engage in tax-planning backflips to structure around the dividend tax, leading to economically inefficient transactions. We saw the consequences during the 1990s stock-market mania. Corporations with too much cash, instead of paying it to their shareholders as dividends, used it for stock buybacks whose value evaporated in the crash, for ...