The War on Drugs and Taxes: How Tax Expenditure Analysis Can Shed Light on Civil Asset Forfeiture
The goal of the United States War on Drugs is to eradicate recreational drug use in America. But the federal government has a problem achieving that goal—it lacks the manpower and local police knowledge to effectively wage the drug war. It cannot directly force local law enforcement to comply with federal anti-drug policies without violating principles of federalism. Two major incentive programs solve this issue by generating voluntary enforcement by local governments and police: (1) the Edward Byrne Memorial Grant (“Memorial Grant”) and (2) equitable sharing via federal civil asset forfeiture. Police obtain more financing from equitable sharing than the Edward Byrne Memorial Grant.
This paper argues (a) that civil asset forfeiture in general is a tax and (b) that equitable sharing is a tax expenditure from the federal perspective. The paper's purpose is to show how the tax expenditure literature provides insights about the practice of civil asset forfeiture.
