scholarly journals Public Provision of Private Goods and Nondistortionary Marginal Tax Rates

2010 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sören Blomquist ◽  
Vidar Christiansen ◽  
Luca Micheletto
Keyword(s):  
Income Tax ◽  
Optimal Taxation ◽  
Social Cost ◽  
Market Price ◽  
Efficiency Gain ◽  
Tax Rates ◽  
Public Provision ◽  
Private Goods ◽  
Marginal Tax Rates

Using an optimal taxation model combined with a previously neglected scheme of public provision of private goods, we show that there is an efficiency gain if public provision of selected goods replaces market purchases and that efficiency requires marginal income tax rates to be higher than if the goods were purchased in the market. Part of the marginal tax serves the same role as a market price and conveys information about a real social cost of working more hours. It might be that economies with higher marginal tax rates have less severe distortions than economies with lower marginal tax rates. (JEL H21, H42, I38)

scholarly journals Paternalism against Veblen: Optimal Taxation and Non-respected Preferences for Social Comparisons

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Aronsson ◽  
Olof Johansson-Stenman
Keyword(s):  
Numerical Simulations ◽  
Income Tax ◽  
Optimal Taxation ◽  
Social Comparisons ◽  
Tax Policies ◽  
Tax Rates ◽  
Relative Consumption ◽  
Individual Preferences ◽  
Marginal Tax Rates

This paper compares optimal nonlinear income tax policies of welfarist and paternalist governments, where the latter does not respect individual preferences regarding relative consumption. Consistent with previous findings, relative consumption concerns typically induce a welfarist government to increase the marginal tax rates to internalize positional externalities. Remarkably, the optimal marginal tax rules are often very similar in the paternalist case, where such externalities are not taken into account. We identify several cases where the marginal tax rules are indeed identical between the governments. Numerical simulations show that marginal and average tax levels and the overall redistribution are often also similar. (JEL D62, D72, H21, H23, H24)

EFFECTIVE MARGINAL TAX RATES UNDER THE FEDERAL INDIVIDUAL INCOME TAX: DEATH BY ONE THOUSAND PIN PRICKS?

1998 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 553-564
Author(s):  
THOMAS A. BARTHOLD ◽  
THOMAS KOERNER ◽  
JOHN F. NAVRATIL
Keyword(s):  
Income Tax ◽  
Tax Rates ◽  
Individual Income ◽  
Marginal Tax Rates ◽  
Individual Income Tax

scholarly journals THE IMPACT OF TAX POLICY ON ECONOMIC GROWTH, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, AND ALLOCATION OF TAXES

2006 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 28-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
James D. Gwartney ◽  
Robert A. Lawson
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Income Distribution ◽  
Income Tax ◽  
Tax Rates ◽  
Personal Income Tax ◽  
Income Groups ◽  
Marginal Tax Rates ◽  
Tax Changes ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Distribution Of Income

Using a sample of seventy-seven countries, this paper focuses on marginal tax rates and the income thresholds at which they apply to examine how the tax changes of the 1980s and 1990s have influenced economic growth, the distribution of income, and the share of taxes paid by various income groups. Many countries substantially reduced their highest marginal rates during the 1985-1995 period. The findings indicate that countries that reduced their highest marginal rates grew more rapidly than those that maintained high marginal rates. At the same time, the income distribution in several of the tax cutting countries became more unequal while there was little change or even a reduction in income inequality in most countries that maintained high marginal rates. Finally, the evidence suggests that there was a shift in the payment of the personal income tax away from those with low and middle incomes and toward those with the highest incomes.

Measuring Revenue-maximizing Elasticities of Taxable Income

2016 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 174-204 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Creedy ◽  
Norman Gemmell
Keyword(s):  
Income Tax ◽  
Tax Rates ◽  
Marginal Rate ◽  
Tax System ◽  
Tax Rate ◽  
Taxable Income ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Us ◽  
Marginal Tax Rates ◽  
The Right

This article considers the question of whether marginal tax rates (MTRs) in the US income tax system are on the “right” side of their respective Laffer curves. Previous attention has tended to focus specifically on the top MTR. Conceptual expressions for these “revenue-maximizing elasticities of taxable income” (ETI L), based on readily observable tax parameters, are presented for each tax rate in a multi-rate income tax system. Applying these to the US income tax, with its complex effective marginal rate structure, demonstrates that a wide range of revenue-maximizing ETI values can be expected within, and across, tax brackets and for all taxpayers in aggregate. For some significant groups of taxpayers, these revenue-maximizing ETIs appear to be within the range of empirically estimated elasticities.

The Dynamics of Policy Formation: Income Tax Rates in Israel, 1948–1975

1984 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 271-284 ◽  
Author(s):  
A Radian
Keyword(s):  
Income Tax ◽  
Optimal Taxation ◽  
Policy Formation ◽  
Tax Rates ◽  
Marginal Rate ◽  
Common Error ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Policy Problems ◽  
Rules Of The Game

In this paper, an attempt is made to show the importance of incorporating ‘politics’ into tax designs. Models of optimal taxation generally offer limited policy-relevant guidance, since they either ignore politics altogether or make wrong assumptions concerning goals and rules of the game. One such common error is the assumption that governments attempt to promote ‘equity’. A case study of changes in the top marginal rate of income tax in Israel demonstrates how goals, values, constraints, and opportunities shape the definition of policy problems and the solutions that are eventually chosen.

scholarly journals Nonlinear Tax Incidence and Optimal Taxation in General Equilibrium

Econometrica ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 88 (2) ◽  
pp. 469-493 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dominik Sachs ◽  
Aleh Tsyvinski ◽  
Nicolas Werquin
Keyword(s):  
General Equilibrium ◽  
Optimal Taxation ◽  
Income Taxes ◽  
Tax Incidence ◽  
Labor Income ◽  
Tax Rates ◽  
Tax System ◽  
Marginal Tax Rates ◽  
Optimal Taxes

We study the incidence of nonlinear labor income taxes in an economy with a continuum of endogenous wages. We derive in closed form the effects of reforming nonlinearly an arbitrary tax system, by showing that this problem can be formalized as an integral equation. Our tax incidence formulas are valid both when the underlying assignment of skills to tasks is fixed or endogenous. We show qualitatively and quantitatively that contrary to conventional wisdom, if the tax system is initially suboptimal and progressive, the general‐equilibrium “trickle‐down” forces may raise the benefits of increasing the marginal tax rates on high incomes. We finally derive a parsimonious characterization of optimal taxes.

Taxation of Couples under Assortative Mating

2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 155-177 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Frankel
Keyword(s):  
Assortative Mating ◽  
Optimal Taxation ◽  
Married Couples ◽  
Tax Rates ◽  
Optimal Tax ◽  
Marginal Tax Rates ◽  
Multidimensional Screening

I present a simple and tractable model of the optimal taxation of married couples, working off of the multidimensional screening framework of Armstrong and Rochet (1999). In particular, I study how the tax code varies with the degree of assortative mating. One result is that the “negative jointness” of marginal tax rates found in Kleven, Kreiner, and Saez (2007, 2009) for couples with uncorrelated earnings should be attenuated in the presence of assortative mating. When mating is sufficiently assortative, the optimal tax schedule is separable: an individual's taxes do not depend on his or her spouse's income. (JEL D82, H21, H24, J12)

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document