scholarly journals A Tale of Two Bases: Progressive Taxation of Capital and Labor Income

2021 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 335-391
Author(s):  
Rachel Moore ◽  
Brandon Pecoraro
Keyword(s):  
Labor Income ◽  
Tax Rates ◽  
Capital Income ◽  
Heterogeneous Agent ◽  
Us Economy ◽  
The Us ◽  
Marginal Tax Rates ◽  
Saving Decisions ◽  
Jobs Act ◽  
Modeling Feature

Macroeconomic models routinely abstract simultaneously from two features of the US federal tax code: the joint taxation of ordinary capital and labor income and the special taxation of preferential capital income. In this article, we argue that this abstraction omits a “portfolio-effect” mechanism where endogenous changes to the ordinary-preferential composition of households’ capital income influence individuals’ optimal labor and saving decisions through its impact on their effective marginal tax rates. We demonstrate the quantitative importance of this tax detail by simulating provisions from the recently enacted “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act” using a heterogeneous-agent overlapping generations framework calibrated to the US economy. Our findings imply that accounting for the detailed taxation of labor and capital income should be considered an important modeling feature for tax policy analysis.

Dynamic Scoring in the Ramsey Growth Model

2008 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ergete Ferede
Keyword(s):  
Growth Model ◽  
Income Tax ◽  
Labor Income ◽  
Capital Income ◽  
Transfer Payments ◽  
Us Economy ◽  
The Us ◽  
Parameter Values ◽  
Tax Cuts ◽  
Dynamic Scoring

Abstract This paper extends the Mankiw and Weinzierl (2006) model and examines the revenue effects of capital and labor income tax cuts under alternative financing regimes. Our analysis suggests that the revenue losses from capital and labor income tax cuts are the highest when the tax cuts are productive spending-financed and the lowest when transfer payments are used to finance the tax cuts. For plausible parameter values consistent with the US economy, we find that about 47 percent of a transfer-financed capital income tax cut is self-financing. The corresponding result for a productive spending-financed capital income tax cut is only 6 percent.

scholarly journals Efficient Child Care Subsidies

2020 ◽  
Vol 110 (1) ◽  
pp. 162-199 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine Ho ◽  
Nicola Pavoni
Keyword(s):  
Child Care ◽  
Low Income ◽  
The United States ◽  
Tax Rates ◽  
Child Care Subsidies ◽  
Optimal Program ◽  
The Us ◽  
Marginal Tax Rates ◽  
Welfare Problem ◽  
Care Costs

We study the design of child care subsidies in an optimal welfare problem with heterogeneous private market productivities. The optimal subsidy schedule is qualitatively similar to the existing US scheme. Efficiency mandates a subsidy on formal child care costs, with higher subsidies paid to lower income earners and a kink as a function of child care expenditure. Marginal labor income tax rates are set lower than the labor wedges, with the potential to generate negative marginal tax rates. We calibrate our simple model to features of the US labor market and focus on single mothers with children aged below 6. The optimal program provides stronger participation but milder intensive margin incentives for low-income earners with subsidy rates starting very high and decreasing with income more steeply than those in the United States. (JEL D82, H21, H24, J13, J16, J32)

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.

scholarly journals Policy Forum: Business Tax Reform in the United States and Canada

2019 ◽  
Vol 67 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-66
Author(s):  
Ken McKenzie ◽  
Michael Smart
Keyword(s):  
Tax Reform ◽  
The United States ◽  
Economic Effects ◽  
Tax Rates ◽  
The Us ◽  
Key Features ◽  
Business Tax ◽  
Jobs Act ◽  
Policy Forum ◽  
Tax Depreciation

The authors examine some of the key features of the US Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) and discuss the implications for Canadian corporations and government revenues. They show that the tax advantage that Canada enjoyed prior to the TCJA has declined significantly, in terms of both statutory and effective (marginal and average) tax rates. They discuss the economic effects of possible responses to the TCJA by Canadian governments, including cutting statutory rates and accelerating tax depreciation deductions. Looking ahead, the authors argue that it would be preferable to focus on a more fundamental tax reform based on the taxation of economic rents.

EFFECTS OF ELECTRIFICATION ON THE COAL INDUSTRY’S PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION: EVIDENCE FROM 1900s JAPAN

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
MAYO MORIMOTO
Keyword(s):  
Coal Mining ◽  
Economic Performance ◽  
Mining Industry ◽  
Significant Decline ◽  
Labor Income ◽  
Difference In Differences ◽  
Income Share ◽  
Us Economy ◽  
The Us ◽  
Production And Distribution

This study examines how electrification affected the economic performance of the Japanese coal mining industry in the 1900s. Using difference-in-differences estimation, we find that electrification considerably improved labor productivity and increased the number of workers, but had statistically zero effects on miners’ wages and caused a significant decline in the labor income share. We explain this phenomenon by using the “superstar firm” hypothesis, which provides a consistent explanation of the recent declines in labor income share in the US economy.

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.

scholarly journals The elasticity of taxable income in Spain: 1999–2014

SERIEs ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 281-320 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miguel Almunia ◽  
David Lopez-Rodriguez
Keyword(s):  
Estimation Methods ◽  
Tax Rates ◽  
Personal Income Tax ◽  
Capital Income ◽  
Tax Rate ◽  
Taxable Income ◽  
Elasticity Of Taxable Income ◽  
Marginal Tax Rates ◽  
Tax Deductions ◽  
The One

Abstract We study how taxable income responds to changes in marginal tax rates, using as a main source of identifying variation three large reforms to the Spanish personal income tax implemented in the period 1999–2014. The most reliable estimates of the elasticity of taxable income (ETI) with respect to the net-of-tax rate for this period are between 0.45 and 0.64. The ETI is about three times larger for self-employed taxpayers than for employees and larger for business income than for labor and capital income. The elasticity of broad income is smaller, between 0.10 and 0.24, while the elasticity of some tax deductions such as the one for private pension contributions exceeds one. Our estimates are similar across a variety of estimation methods and sample restrictions and also robust to potential biases created by mean reversion and heterogeneous income trends.

scholarly journals HOW CORRELATED ARE MEXICO’S SALARIES AND US OUTPUT? AN INQUIRY ON SOME US BORDER CITIES

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (8) ◽  
pp. 28
Author(s):  
Willy Walter Cortez ◽  
Alejandro Islas-Camargo
Keyword(s):  
Labor Income ◽  
Growth Convergence ◽  
Us Economy ◽  
Wage Rates ◽  
Northern Border ◽  
The Us ◽  
Short And Long Term ◽  
Long Term Behavior ◽  
The Relationship

In this essay we pursue the question about the nature of integration that there is between the Mexican cities’ labor market located along the northern border and the US economy. We also inquiry whether there has been any change in such a relationship over time. Using the Hodrick-Prescott filter we are able to establish the short and long term behavior of the wage rates in the four largest US Border Mexican cities. We find that there has been a change in the nature of the relationship between the cyclical components of the Mexican labor income and US output. We also find some evidence about growth convergence within northern border Mexican labor incomes.

scholarly journals Tax Reforms and Intertemporal Shifting of Wage Income: Evidence from Danish Monthly Payroll Records

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 233-257 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claus Thustrup Kreiner ◽  
Søren Leth-Petersen ◽  
Peer Ebbesen Skov
Keyword(s):  
Tax Reform ◽  
Liquidity Constraints ◽  
Labor Income ◽  
Tax Rates ◽  
Tax Reforms ◽  
Taxable Income ◽  
Elasticity Of Taxable Income ◽  
Marginal Tax Rates ◽  
Willingness To Cooperate ◽  
Wage Income

This paper uses monthly payroll records for all Danish employees to identify widespread intertemporal shifting of labor income in response to a tax reform that significantly reduced the marginal tax rates for one-fourth of all employees. When ignoring shifting, the estimate of the overall elasticity of taxable income equals 0.1, and the elasticity is increasing with earnings. When removing the shifting component, the elasticity is close to zero at all earnings levels. The evidence also indicates that tax salience, liquidity constraints and firm willingness to cooperate in shifting are important factors in explaining shifting behavior. (JEL H24, H31, J22, J31)

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document