scholarly journals Heterogeneous Workers and Federal Income Taxes in a Spatial Equilibrium

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 100-134
Author(s):  
Mark Colas ◽  
Kevin Hutchinson

We study the geographic incidence and efficiency of an income tax by estimating a spatial equilibrium model with heterogeneous workers. The US income tax shifts households out of high-productivity cities, leading to locational inefficiency of 0.25 percent of output. Removing spatial tax distortions increases inequality because more educated households are more mobile and own larger shares of land. Flattening the tax schedule, or introducing cost-of-living adjustments or local wage adjustments leads to efficiency gains but causes substantial increases in inequality. Differences in mobility and land ownership across skill groups create an equity-efficiency trade-off that is unique to spatial settings. (JEL H24, H22, D31, J31, J24, R23)

Author(s):  
Zh. G. Popkova

The article provides information about a foreign judicial doctrine (the Cohen Rule) that originated in the court case of 1930 with the participation of George Cohen, Broadway Theater manager and producer. The doctrine under consideration that is still valid in the US tax law does not exclude the application of the approximate amount of taxpayer’s expenses when calculating income taxes in the absence of documents verifying expenses. It is concluded that the domestic regulatory framework applies a similar approach that envisages a fixed deduction for individual entrepreneurs under Article 221 of the Tax Code. It is proposed to introduce a similar regulatory framework for corporate income tax.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chang-Tai Hsieh ◽  
Enrico Moretti

We quantify the amount of spatial misallocation of labor across US cities and its aggregate costs. Misallocation arises because high productivity cities like New York and the San Francisco Bay Area have adopted stringent restrictions to new housing supply, effectively limiting the number of workers who have access to such high productivity. Using a spatial equilibrium model and data from 220 metropolitan areas we find that these constraints lowered aggregate US growth by 36 percent from 1964 to 2009. (JEL E23, J24, J31, R23, R31)


2013 ◽  
Vol 103 (5) ◽  
pp. 1553-1597 ◽  
Author(s):  
David H Autor ◽  
David Dorn

We offer a unified analysis of the growth of low-skill service occupations between 1980 and 2005 and the concurrent polarization of US employment and wages. We hypothesize that polarization stems from the interaction between consumer preferences, which favor variety over specialization, and the falling cost of automating routine, codifiable job tasks. Applying a spatial equilibrium model, we corroborate four implications of this hypothesis. Local labor markets that specialized in routine tasks differentially adopted information technology, reallocated low-skill labor into service occupations (employment polarization), experienced earnings growth at the tails of the distribution (wage polarization), and received inflows of skilled labor. (JEL J24, J31, R23)


2016 ◽  
Vol 106 (3) ◽  
pp. 479-524 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Diamond

From 1980 to 2000, the rise in the US college/high school graduate wage gap coincided with increased geographic sorting as college graduates concentrated in high wage, high rent cities. This paper estimates a structural spatial equilibrium model to determine causes and welfare consequences of this increased skill sorting. While local labor demand changes fundamentally caused the increased skill sorting, it was further fueled by endogenous increases in amenities within higher skill cities. Changes in cities' wages, rents, and endogenous amenities increased inequality between high school and college graduates by more than suggested by the increase in the college wage gap alone. (JEL D31, I26, J24, J31, J61, R23)


2008 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 71-100 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas K. Barney ◽  
Tonya K. Flesher

Farmers have benefited from unique tax treatment since the beginning of the income tax law. This paper explores agricultural influences on the passage of the income tax in 1913, using both qualitative and quantitative analysis. The results show that agricultural interests were influential in the development and passage of tax/tariff laws. The percentage of congressmen with agricultural ties explains the strong affection for agriculture. Discussion in congressional debates and in agricultural journals was passionate and patriotic in support of equity for farmers. The quantitative analysis reveals that the percentage farm population was a significant predictor of passage of the 16th Amendment by the states and of adoption of state income taxes in the 20th century.


Author(s):  
Edward A. Zelinsky

This chapter examines the Internal Revenue Code’s treatment of religious entities. The federal tax statute embodies three diverse approaches to taxing and exempting sectarian organizations and activities. Some provisions of the Code—the charitable deduction, the general income tax exemption for eleemosynary institutions, the federal unemployment tax—exempt religious entities and other charitable, educational, and philanthropic institutions. Other provisions of the Code narrowly target churches for tax exemption. For example, the Code relieves churches of filing requirements with which nonchurch religious entities and other eleemosynary organizations must comply. Similarly, churches’ retirement plans receive lenient treatment under the Code. Churches receive procedural protections from IRS audits.Yet other provisions of the Code tax churches as for secular entities. Churches generally pay FICA taxes—Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes—on the compensation paid to nonclerical employees. These payroll taxes can be considerable. Churches also pay federal income taxes on their unrelated business incomes.


Author(s):  
Joshua T. McCabe

Chapter 4 examines how Canadian policymakers’ renewed promise to tackle child poverty translated into the Child Tax Benefit, the nonrefundable Child Tax Credit, and the Working Income Tax Benefit. Whereas the logic of tax relief served as the springboard for fiscalization in the US, the logic of income supplementation drove the process in Canada. This difference had important implications for the shape and scope of Canadian tax credits, enabling them to significantly reduce child poverty relative to the much weaker outcomes in the US. Family allowances offered policymakers an alternative to welfare as the primary method of delivering cash benefits to children. Canadian policymakers, including conservative policymakers and profamily groups, saw expanding child tax credits as a way to “take children off welfare” by redirecting benefits through a nonstigmatizing program. The initial change occurred under the Progressive Conservatives in 1992 and was consolidated under the Liberals in 1997.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Musab Kurnaz

Abstract This paper studies optimal taxation of families—a combination of an income tax schedule and child tax credits. Child-rearing requires both goods and parental time, which distinctly impact the design of optimal child tax credits. In the quantitative analysis, I calibrate my model to the US economy and show that the optimal child tax credits are U-shaped in income and are decreasing in family size. In particular, the optimal credits decrease in the first nine deciles of the income distribution and then increase thereafter. Implementing the optimum yields large welfare gains.


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