On the Treatment of Income Tax Rates in Empirical Analysis of Tax Evasion

In this paper, it is argued that average tax rates exert an influence on income tax evasion separate from, and opposite to that of marginal tax rates. Failure to account for this effect in empirical evasion models biases the parameter estimate of the marginal rate in a predictable manner. Evidence from an aggregate empirical model of evasion in the US indicates that the marginal tax rate is positively related to evasion, whereas the average tax rate is negatively related. Further, exclusion of the average rate from the model does in fact bias the parameter estimate of the marginal tax rate

Taxation and Household Portfolio Composition: U.S. Evidence from the 1980s and 1990s

This paper explores the relationship between household marginal income tax rates, the set of assets that households own, and the portfolio shares accounted for by each of these assets. It analyzes data from the 1983, 1989, 1992, and 1995 Surveys of Consumer Finances and develops a new algorithm for imputing federal marginal tax rates to households in these surveys. The empirical findings suggest that a household's marginal tax rate has an important effect its asset allocation decisions. The probability that a household owns tax-advantaged assets is strongly related to its tax rate on ordinary income. In addition, the amount of investment through tax-deferred accounts such as 401(k) plans and IRAs is an increasing function of the household's marginal tax rate. Holdings of corporate stock, which is taxed less heavily than interest bearing assets, and of tax-exempt bonds are also increasing in the household's marginal tax rate. Holdings of heavily taxed assets, such as corporate bonds and interest-bearing accounts, decline as a share of wealth as a household's marginal tax rate increases.

Measuring the Average Marginal Tax Rate from the Individual Income Tax

The economic effects of taxation depend on the configuration of marginal tax rates. We consider here the appropriate measure of a marginal tax rate for the federal individual income tax, which has a graduated-rate structure and allows for numerous legal and illegal deductions from total income.Our conclusion is that the explicit marginal rate from the tax schedule is the right concept for many purposes.Hence, we construct approximately weighted averages of these marginal tax rates for 1916-80. When weighted by adjusted gross income, the arithmetic average of marginal tax rates is 5% in 1920, 2%in 1930, 6% in 1940, 20% in 1950, 23% in 1960, 24% in 1970, and 30% in 1980.We also discuss the dispersion of marginal tax rates, as well as the behavior of average tax rates and deductions from taxable income. One noteworthy result concerns the fraction of adjusted gross income that accrues to families that face a marginal tax rate of at least 35%. This fraction quadruples from 1964 to 1980.

The Effect of Base-Broadening Measures on Labor Supply and Investment: Considerations for Tax Reform

[Excerpt] This report attempts to show how options to broaden the tax base by placing limitations on itemized deductions can potentially work against the expansionary effects of reducing marginal tax rates. After base-broadening tax reform taxpayers may face lower statutory marginal rates but some taxpayers—those who itemize—may have more of their income is subject to tax, effectively increasing their marginal tax rates. The report also addresses other common base-broadening provisions that increase the effective marginal tax rate on the return to capital

The effects of the marginal tax rate in a matching model with endogenous labor supply

This paper analyzes the effects of the marginal tax rate on unemployment and economic efficiency in a matching model with homogenous agents when wages and working hours are bargained over. I show that the theoretical impact of a higher marginal tax rate on unemployment is ambiguous whatever the instantaneous utility in unemployment i.e. for an utility in unemployment that is either fixed or perfectly indexed on net wages. These results are in sharp contrast with the literature. Numerical simulations applied to France suggest that a higher marginal tax rate generally reduces the unemployment rate but at the expense of lower economic efficiency. The simulations point also out that the relation between the optimal marginal tax rate and the elasticity of labor supply is not monotonic.Matching model; Marginal Tax Rate; Labor supply; Utility in unemployment

Taxing Options: Do Ceos Respond To Favorable Tax Treatment Of Stock Options?

CEO stock option compensation increased tremendously during the 1990s. During this period, the spread between the marginal income and capital gains tax rates increased substantially, creating the potential for tax avoidance. Using ExecuComp data from 1992-2000, we estimate CEOs’ responsiveness to changes in these tax rates. Our findings show that an increase in the marginal income and a decrease in the capital gains tax rate create a significant increase in stock option compensation. Furthermore, the impact of the marginal income tax rate is more than twice that of the capital gains tax rate, which contradicts previous studies.

The taxation of discrete investment choices

Traditional analysis of the taxation of income from capital has focused on the impact of tax on marginal investment decisions; the principal impact of tax on investment is through the cost of capital, and is generally measured by an effective marginal tax rate. In this paper, we consider cases in which investors face a choice between two or more mutually exclusive projects, both of which are expected to earn at least the minimum required rate of return. Examples include the location decisions of multinationals, firms' choice of technology, and the choice of investment projects in the presence of binding financial constraints. In these cases the choice depends on the effective average tax rate. We propose a measure of this rate and demonstrate its relationship to the conventional effective marginal tax rate. Estimates of both are presented and compared for domestic and international investment in Germany, Japan, the UK and USA between 1979 and 1997

Average Marginal Tax Rates from Social Security and the Individual Income Tax

We extend previous estimates of the average marginal tax rate from the federal individual income tax to include social security "contributions." The social security tax is a flat-rate levy on labor earnings (and income from self-employment) up to a ceiling value of earnings. Our computations consider first, the tax rates on employers, employees and the self-employed; second the amounts of income that accrue to persons with earnings below the ceiling; and third, the effective deductibility of employer's social security contributions from workers' taxable income. We find that the net impact of social security on the average marginal tax rate is below .02 until 1966, but than rises to .03 in 1968, .04 in 1973, .05 in 1974,and .06 in 1979. Thus, since 1965, the overall average marginal tax rate rises more rapidly than that from the income tax alone. In 1980 this overall rate is 36%. We note that, in comparison with the income tax, the social security levy generates 3-4 times as much revenue per unit of contribution to the average marginal tax rate. The social security tax is relatively "efficient" because first, it is a flat-rate tax (rather than a graduated one) for earnings below the ceiling, and second, there is a zero marginal tax rate at the top. However, the last feature has become less important in recent years. The rapid increase in the ceiling on earnings raised the fraction of total salaries and wages accruing to persons with earnings below the ceiling from 29% in 1965 to 68% in 1982.

Optimal top marginal tax rates under income splitting for couples

This paper provides formulas for optimal top marginal tax rates when couples are taxed according to income splitting between spouses, consumption is taxed, and the skill distribution is unbounded. Optimal top marginal income tax rates are computed for Germany using a dataset that includes the tax returns of all German top taxpayers. We find that the optimal top marginal tax rate converges to about 2/3 and convergence obtains at income levels that are substantially higher than those currently subject to the actual top tax rate. --optimal income taxation,top incomes,German income tax

Simplifying the formal structure of UK income tax

The tax system in the UK has developed through numerous ad hoc changes to its structure. This has resulted in a situation where the way in which the tax system is described does not readily correspond to the marginal rate schedule actually faced by taxpayers. This paper outlines the connection between the formal description of the tax system and the marginal rate schedule faced by taxpayers. It argues that the operation of the tax system would be greatly clarified if it were described explicitly in terms of its marginal rate schedule.