Estate Taxes and Charitable Bequests by the Wealthy

Charitable bequests are an important source of philanthropic support. Unlike bequests to children which can be taxed at a maximum statutory rate of 0.55, such transfers are exempt from estate taxation. Thus, by lowering the price of charitable giving, the estate tax may influence the disposition of terminal wealth. In this paper, I examine the effects of estate taxation on charitable bequests using data from estate tax returns of decedents in 1992. The results suggest that the estate tax deduction is budget' efficient. The overall effects of the estate tax, however, are likely to be modest as charitable bequests are wealth elastic.

Bribes and Business Tax Evasion

This paper investigates the role of governance, in particular bribes to tax officials, in shaping business tax compliance behavior in transition economies. The empirical results show that business noncompliance rises with the frequency of tax related bribes. More specifically, the findings from 27 economies suggest that tax evasion thrives when bribes to tax officials are commonplace. These findings are robust to a number of specifications that control for firm and country attributes as well as address the potential endogeneity of bribes.Tax Evasion, Firm Behavior, Corruption

Inheritance and Saving

This paper explores the effects of inheritances on the saving of recipients. Information on inheritances and heirs is obtained from estate tax records of decedents which are linked to the income tax records of beneficiaries. The observed pattern of wealth mobility within two years of the receipt of inheritances and multivariate analyses show that wealth increases by less than the full amount of the inheritance received. Similarly, and consistent with previous findings, large inheritances are found to depress labor force participation.

Sticking it Out: Entrepreneurial Survival and Liquidity Constraints

This paper analyzes the role of liquidity constraints in the formation of new entrepreneurial enterprises. The basic empirical strategy is to determine whether an individual's wealth affects the probability of becoming an entrepreneur, and the conditional amounts of depreciable assets, ceteris paribus. If so, liquidity constraints are likely to be present. To be successful, such a research strategy requires a measure of asset variation that is both precisely measured and exogenous to the entrepreneurial decision. Our data are uniquely well-suited for this purpose. The sample consists of the 1981 and 1985 federal income tax returns of a group of people who received inheritances in 1982 and 1983, along with information on the size of those inheritances from a matched set of estate tax returns. Hence, we can examine how the exogenous receipt of capital affects the decision to become an entrepreneur and important financial characteristics of new enterprises. Our results suggest that the size of the inheritance has a substantial effect on the probability of becoming an entrepreneur, and that conditional on becoming an entrepreneur, the size of the inheritance has a statistically significant and quantitatively important effect on the amount of capital employed. These findings are consistent with the presence of liquidity constraints.

NBER WORKING PAPER SERIES ESTATE TAXES AND CHARITABLE BEQUESTS BY THE WEALTHY

ABSTRACT Charitable bequests are an important source of philanthropic support. Unlike bequests to children which can be taxed at a maximum statutory rate of 0.55, such transfers are exempt from estate taxation. Thus, by lowering the price of charitable giving, the estate tax may influence the disposition of terminal wealth. In this paper, I examine the effects of estate taxation on charitable bequests using data from estate tax returns of decedents in 1992. The results suggest that the estate tax deduction is "budget" efficient. The overall effects of the estate tax, however, are likely to be modest as charitable bequests are wealth elastic

Revenue and Incentive Effects of Basis Step-Up at Death: Lessons from the 2010 “Voluntary” Estate Tax Regime

In 2010, the U.S. estate tax expired and executors of wealthy decedents were not required to file estate tax returns. In the absence of the estate tax, beneficiaries received assets with carryover rather than stepped-up basis. Unrealized capital gains accounted for 44 percent of the fair market value of non-cash assets in estates that chose the carryover basis regime, and an even higher percentage for some asset categories. Many of the largest gains were on assets that had been held for at least two decades

Taxes and business philanthropy in Armenia

The majority of countries around the world provide tax incentives for business philanthropy. However, little is known about the responsiveness of businesses to this tax treatment. This paper expands on this scant literature by focusing on the Armenian tax system which provides incentives for business philanthropy. The support takes the form of a deduction capped at a fraction of business receipts. This generates a kink beyond which the marginal tax subsidy drops to zero. Using administrative panel data for the years 2007 through 2017, we find strong evidence of bunching by Armenian firms at the kink, with a sizeable tax elasticity of giving at the intensive margin. The evidence on bunching is robust to whether firms have been audited, and to whether any tax deficiencies are observed. This suggests that the observed response is likely to be real rather than being driven by reporting responses

Estimating the Income Effect on Retirement

One of the most important issues in the debate over Social Security is how various changes in the system would change retirement behavior. A critical parameter in this context is the income effect on retirement— how a change in income affects retirement behavior, ceteris paribus. To estimate the income effect, we examine tax-return generated data on the labor force activity of a group of older people before and after they receive inheritances. The results are consistent with the notion that income effects are small. Neither retirement decisions nor the magnitude of earnings conditional on working seem to be affected very much by the receipt of an inheritance

But everyone else is doing it: A closer look at the occupational taxpaying culture of one business sector

When individuals embark on their careers they not only become acculturated into their occupational sectors' day-to-day norms and practices, but also their taxpaying ones. Although the research on taxpaying cultures is still in its infancy, understanding more about taxpaying cultures could improve our understanding of the processes underlying tax compliance. To this end, this study aimed to build a detailed picture of the taxpaying culture (i.e. the norms and values) of one business sector—the hairdressing/beauty industry. Nineteen small business and self-employed hairdressers/beauticians were interviewed and a variant of Grounded theory was used to uncover the main themes that ran through the interviews as a whole. The main themes that emerged—which appear to characterize this sector's culture—include a reliance on accountants/tax advisors, the notion of an acceptable level of cash-in-hand payments, and the use of different mental accounts for different types of income. Although some of these themes have already arisen in the small business literature they have often been couched in individualistic terms. We build a case that these issues are more cultural than individual—they are tied to occupational group membership as they are socially constructed within occupational groups and are a key component of the group's taxpaying culture. Implications and directions for future research are discussed

The Carnegie Conjecture: Some Empirical Evidence

This paper examines tax return-generated data on the labor force behavior of people before and after they receive inheritances. The results are consistent with Andrew Carnegie's century-old assertion that large inheritances decrease a person's labor force participation. For example, a single person who receives an inheritance of over $150,000 is roughly four times more likely to leave the labor force than a person with an inheritance below$25,000. Additional, albeit weaker, evidence suggests that large inheritances depress labor supply, even when participation is unaltered.