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Are "Real" Responses to Taxes Simply Income Shifting Between Corporate and Personal Tax Bases?

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Author Info
Roger H. Gordon
Joel Slemrod

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Abstract

Two well-noted phenomena of recent decades are the increasing concentration of personal income and the declining rate of corporate profitability. This paper investigates to what extent these two trends have a common explanation extent these two trends have a common explanation-shifting of income to the personal tax base from the corporate tax base caused by the generally declining difference between personal tax rates and corporation income tax rates. This paper presents evidence that a substantial amount of income shifting has in fact occured since 1965, based on time-series regression analyses that reveal that an increase in corporate tax rates relative to personal rates resulted in an increase in reported personal income and a drop in reported corporate income, even after controlling for corproate use of debt finance and for the amount of corporate assets. We focus on one mechanism for shifting--changing the form of compensation for executives and other workers, such as between wage compensation and greater use of stock options. The potential importance of income shifting requires a reinterpretation of both the efficiency and distributional consequences of of changes in the tax structure.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 6576.

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Date of creation: May 1998
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:6576

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H20 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - General

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  1. Lawrence B. Lindsey, 1981. "Is the Maximum Tax on Earned Income Effective?," NBER Working Papers 0613, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Myers, Stewart C. & Majluf, Nicolás S., 1945-, 1984. "Corporate financing and investment decisions when firms have information that investors do not have," Working papers 1523-84., Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sloan School of Management. [Downloadable!]
  3. Myers, Stewart C. & Majluf, Nicholas S., 1984. "Corporate financing and investment decisions when firms have information that investors do not have," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 187-221, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Myers, Stewart C, 1984. " The Capital Structure Puzzle," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 39(3), pages 575-92, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Auerbach, A.J. & Hines, Jr.J.R., 1988. "Investment Tax Incentives And Frequent Tax Reforms," Papers 135, Princeton, Woodrow Wilson School - Public and International Affairs.
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  6. Alan J. Auerbach & James M. Poterba, 1987. "Why Have Corporate Tax Revenues Declined?," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 1, pages 1-28 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  7. Alan J. Auerbach, 1985. "Real Determinants of Corporate Leverage," NBER Chapters, in: Corporate Capital Structures in the United States, pages 301-324 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  8. Austan Goolsbee, 1997. "Taxes, Organizational Form, and the Deadweight Loss of the Corporate Income Tax," NBER Working Papers 6173, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  9. Martin Feldstein & Lawrence Summers, 1977. "Is the Rate of Profit Falling?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 8(1977-1), pages 211-228. [Downloadable!]
  10. Arnold C. Harberger, 1962. "The Incidence of the Corporation Income Tax," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 70, pages 215. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  11. Gravelle, Jane G & Kotlikoff, Laurence J, 1993. "Corporate Tax Incidence and Inefficiency When Corporate and Noncorporate Goods Are Close Substitutes," Economic Inquiry, Oxford University Press, vol. 31(4), pages 501-16, October.
  12. Roger H. Gordon & Jeffrey K. MacKie--Mason, 1994. "Tax Distortions to the Choice of Organizational Form," Public Economics 9401004, EconWPA, revised 18 Jan 1994. [Downloadable!]
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  13. Stewart C. Myers, 1984. "Capital Structure Puzzle," NBER Working Papers 1393, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  14. Martin Feldstein & Joel Slemrod, 1980. "Personal Taxation, Portfolio Choice and The Effect of the Corporation Income Tax," NBER Working Papers 0241, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  15. Merton H. Miller & Franco Modigliani, 1961. "Dividend Policy, Growth, and the Valuation of Shares," Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34, pages 411. [Downloadable!]
  16. Roger H. Gordon & Joel Slemrod, 1988. "Do We Collect Any Revenue from Taxing Capital Income?," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy: Volume 2, pages 89-130 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!]
  17. Mackie-Mason, Jeffrey K & Gordon, Roger H, 1997. " How Much Do Taxes Discourage Incorporation?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(2), pages 477-505, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  18. Gravelle, Jane G & Kotlikoff, Laurence J, 1989. "The Incidence and Efficiency Costs of Corporate Taxation When Corporate and Noncorporate Firms Produce the Same Good," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(4), pages 749-80, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  19. MacKie-Mason, Jeffrey K, 1990. " Do Taxes Affect Corporate Financing Decisions?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 45(5), pages 1471-93, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  20. Myers, Stewart C., 1984. "Capital structure puzzle," Working papers 1548-84., Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sloan School of Management. [Downloadable!]
  21. Daniel Feenberg & James Poterba, 1993. "Income Inequality and the Incomes of Very High Income Taxpayers: Evidence from Tax Returns," NBER Working Papers 4229, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  22. Arnott, Richard & Stiglitz, Joseph E., 1986. "Moral hazard and optimal commodity taxation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 1-24, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  23. Roger H. Gordon & James R. Hines Jr., 2002. "International Taxation," NBER Working Papers 8854, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
    • Gordon, Roger H. & Hines, James Jr, 2002. "International taxation," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 28, pages 1935-1995 Elsevier. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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