IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ntj/journl/v71y2018i2p335-356.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

More Than They Realize: The Income of the Wealthy

Author

Listed:
  • Jenny Bourne
  • Eugene Steuerle
  • Brian Raub
  • Joseph Newcomb
  • Ellen Steele

Abstract

Income realized for tax or survey purposes usually understates economic income for the wealthy because capital income recognition is often voluntary. Using estate tax returns filed in 2007 linked with income tax returns from 2002 to 2006, we find realized returns to capital for most wealthy individuals are less than 2 percent, with the richest filers reporting the lowest returns. Because of tax preferences, taxable returns are even smaller than reported returns. Consequently, studies relying upon realized income tend to overstate tax progressivity, understate income inequality, and miscalculate the distribution of wealth when derived through income-capitalization techniques.

Suggested Citation

  • Jenny Bourne & Eugene Steuerle & Brian Raub & Joseph Newcomb & Ellen Steele, 2018. "More Than They Realize: The Income of the Wealthy," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 71(2), pages 335-356, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:ntj:journl:v:71:y:2018:i:2:p:335-356
    DOI: 10.17310/ntj.2018.2.05
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.17310/ntj.2018.2.05
    Download Restriction: Access is restricted to subscribers and members of the National Tax Association.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.17310/ntj.2018.2.05?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Emmanuel Saez & Gabriel Zucman, 2019. "Progressive Wealth Taxation," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 50(2 (Fall)), pages 437-533.
    2. Florian Scheuer & Joel Slemrod, 2020. "Taxation and the Superrich," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 12(1), pages 189-211, August.
    3. Gabriel Zucman, 2019. "Global Wealth Inequality," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 11(1), pages 109-138, August.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ntj:journl:v:71:y:2018:i:2:p:335-356. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: The University of Chicago Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.ntanet.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.