IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/tec/journl/v29y2022i1p271-284.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Optimal Tax Rate for Maximal Revenue Generation

Author

Listed:
  • Dennis Ridley

    (School of Business and Industry, Florida A&M University and Department of Scientific Computing, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL. USA)

  • Cartreal Davison

    (School of Business and Industry, Florida University)

Abstract

Tax revenue is a function of tax rate. As tax rate increases tax revenue increases, peaks, and then falls. This paper presents an empirically observed relationship between corporate income tax rates and tax revenues. Infrastructure plays a critical role in economic growth and development. Infrastructures such as public facilities that include endogenous capital stock of knowledge, machines, computers, recordings, etc. are commonly the result of government investments. Money for these investments is obtained from tax revenues. One such tax is corporate income tax. The tax rate that corresponds to maximum revenue from taxes is determined to be 32%. It is proposed that this is a false optimum as the preferred objective should be to maximize economic growth where the corresponding maximizing rate is 26%.

Suggested Citation

  • Dennis Ridley & Cartreal Davison, 2022. "Optimal Tax Rate for Maximal Revenue Generation," Technium Social Sciences Journal, Technium Science, vol. 29(1), pages 271-284, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:tec:journl:v:29:y:2022:i:1:p:271-284
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://techniumscience.com/index.php/socialsciences/article/view/6067
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://techniumscience.com/index.php/socialsciences/article/view/6067/2146
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Keen, Michael & Slemrod, Joel, 2017. "Optimal tax administration," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 133-142.
    2. Bender, Bruce, 1984. "An Analysis of the Laffer Curve," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 22(3), pages 414-420, July.
    3. Diamond, Peter A & Mirrlees, James A, 1971. "Optimal Taxation and Public Production: I--Production Efficiency," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 61(1), pages 8-27, March.
    4. Louis Lévy-Garboua & David Masclet & Claude Montmarquette, 2005. "A micro-foundation for the Laffer curve in a real effort experiment," Cahiers de la Maison des Sciences Economiques bla05071, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1).
    5. Novales, Alfonso & Ruiz, Jesus, 2002. "Dynamic Laffer curves," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 181-206, December.
    6. Basil Dalamagas, 1998. "Endogenous growth and the dynamic Laffer curve," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(1), pages 63-75.
    7. Lin, Boqiang & Jia, Zhijie, 2019. "Tax rate, government revenue and economic performance: A perspective of Laffer curve," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 1-1.
    8. Waud, Roger N, 1988. "Tax Aversion, Optimal Tax Rates, and Indexation," Public Finance = Finances publiques, , vol. 43(2), pages 310-325.
    9. Boone, Jan & Bovenberg, Lans, 2002. "Optimal labour taxation and search," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(1), pages 53-97, July.
    10. Kaneko, Mamoru, 1982. "The optimal progressive income tax : The existence and the limit tax rates," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 3(2), pages 193-221, September.
    11. Nutahara, Kengo, 2015. "Laffer curves in Japan," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 56-72.
    12. Diamond, Peter A & Mirrlees, James A, 1971. "Optimal Taxation and Public Production II: Tax Rules," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 61(3), pages 261-278, June.
    13. Strulik, Holger & Trimborn, Timo, 2012. "Laffer strikes again: Dynamic scoring of capital taxes," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(6), pages 1180-1199.
    14. Friedman, Milton, 2002. "Capitalism and Freedom," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9780226264219, Febrero.
    15. Hsing, Yu, 1996. "Estimating the laffer curve and policy implications," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 395-401.
    16. Heijman, W.J.M. & van Ophem, J.A.C., 2005. "Willingness to pay tax: The Laffer curve revisited for 12 OECD countries," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 34(5), pages 714-723, October.
    17. Francesco Busato & Bruno Chiarini, 2004. "Market and underground activities in a two-sector dynamic equilibrium model," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 23(4), pages 831-861, May.
    18. Bach, Stefan & Corneo, Giacomo & Steiner, Viktor, 2012. "Optimal top marginal tax rates under income splitting for couples," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(6), pages 1055-1069.
    19. George Abuselidze, 2013. "Optimal Tax Policy - Financial Crisis Overcoming Factor," Asian Economic and Financial Review, Asian Economic and Social Society, vol. 3(11), pages 1451-1459.
    20. Mirrlees, J. A., 1976. "Optimal tax theory : A synthesis," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 6(4), pages 327-358, November.
    21. Friedman, Milton, 2002. "Capitalism and Freedom," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9780226264202.
    22. Harris, Richard G. & Mackinnon, James G., 1979. "Computing optimal tax equilibria," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(2), pages 197-212, March.
    23. Ireland, Peter N., 1994. "Supply-side economics and endogenous growth," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 559-571, June.
    24. George Abuselidze, 2013. "Optimal Tax Policy - Financial Crisis Overcoming Factor," Asian Economic and Financial Review, Asian Economic and Social Society, vol. 3(11), pages 1451-1459, November.
    25. Trabandt, Mathias & Uhlig, Harald, 2011. "The Laffer curve revisited," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(4), pages 305-327.
    26. Michal Karas, 2012. "Tax rate to maximize the revenue: Laffer curve for the Czech Republic," Acta Universitatis Agriculturae et Silviculturae Mendelianae Brunensis, Mendel University Press, vol. 60(4), pages 189-194.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hüseyin ŞEN & Zeynep Burcu BULUT-ÇEVIK, 2021. "The Revenue-Maximizing Corporate Income Tax Rate for Turkey," Journal for Economic Forecasting, Institute for Economic Forecasting, vol. 0(1), pages 122-142, December.
    2. Menichini, Amilcar A., 2020. "How do firm characteristics affect the corporate income tax revenue?," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 146-162.
    3. Stanisław Cichocki & Ryszard Kokoszczyński, 2016. "The evolution of the Laffer curve as a framework for studying tax evasion: from simple theoretical to DSGE models," Ekonomia journal, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw, vol. 45.
    4. Kostantinos J. Liapis & Evangelos D. Politis & Dimitra Ntertsou & Eleftherios I. Thalassinos, 2020. "Investigating the Relationship between Tax Revenues and Tax Ratios: An Empirical Research for Selected OECD Countries," International Journal of Economics & Business Administration (IJEBA), International Journal of Economics & Business Administration (IJEBA), vol. 0(1), pages 215-229.
    5. Alexandra Ferreira‐Lopes & Luís Filipe Martins & Ruben Espanhol, 2020. "The relationship between tax rates and tax revenues in eurozone member countries ‐ exploring the Laffer curve," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 72(2), pages 121-145, April.
    6. Tsuchiya, Yoichi, 2016. "Dynamic Laffer curves, population growth and public debt overhangs," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 40-52.
    7. Şen, Hüseyin & Bulut-Çevik, Zeynep Burcu & Kaya, Ayşe, 2017. "The Khaldun-Laffer Curve Revisited: A Personal Income Tax-Based Analysis for Turkey," MPRA Paper 78850, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 27 Apr 2017.
    8. Khalid Mehmood & Sajjad Ahmad & Tariq Mehmood & Muhammad Mohsin & Muhammad Ishfaq, 2022. "Does Laffer Curve Exist in Tax Structure of Pakistan? A Threshold Regression Analysis," Journal of Economic Impact, Science Impact Publishers, vol. 4(1), pages 145-149.
    9. van Oudheusden, P., 2012. "Dynamic Scoring Through Creative Destruction," Discussion Paper 2012-084, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    10. van Oudheusden, P., 2012. "Dynamic Scoring Through Creative Destruction," Other publications TiSEM 13955715-2cbb-443b-a099-9, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    11. Alexandru Minea & Patrick Villieu, 2009. "Impôt, déficit et croissance économique : un réexamen de la courbe de Laffer," Revue d'économie politique, Dalloz, vol. 119(4), pages 653-675.
    12. Lin, Boqiang & Jia, Zhijie, 2019. "Tax rate, government revenue and economic performance: A perspective of Laffer curve," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 1-1.
    13. Odd E. Nygård & John T. Revesz, 2015. "Optimal indirect taxation and the uniformity debate: A review of theoretical results and empirical contributions," Discussion Papers 809, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    14. Francisca Guedes de Oliveira & Leonardo Costa, 2013. "The Vat Laffer Curve And The Business Cycle," Working Papers de Economia (Economics Working Papers) 02, Católica Porto Business School, Universidade Católica Portuguesa.
    15. Sanz-Sanz, José Félix, 2022. "A full-fledged analytical model for the Laffer curve in personal income taxation," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 795-811.
    16. Heer, Burkhard & Polito, Vito & Wickens, Michael R., 2020. "Population aging, social security and fiscal limits," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    17. Joong-Ho Kook & Seok Gyu Choi, 2022. "A Comparative Study of Household Consumption Patterns and Optimal Commodity Tax Rates between Korea and Japan," Korean Economic Review, Korean Economic Association, vol. 38, pages 479-507.
    18. Alejandro Cunat & Szabolcs Deak & Marco Maffezzoli, 2022. "Tax Cuts in Open Economies," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 45, pages 83-108, July.
    19. Martin Hellwig, 2004. "Optimal Income Taxation, Public-Goods Provision and Public-Sector Pricing: A Contribution to the Foundations of Public Economics," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2004_14, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    20. Anh D. M. Nguyen & Luisanna Onnis & Raffaele Rossi, 2021. "The Macroeconomic Effects of Income and Consumption Tax Changes," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 13(2), pages 439-466, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Taxation; Economic growth; Economic development; Reinvestment capital; Innovation; Tax revenue;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • R00 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General - - - General
    • Z0 - Other Special Topics - - General

    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:tec:journl:v:29:y:2022:i:1:p:271-284. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Tasente Tanase (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.