IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/nbr/nberch/10870.html
   My bibliography  Save this book chapter

Tax Policy and Education Policy: Collision or Coordination? A Case Study of the 529 and Coverdell Saving Incentives

In: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 18

Author

Listed:
  • Susan Dynarski

Abstract

529 saving plans and Coverdell Educational Savings Accounts are marketed as attractive vehicles for college savings. The main finding of this paper is that college savings plans can actually harm some families. The joint treatment by the income tax code and financial aid system of college savings creates tax rates that exceed 100 percent for those families on the margin of receiving additional financial aid. Since even families with incomes above $100,000 receive need-based aid, the impact of these very high taxes is quite broad. I find that an aid-marginal family with funds in a Coverdell is worse off than if it did not save at all. Simulations show that $1,000 of pretax income placed in a Coverdell for a newborn and left to accumulate until college will face income and aid taxes that consume all of the principal, all of the earnings and an additional several hundred dollars. This perverse outcome is the product of poor coordination between the income tax code and the financial aid system.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Susan Dynarski, 2004. "Tax Policy and Education Policy: Collision or Coordination? A Case Study of the 529 and Coverdell Saving Incentives," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 18, pages 81-116, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberch:10870
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/chapters/c10870.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Daniel Feenberg & Elisabeth Coutts, 1993. "An introduction to the TAXSIM model," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 12(1), pages 189-194.
    2. Feldstein, Martin, 1995. "College Scholarship Rules and Private Saving," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(3), pages 552-566, June.
    3. Aaron S. Edlin, 1993. "Is College Financial Aid Equitable and Efficient?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 7(2), pages 143-158, Spring.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Vicki L. Bogan, 2014. "Savings Incentives And Investment Management Fees: A Study Of The 529 College Savings Plan Market," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 32(4), pages 826-842, October.
    2. Dynarski, Susan, 2004. "Who Benefits From the Education Saving Incentives? Income, Educational Expectations and the Value of the 529 and Coverdell," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 57(2), pages 359-383, June.
    3. Turner, Nick, 2010. "Why Don’t Taxpayers Maximize their Tax-Based Student Aid? Salience and Inertial in Program Selection," University of California at San Diego, Economics Working Paper Series qt0pb3f440, Department of Economics, UC San Diego.

    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. Kristy Fan & Tyler J. Fisher & Andrew A. Samwick, 2021. "The Insurance Value of Financial Aid," NBER Working Papers 28669, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Victor R. Fuchs, 2000. "Medicare Reform: The Larger Picture," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(2), pages 57-70, Spring.
    3. Dynarski, Susan, 2004. "Who Benefits From the Education Saving Incentives? Income, Educational Expectations and the Value of the 529 and Coverdell," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 57(2), pages 359-383, June.
    4. Gopi Shah Goda & John B. Shoven & Sita Nataraj Slavov, 2011. "Implicit Taxes on Work from Social Security and Medicare," Tax Policy and the Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 25(1), pages 69-88.
    5. Kane, Thomas J., 1997. "Beyond Tax Relief: Long-Term Challenges in Financing Higher Education," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association, vol. 50(2), pages 335-49, June.
    6. Souleles, Nicholas S., 2000. "College tuition and household savings and consumption," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(2), pages 185-207, August.
    7. Braga, Breno & Malkova, Olga, 2020. "Hope for the Family: The Effects of College Costs on Maternal Labor Supply," IZA Discussion Papers 12958, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Phillip B. Levine & Dubravka Ritter, 2024. "The racial wealth gap, financial aid, and college access," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 43(2), pages 555-581, March.
    9. Poterba, James M., 2002. "Taxation, risk-taking, and household portfolio behavior," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 17, pages 1109-1171, Elsevier.
    10. Long, Mark, 2004. "The impact of asset-tested college financial aid on household savings," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(1-2), pages 63-88, January.
    11. Kane, Thomas J., 1997. "Beyond Tax Relief: Long-Term Challenges in Financing Higher Education," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 50(2), pages 335-349, June.
    12. Gentry, William M. & Hubbard, R. Glenn, 2004. "The effects of progressive income taxation on job turnover," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(11), pages 2301-2322, September.
    13. Kane, Thomas J., 1998. "Savings Incentives for Higher Education," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 51(3), pages 609-620, September.
    14. Caroline M. Hoxby, 1998. "Tax Incentives for Higher Education," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 12, pages 49-82, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Dick, Andrew W. & Edlin, Aaron S., 1997. "The implicit taxes from college financial aid," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(3), pages 295-322, September.
    16. Kane, Thomas J., 1998. "Savings Incentives for Higher Education," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association, vol. 51(n. 3), pages 609-20, September.
    17. Bas Jacobs, 2002. "An investigation of education finance reform; graduate taxes and income contingent loans in the Netherlands," CPB Discussion Paper 9, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    18. Rajeev Darolia, 2015. "Income-Tested College Financial Aid and Labor Disincentives," Upjohn Working Papers 15-248, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
    19. Tansel Yilmazer, 2008. "Saving for Children’s College Education: An Empirical Analysis of the Trade-off Between the Quality and Quantity of Children," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 29(2), pages 307-324, June.
    20. Elira Kuka, 2020. "Quantifying the Benefits of Social Insurance: Unemployment Insurance and Health," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 102(3), pages 490-505, July.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I22 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Educational Finance; Financial Aid
    • H21 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Efficiency; Optimal Taxation

    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:nbr:nberch:10870. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    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.