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Taxpayers Responsiveness to Tax Rate Changes and Implications for the Cost of Taxation

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The elasticity of taxable income with respect to net-of-tax rate is key in evaluating tax policies and predicting tax revenue effects. This paper estimates the elasticity of taxable income for Swedish taxpayers using two different approaches and a number of control variables using the 1990/1991 tax reform as a “natural experiment“. The preferred elasticity estimates fall in the range of 0.4 to 0.5, numbers comparable with recent estimates for the U.S., but higher than most estimates of the labor supply elasticity in Sweden. Therefore, tax policy evaluations based on labor supply elasticities are likely to underestimate taxpayer response to tax rate changes and to overestimate potential tax revenues from tax rate increases. Re-estimating the deadweight loss of labor taxation using my estimates of elasticity of taxable income, I find that deadweight loss may be substantially higher than suggested by estimates based on labor supply elasticities.

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  • Hansson, Åsa, 2004. "Taxpayers Responsiveness to Tax Rate Changes and Implications for the Cost of Taxation," Working Papers 2004:5, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:lunewp:2004_005
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    1. Austan Goolsbee, 1998. "It's Not About the Money: Why Natural Experiments Don't Work on the Rich," NBER Working Papers 6395, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Robert A. Moffitt & Mark Wilhelm, 1998. "Taxation and the Labor Supply: Decisions of the Affluent," NBER Working Papers 6621, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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    20. Slemrod, Joel, 1998. "Methodological Issues in Measuring and Interpreting Taxable Income Elasticities," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 51(4), pages 773-788, December.
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    Cited by:

    1. Blomquist, Sören & Selin, Håkan, 2010. "Hourly wage rate and taxable labor income responsiveness to changes in marginal tax rates," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(11-12), pages 878-889, December.
    2. Annette Alstadsæter & Erik Fjærli, 2009. "Neutral taxation of shareholder income? Corporate responses to an announced dividend tax," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 16(4), pages 571-604, August.
    3. Carey, Simon & Creedy, John & Gemmell, Norman & Teng, Josh, 2012. "Regression Estimates of the Elasticity of Taxable Income and the Choice of Instrument," Working Paper Series 2429, Victoria University of Wellington, Chair in Public Finance.
    4. Annette Alstadsæter & Knut Reidar Wangen, 2008. "Corporations’ Choice of Tax Regime when Transition Costs are Small and Income Shifting Potential is Large," CESifo Working Paper Series 2392, CESifo.
    5. Carey, Simon & Creedy, John & Gemmell, Norman & Teng, Josh, 2012. "Regression Estimates of the Elasticity of Taxable Income and the Choice of Instrument," Working Paper Series 18710, Victoria University of Wellington, Chair in Public Finance.
    6. Åsa Hansson, 2007. "Taxpayers' responsiveness to tax rate changes and implications for the cost of taxation in Sweden," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 14(5), pages 563-582, October.
    7. Annette Alstadsaeter, 2007. "The Achilles Heel of the Dual Income Tax: The Norwegian Case," Finnish Economic Papers, Finnish Economic Association, vol. 20(1), pages 5-22, Spring.
    8. Jukka Pirttilä & Håkan Selin, 2006. "How Successful is the Dual Income Tax? Evidence from the Finnish Tax Reform of 1993," Working Papers 223, Työn ja talouden tutkimus LABORE, The Labour Institute for Economic Research LABORE.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Tax reform; taxable income elasticity; natural experiment; deadweight loss;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H21 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Efficiency; Optimal Taxation
    • H24 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Personal Income and Other Nonbusiness Taxes and Subsidies
    • H31 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Household
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply

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