IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp11493.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Smooth Income Tax Schedules: Derivation and Consequences

Author

Listed:
  • Estévez Schwarz, Diana

    (Beuth University of Applied Sciences)

  • Sommer, Eric

    (AXA AG)

Abstract

Existing tax schedules are often overly complex and characterized by discontinuities in the marginal tax burden. In this paper we propose a class of progressive smooth functions to replace personal income tax schedules. These functions depend only on three meaningful parameters, and avoid the drawbacks of defining tax schedules through various tax brackets. Based on representative micro data, we derive revenue-neutral parameters for four different types of tax regimes (Austria, Germany, Hungary and Spain). We then analyze possible implications from a hypothetical switch to smoother income tax tariffs. We find that smooth tax functions eliminate the most extreme cases of bracket creep, while the impact on income inequality is mostly negligible, but uniformly reducing.

Suggested Citation

  • Estévez Schwarz, Diana & Sommer, Eric, 2018. "Smooth Income Tax Schedules: Derivation and Consequences," IZA Discussion Papers 11493, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11493
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp11493.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Thomas Piketty & Emmanuel Saez, 2013. "Optimal Taxation of Labor Income," PSE-Ecole d'économie de Paris (Postprint) halshs-00944881, HAL.
    2. Olivier Bargain & Kristian Orsini & Andreas Peichl, 2014. "Comparing Labor Supply Elasticities in Europe and the United States: New Results," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 49(3), pages 723-838.
    3. Emmanuel Saez, 2010. "Do Taxpayers Bunch at Kink Points?," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 2(3), pages 180-212, August.
    4. Olivier Bargain & Kristian Orsini & Andreas Peichl, 2012. "Comparing Labor Supply Elasticities in Europe and the US: New Results," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 525, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    5. Holly Sutherland & Ruth Hancock & John Hills & Francesca Zantomio, 2008. "Keeping up or Falling behind? The Impact of Benefit and Tax Uprating on Incomes and Poverty," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 29(4), pages 467-498, December.
    6. Peter Diamond & Emmanuel Saez, 2011. "The Case for a Progressive Tax: From Basic Research to Policy Recommendations," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 25(4), pages 165-190, Fall.
    7. Herwig Immervoll, 2005. "Falling Up The Stairs: The Effects Of “Bracket Creep” On Household Incomes," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 51(1), pages 37-62, March.
    8. Thomas Piketty & Emmanuel Saez, 2012. "Optimal Labor Income Taxation," NBER Working Papers 18521, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Holly Sutherland & Francesco Figari, 2013. "EUROMOD: the European Union tax-benefit microsimulation model," International Journal of Microsimulation, International Microsimulation Association, vol. 1(6), pages 4-26.
    10. Isabelle Joumard & Mauro Pisu & Debbie Bloch, 2012. "Tackling income inequality: The role of taxes and transfers," OECD Journal: Economic Studies, OECD Publishing, vol. 2012(1), pages 37-70.
    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. Bonomi Bezzo, Franco, 2021. "Universal Independence Income. A EUROMOD Utopian Simulation in the UK," EUROMOD Working Papers EM3/21, EUROMOD at the Institute for Social and Economic Research.

    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. Charlotte Bartels & Cortnie Shupe, 2023. "Drivers of participation elasticities across Europe: gender or earner role within the household?," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 30(1), pages 167-214, February.
    2. Colas, Mark & Sachs, Dominik, 2022. "The Indirect Fiscal Benefits of Low-Skilled Immigration," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 352, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    3. Carina Neisser, 2021. "The Elasticity of Taxable Income: A Meta-Regression Analysis [The top 1% in international and historical perspective]," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 131(640), pages 3365-3391.
    4. Mark Colas & Dominik Sachs, 2020. "The Indirect Fiscal Benefits of Low-Skilled Immigration," CESifo Working Paper Series 8604, CESifo.
    5. Salvador Barrios & Viginta Ivaškaitė-Tamošiūnė & Anamaria Maftei & Edlira Narazani & Janos Varga, 2020. "Progressive Tax Reforms in Flat Tax Countries," Eastern European Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 58(2), pages 83-107, March.
    6. Salvador Barrios, 2020. "Taxation and growth: Why does it matter and how can it be analysed?," Society and Economy, Akadémiai Kiadó, Hungary, vol. 42(4), pages 366-384, December.
    7. Johannes Hermle & Andreas Peichl, 2018. "Jointly Optimal Taxes for Different Types of Income," CESifo Working Paper Series 7248, CESifo.
    8. Mark Colas & Dominik Sachs, 2020. "The Indirect Fiscal Benefits of Low-Skilled Immigration," Opportunity and Inclusive Growth Institute Working Papers 38, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    9. Oguzhan Akgun & Boris Cournède & Jean-Marc Fournier, 2017. "The effects of the tax mix on inequality and growth," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 1447, OECD Publishing.
    10. Michal Horvath & Matus Senaj & Zuzana Siebertova & Norbert Svarda, 2015. "The End of the Flat Tax Experiment in Slovakia," Discussion Papers 15/12, Department of Economics, University of York.
    11. Findeisen, Sebastian & Sachs, Dominik, 2015. "Designing efficient college and tax policies," Working Papers 15-09, University of Mannheim, Department of Economics.
    12. Florian Buhlmann & Benjamin Elsner & Andreas Peichl, 2018. "Tax refunds and income manipulation: evidence from the EITC," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 25(6), pages 1490-1518, December.
    13. Löffler, Max & Peichl, Andreas & Siegloch, Sebastian, 2013. "Validating Structural Labor Supply Models," VfS Annual Conference 2013 (Duesseldorf): Competition Policy and Regulation in a Global Economic Order 79819, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    14. Olivier Bargain & Mathias Dolls & Dirk Neumann & Andreas Peichl & Sebastian Siegloch, 2014. "Comparing inequality aversion across countries when labor supply responses differ," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 21(5), pages 845-873, October.
    15. MIYOSHI Yoshiyuki, 2017. "Does Sales Factor Apportionment Benefit the Welfare of State?," Discussion papers 17124, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    16. Kristoffer Berg & Paolo Giovanni Piacquadio, 2020. "The Equal-Sacrifice Social Welfare Function with an Application to Optimal Income Taxation," CESifo Working Paper Series 8505, CESifo.
    17. Klára Kalíšková, 2020. "Tax and transfer policies and the female labor supply in the EU," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 58(2), pages 749-775, February.
    18. Olivier Bargain, 2017. "Welfare analysis and redistributive policies," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 15(4), pages 393-419, December.
    19. Rolf Aaberge & Ugo Colombino, 2018. "Structural Labour Supply Models and Microsimulation," International Journal of Microsimulation, International Microsimulation Association, vol. 11(1), pages 162-197.
    20. Dieter Vandelannoote & Gerlinde Verbist, 2016. "The design of in-work benefits: how to boost employment and combat poverty in Belgium," ImPRovE Working Papers 16/15, Herman Deleeck Centre for Social Policy, University of Antwerp.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    personal income taxation; income distribution; nonlinear smooth tax tariff; microsimulation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H24 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Personal Income and Other Nonbusiness Taxes and Subsidies
    • C63 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Computational Techniques

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:iza:izadps:dp11493. 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: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.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.