IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/2132.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Should Tax Reform Level the Playing Field?

Author

Listed:
  • Lawrence H. Summers

Abstract

While frequently invoked, the level playing field ideal and its practical embodiment in tax legislation has received relatively little analysis. This paper examines the economic arguments surrounding the level playing field doctrine. I conclude that leveling the playing field is an issue of little economic importance and that efforts to level the playing field like those recently enacted are likely to create more important nonneutralities than those they eliminate. They may however contribute to the perceived fairness of the tax system.

Suggested Citation

  • Lawrence H. Summers, 1987. "Should Tax Reform Level the Playing Field?," NBER Working Papers 2132, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:2132
    Note: PE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w2132.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Don Fullerton & Roger H. Gordon, 1983. "A Reexamination of Tax Distortions in General Equilibrium Models," NBER Chapters, in: Behavioral Simulation Methods in Tax Policy Analysis, pages 369-426, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Roger H. Gordon & James R. Hines, Jr. & Lawrence H. Summers, 1987. "Notes on the Tax Treatment of Structures," NBER Chapters, in: The Effects of Taxation on Capital Accumulation, pages 223-258, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Lawrence H. Summers, 1987. "Investment Incentives and the Discounting of Depreciation Allowances," NBER Chapters, in: The Effects of Taxation on Capital Accumulation, pages 295-304, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Bulow, Jeremy I & Summers, Lawrence H, 1984. "The Taxation of Risky Assets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 92(1), pages 20-39, February.
    5. Olivier J. Blanchard & Lawrence H. Summers, 1984. "Perspectives on High World Real Interest Rates," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 15(2), pages 273-334.
    6. repec:bla:scandj:v:88:y:1986:i:2:p:355-77 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Summers, Lawrence H, 1981. "Capital Taxation and Accumulation in a Life Cycle Growth Model," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(4), pages 533-544, September.
    8. Barry P. Bosworth, 1985. "Taxes and the Investment Recovery," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 16(1), pages 1-45.
    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. Liu, Yang & Yang, Jinqiang, 2015. "Optimal investment of private equity," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 14(C), pages 76-86.
    2. Slemrod, Joel, 1990. "Optimal Taxation and Optimal Tax Systems," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 4(1), pages 157-178, Winter.
    3. Donald Bruce & William Fox & Matthew Murray, 2003. "To Tax Or Not To Tax? The Case Of Electronic Commerce," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 21(1), pages 25-40, January.
    4. Hines, James R. & Park, Jongsang, 2019. "Investment ramifications of distortionary tax subsidies," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 172(C), pages 36-51.
    5. Auerbach, Alan J., 1989. "The deadweight loss from `non-neutral' capital income taxation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 1-36, October.
    6. Estelle P. Dauchy, 2013. "The Efficiency Cost of Asset Taxation in the U.S. after Accounting for Intangible Assets," Working Papers w0199, Center for Economic and Financial Research (CEFIR).
    7. Conesa, Juan C. & Domínguez, Begoña, 2013. "Intangible investment and Ramsey capital taxation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(8), pages 983-995.
    8. Don Fullerton & Andrew B. Lyon, 1988. "Tax Neutrality and Intangible Capital," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy: Volume 2, pages 63-88, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Estelle P. Dauchy, 2013. "The Efficiency Cost of Asset Taxation in the U.S. after Accounting for Intangible Assets," Working Papers w0199, New Economic School (NES).
    10. Emmanuel Ekow Asmah & Francis Kwaw Andoh & Edem Titriku, 2020. "Trade misinvoicing effects on tax revenue in sub‐Saharan Africa: The role of tax holidays and regulatory quality," Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 91(4), pages 649-672, December.

    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. Roger H. Gordon & James R. Hines, Jr. & Lawrence H. Summers, 1987. "Notes on the Tax Treatment of Structures," NBER Chapters, in: The Effects of Taxation on Capital Accumulation, pages 223-258, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Syed M. Ahsan & Panagiotis Tsigaris, 2009. "The Efficiency Loss of Capital Income Taxation under Imperfect Loss Offset Provisions," Public Finance Review, , vol. 37(6), pages 710-731, November.
    3. George R. Zodrow, 2019. "Taxation, Uncertainty and the Choice of a Consumption Tax Base," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: George R Zodrow (ed.), TAXATION IN THEORY AND PRACTICE Selected Essays of George R. Zodrow, chapter 8, pages 227-237, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    4. Lund, Diderik, 2006. "Taxation and systematic risk under decreasing returns to scale," Working Papers 02-2003, Copenhagen Business School, Department of Economics.
    5. Lund, Diderik, 2009. "Marginal versus Average Beta of Equity under Corporate Taxation," Memorandum 12/2009, Oslo University, Department of Economics.
    6. Goulder, Lawrence H. & Thalmann, Philippe, 1993. "Approaches to efficient capital taxation : Leveling the playing field vs. living by the golden rule," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 169-196, February.
    7. Fullerton, Don & Henderson, Yolanda Kodrzycki, 1989. "A Disaggregate Equilibrium Model of the Tax Distortions among Assets, Sectors, and Industries," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 30(2), pages 391-413, May.
    8. Syed Ahsan & Peter Tsigaris, 1998. "The design of a consumption tax under capital risk," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 68(1), pages 53-78, February.
    9. Hebous, Shafik & Ruf, Martin, 2017. "Evaluating the effects of ACE systems on multinational debt financing and investment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 131-149.
    10. Patric H. Hendershott, 1987. "Tax Changes and Capital Allocation in the 1980s," NBER Chapters, in: The Effects of Taxation on Capital Accumulation, pages 259-294, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Don Fullerton & Andrew B. Lyon, 1988. "Tax Neutrality and Intangible Capital," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy: Volume 2, pages 63-88, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Fullerton, Don & Henderson, Yolanda Kodrzycki, 1989. "The Marginal Excess Burden of Different Capital Tax Instruments," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 71(3), pages 435-442, August.
    13. Hebous, Shafik & Ruf, Martin, 2017. "Evaluating the effects of ACE systems on multinational debt financing and investment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 131-149.
    14. Patric H. Hendershott, 1985. "Tax Reform, Interest Rates and Capital Allocation," NBER Working Papers 1708, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Syed M. Ahsan & Panagiotis Tsigaris, 2003. "Choice of Tax Base Revisited: Cash Flow vs. Prepayment Approaches to Consumption Taxation," CESifo Working Paper Series 983, CESifo.
    16. Alan S. Blinder, 1988. "The Fall and Rise of Keynesian Economics," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 64(4), pages 278-294, December.
    17. Selale Tuzel & Miao Ben Zhang, 2021. "Economic Stimulus at the Expense of Routine‐Task Jobs," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 76(6), pages 3347-3399, December.
    18. Don Fullerton, 1983. "Which Effective Tax Rate?," NBER Working Papers 1123, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. David F. Bradford & Charles Stuart, 1986. "Issues in the Measurement and Interpretation of Effective Tax Rates," NBER Working Papers 1975, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Gordon, Roger H & Wilson, John Douglas, 1989. "Measuring the Efficiency Cost of Taxing Risky Capital Income," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(3), pages 427-439, June.

    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:nbr:nberwo:2132. 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.