IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/saq/wpaper/17-20.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Income tax rate increases and heterogeneous taxpayers’ reactions: a spatial regression discontinuity design

Author

Listed:
  • Augusto Cerqua

    (Department of Social Sciences and Economics, Sapienza University of Rome)

  • Emma Galli

    (Department of Social Sciences and Economics, Sapienza University of Rome)

Abstract

This paper exploits a sudden increase in the regional surcharge on the income tax rate in Lazio, one of the most populated regions of Italy, to compare taxpayers’ reported income in Lazio’s municipalities with those in the municipalities located in six neighboring regions. To this end, we have built a new yearly dataset (2012-2018) at municipal level containing the reported income of different categories of taxpayers and employ a spatial regression discontinuity design to estimate the response to an increase of the marginal tax rate in terms of reported taxable income by different types of taxpayers. We find a sizable and persistent decrease in reported income only for the self-employed and entrepreneurs, while the employees respond by slowly reducing their declared incomes. As expected, the retirees do not exhibit any response.

Suggested Citation

  • Augusto Cerqua & Emma Galli, 2020. "Income tax rate increases and heterogeneous taxpayers’ reactions: a spatial regression discontinuity design," Working Papers 17/20, Sapienza University of Rome, DISS.
    • Handle: RePEc:saq:wpaper:17/20
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.diss.uniroma1.it/sites/default/files/allegati/DiSSE_Cerqua_Galli_wp17_2020.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Thomas Piketty & Emmanuel Saez & Stefanie Stantcheva, 2014. "Optimal Taxation of Top Labor Incomes: A Tale of Three Elasticities," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 6(1), pages 230-271, February.
    3. Bastani, Spencer & Selin, Håkan, 2014. "Bunching and non-bunching at kink points of the Swedish tax schedule," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 36-49.
    4. Charles Whalen & Felix Reichling, 2017. "Estimates of the Frisch Elasticity of Labor Supply: A Review," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 43(1), pages 37-42, January.
    5. Emmanuel Saez, 2010. "Do Taxpayers Bunch at Kink Points?," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 2(3), pages 180-212, August.
    6. Kleven, Henrik Jacobsen & Schultz, Esben Anton, 2014. "Estimating taxable income responses using Danish tax reforms," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 66122, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    7. Thomas J. Holmes, 1998. "The Effect of State Policies on the Location of Manufacturing: Evidence from State Borders," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(4), pages 667-705, August.
    8. Lang (Kate) Yang & Bradley T. Heim, 2017. "Responsiveness of Income to Local Income Taxes: Evidence from Indiana," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 70(2), pages 367-392, June.
    9. Heim, Bradley T., 2010. "The responsiveness of self-employment income to tax rate changes," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(6), pages 940-950, December.
    10. Mr. Alexander D Klemm & Ms. Li Liu & Mr. Victor Mylonas & Mr. Philippe Wingender, 2018. "Are Elasticities of Taxable Income Rising?," IMF Working Papers 2018/132, International Monetary Fund.
    11. Thomas Luke Spreen, 2018. "The Effect of Flat Tax Rates on Taxable Income: Evidence from the Illinois Rate Increase," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 71(2), pages 231-262, June.
    12. Keele, Luke J. & Titiunik, Rocío, 2015. "Geographic Boundaries as Regression Discontinuities," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 23(1), pages 127-155, January.
    13. Emmanuel Saez & Joel Slemrod & Seth H. Giertz, 2012. "The Elasticity of Taxable Income with Respect to Marginal Tax Rates: A Critical Review," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 50(1), pages 3-50, March.
    14. repec:hal:pseose:halshs-00944873 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Rubolino, Enrico, 2019. "The efficiency and distributive effects of local taxes: evidence from Italian municipalities," ISER Working Paper Series 2019-02, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    16. J. A. Mirrlees, 1971. "An Exploration in the Theory of Optimum Income Taxation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 38(2), pages 175-208.
    17. Henrik Jacobsen Kleven & Esben Anton Schultz, 2014. "Estimating Taxable Income Responses Using Danish Tax Reforms," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 6(4), pages 271-301, November.
    18. Conley, T. G., 1999. "GMM estimation with cross sectional dependence," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 92(1), pages 1-45, September.
    19. Lang (Kate) Yang & Bradley T. Heim, 2017. "Addendum: Responsiveness of Income to Local Income Taxes: Evidence from Indiana," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 70(3), pages 707-708, September.
    20. Raffaele Lagravinese & Paolo Liberati & Agnese Sacchi, 2018. "The growth and variability of regional taxes: an application to Italy," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 52(3), pages 416-429, March.
    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. Boeri, Tito & Di Porto, Edoardo & Naticchioni, Paolo & Scrutinio, Vincenzo, 2021. "Friday Morning Fever. Evidence from a Randomized Experiment on Sick Leave Monitoring in the Public Sector," CEPR Discussion Papers 16104, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.

    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. 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.
    2. Kristoffer Berg & Thor O. Thoresen, 2020. "Problematic response margins in the estimation of the elasticity of taxable income," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 27(3), pages 721-752, June.
    3. Miao, Dingquan & Selin, Håkan & Söderström, Martin, 2022. "Earnings responses to even higher taxes," Working Paper Series 2022:12, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    4. Lundberg, Jacob, 2017. "Analyzing tax reforms using the Swedish Labour Income Microsimulation Model," Working Paper Series 2017:12, Uppsala University, Department of Economics.
    5. Boadway,Robin & Cuff,Katherine, 2022. "Tax Policy," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781108949453, January.
    6. Erich Battistin & Agar Brugiavini & Enrico Rettore & Guglielmo Weber, 2009. "The Retirement Consumption Puzzle: Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(5), pages 2209-2226, December.
    7. Jarkko Harju & Tuomas Matikka, 2016. "The elasticity of taxable income and income-shifting: what is “real” and what is not?," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 23(4), pages 640-669, August.
    8. Nicole Bosch & Egbert Jongen & Wouter Leenders & Jan Möhlmann, 2019. "Non-bunching at kinks and notches in cash transfers in the Netherlands," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 26(6), pages 1329-1352, December.
    9. Spencer Bastani, 2023. "The Marginal Cost of Public Funds: A Brief Guide," CESifo Working Paper Series 10322, CESifo.
    10. Nicole Bosch & Henk-Wim de Boer, 2017. "The Elasticity of Taxable Income for the Self-Employed: Heterogeneity across Reforms and Income Levels," CPB Discussion Paper 354.rdf, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    11. Miguel Almunia & David Lopez-Rodriguez, 2019. "The elasticity of taxable income in Spain: 1999–2014," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 10(3), pages 281-320, November.
    12. Kosonen, Tuomas & Matikka, Tuomas, 2020. "Discrete Labor Supply: Empirical Evidence and Implications," Working Papers 132, VATT Institute for Economic Research.
    13. Nazila Alinaghi & John Creedy & Norman Gemmell, 2023. "Do couples bunch more? Evidence from partnered and single taxpayers," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 30(4), pages 1137-1184, August.
    14. Kreiner, Claus Thustrup & Munch, Jakob Roland & Whitta-Jacobsen, Hans Jørgen, 2015. "Taxation and the long run allocation of labor: Theory and Danish evidence," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 74-86.
    15. Søgaard, Jakob Egholt, 2019. "Labor supply and optimization frictions: Evidence from the Danish student labor market," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 173(C), pages 125-138.
    16. Spencer Bastani & Jacob Lundberg, 2017. "Political preferences for redistribution in Sweden," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 15(4), pages 345-367, December.
    17. Alinaghi, Nazila & Creedy, John & Gemmell, Norman, 2020. "Do Couples Bunch More? Evidence from Partnered and Single Taxpayers in New Zealand," Working Paper Series 9366, Victoria University of Wellington, Chair in Public Finance.
    18. Nicole Bosch & Henk-Wim de Boer, 2017. "The Elasticity of Taxable Income for the Self-Employed: Heterogeneity across Reforms and Income Levels," CPB Discussion Paper 354, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    19. Joshua Rauh & Ryan J. Shyu, 2019. "Behavioral Responses to State Income Taxation of High Earners: Evidence from California," NBER Working Papers 26349, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Aronsson, Thomas & Jenderny, Katharina & Lanot, Gauthier, 2022. "The quality of the estimators of the ETI," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 212(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Income tax; taxpayers’ responses; spatial regression discontinuity design;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C21 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Cross-Sectional Models; Spatial Models; Treatment Effect Models
    • H26 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Tax Evasion and Avoidance
    • J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure

    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:saq:wpaper:17/20. 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: Pierluigi Montalbano (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dtrosit.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.