IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/cawmdp/4.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Income taxes, death taxes, and optimal consumption-leisure-savings-choice

Author

Listed:
  • van Suntum, Ulrich

Abstract

An optimal taxation approach is employed to compare a proportional income tax with a death tax within a simple lifetime-cycle-model. The impact of both taxes is discussed concerning consumption, leisure, savings, and inheritance. It is shown that the income tax generally leaves the tax payer with a higher residual utility than does the death tax, if the same present value of tax receipts is supposed. Moreover, the death tax is much more limited concerning the maximum possible tax receipts than is the income tax. It is argued that there is a double dividend of heritages because of positive consumption externalities, which should not be destroyed by undue taxation. Taking that into account within a steady-state OLG- model, the death tax turns out to be the least efficient tax at all.

Suggested Citation

  • van Suntum, Ulrich, 2008. "Income taxes, death taxes, and optimal consumption-leisure-savings-choice," CAWM Discussion Papers 4, University of Münster, Münster Center for Economic Policy (MEP).
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:cawmdp:4
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/51270/1/671586890.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Diamond, Peter A & Mirrlees, James A, 1971. "Optimal Taxation and Public Production: I--Production Efficiency," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 61(1), pages 8-27, March.
    2. Bernheim, B. Douglas, 2002. "Taxation and saving," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 18, pages 1173-1249, Elsevier.
    3. Stefan Homburg, 2004. "A New Approach to Optimal Commodity Taxation," CESifo Working Paper Series 1231, CESifo.
    4. Auerbach, Alan J., 1985. "The theory of excess burden and optimal taxation," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 2, pages 61-127, Elsevier.
    5. A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), 2002. "Handbook of Public Economics," Handbook of Public Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 4, number 4.
    6. Diamond, Peter A & Mirrlees, James A, 1971. "Optimal Taxation and Public Production II: Tax Rules," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 61(3), pages 261-278, June.
    7. Seidman, Laurence S, 1983. "Taxes in a Life Cycle Growth Model with Bequests and Inheritances," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 73(3), pages 437-441, June.
    8. Stefan Homburg, 2006. "A New Approach to Optimal Commodity Taxation," FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 62(3), pages 323-338, September.
    9. Atkinson, A. B. & Stiglitz, J. E., 1972. "The structure of indirect taxation and economic efficiency," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 97-119, April.
    10. Mirrlees, J. A., 1976. "Optimal tax theory : A synthesis," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 6(4), pages 327-358, November.
    11. A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), 2002. "Handbook of Public Economics," Handbook of Public Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 3, number 3.
    12. A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), 1985. "Handbook of Public Economics," Handbook of Public Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 1, number 1.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Ulrich van Suntum, "undated". "Income Taxes, Death Taxes, and Optimal Consumption-Leisure-Savings-Choice," Working Papers 200124, Institute of Spatial and Housing Economics, Munster Universitary.
    2. James Alm, 2018. "Is the Haig‐Simons Standard Dead? The Uneasy Case for a Comprehensive Income Tax," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 71(2), pages 379-398, June.
    3. Alberto Alesina & Andrea Ichino & Loukas Karabarbounis, 2011. "Gender-Based Taxation and the Division of Family Chores," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 3(2), pages 1-40, May.
    4. Homburg, Stefan, 2010. "Allgemeine Steuerlehre: Kapitel 1. Grundbegriffe der Steuerlehre," EconStor Books, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, number 92547, February.
    5. Chari, V.V. & Kehoe, Patrick J., 1999. "Optimal fiscal and monetary policy," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 26, pages 1671-1745, Elsevier.
    6. Odd E. Nygård & John T. Revesz, 2015. "Optimal indirect taxation and the uniformity debate: A review of theoretical results and empirical contributions," Discussion Papers 809, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    7. Claudio Agostini, 2004. "Tax Interdependence in American States," Econometric Society 2004 Latin American Meetings 155, Econometric Society.
    8. Lawrence H. Goulder, 1994. "Energy Taxes: Traditional Efficiency Effects and Environmental Implications," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 8, pages 105-158, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Adam, Stuart & Phillips, David & Roantree, Barra, 2019. "35 years of reforms: A panel analysis of the incidence of, and employee and employer responses to, social security contributions in the UK," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 171(C), pages 29-50.
    10. Slemrod, Joel, 1990. "Optimal Taxation and Optimal Tax Systems," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 4(1), pages 157-178, Winter.
    11. David Coady & Jean Dreze, 2000. "Commodity Taxation and Social Welfare: The Generalised Ramsey Rule," Working papers 87, Centre for Development Economics, Delhi School of Economics.
    12. Junichi Minagawa & Thorsten Upmann, 2016. "Optimal Taxation under a Consumption Target," CESifo Working Paper Series 6067, CESifo.
    13. Kleven, Henrik & Best, Michael & Spinnewijn, Johannes & Waseem, Mazhar & Brockmeyer, Anne, 2013. "Production vs Revenue Efficiency With Limited Tax Capacity: Theory and Evidence From Pakistan," CEPR Discussion Papers 9717, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    14. Jones, Larry E. & Manuelli, Rodolfo E. & Rossi, Peter E., 1997. "On the Optimal Taxation of Capital Income," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 93-117, March.
    15. Jerry Hausman, 1998. "Taxation by Telecommunications Regulation," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 12, pages 29-48, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Valentinyi, Ákos, 2001. "A tőkejövedelem optimális adóztatása [The optimal taxation of capital income]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(6), pages 459-479.
    17. Jorge Martinez-Vazquez & Mark Rider, 1996. "A Revelation Approach To Optimal Taxation," Public Finance Review, , vol. 24(4), pages 439-463, October.
    18. Claudio Agostini, "undated". "Tax Interdependence in the U.S. States," ILADES-UAH Working Papers inv151, Universidad Alberto Hurtado/School of Economics and Business.
    19. Etro, Federico, 2016. "Research in economics and public finance," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(1), pages 1-6.
    20. C. Benassi & E. Randon, 2015. "Optimal Commodity Taxation and Income Distribution," Working Papers wp1001, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.

    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:zbw:cawmdp:4. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/camuede.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.