IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/vfsc13/80039.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Declining Tax Progression and the German Dual Income Tax

Author

Listed:
  • Jenderny, Katharina

Abstract

This paper analyzes the effect of the introduction of a final withholding tax on capital income on the progression of the German income tax. As previous literature shows, even with synthetic income taxation, tax progression was strongest in the middle of the income distribution, and decreased for high incomes. At the top, notably for the richest top 0.001 % of potential taxpayers, tax progression was not further observable. In 2009, the tax schedule changed and capital income was excluded from the synthetic income tax tariff. Instead, it is taxed at a lower final withholding tax rate. This paper explores the effect of this change on the overall progression on total income. The analysis is based on a microlevel panel dataset of income tax returns between 2001 and 2006, which provides information on the distribution of total taxable income and is particularly representative for the top of the income distribution.

Suggested Citation

  • Jenderny, Katharina, 2013. "Declining Tax Progression and the German Dual Income Tax," VfS Annual Conference 2013 (Duesseldorf): Competition Policy and Regulation in a Global Economic Order 80039, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
  • Handle: RePEc:zbw:vfsc13:80039
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/80039/1/VfS_2013_pid_746.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Anthony B. Atkinson & Thomas Piketty & Emmanuel Saez, 2011. "Top Incomes in the Long Run of History," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 49(1), pages 3-71, March.
    2. Thomas Piketty & Gabriel Zucman, 2014. "Capital is Back: Wealth-Income Ratios in Rich Countries 1700–2010," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 129(3), pages 1255-1310.
    3. Giacomo Corneo, 2005. "The Rise and Likely Fall of the German Income Tax, 1958–2005," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo Group, vol. 51(1), pages 159-186.
    4. Fabien Dell, 2005. "Top Incomes in Germany and Switzerland Over the Twentieth Century," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 3(2-3), pages 412-421, 04/05.
    5. Stefan Bach & Giacomo Corneo & Viktor Steiner, 2009. "From Bottom To Top: The Entire Income Distribution In Germany, 1992–2003," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 55(2), pages 303-330, June.
    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. Junyi Zhu, 2014. "Bracket Creep Revisited - with and without r > g: Evidence from Germany," Journal of Income Distribution, Ad libros publications inc., vol. 23(3), pages 106-158, November.

    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. Paul Makdissi & Myra Yazbeck, 2012. "On the Measurement of Indignation," Working Papers 1213E, University of Ottawa, Department of Economics.
    2. Richard Burkhauser & Shuaizhang Feng & Stephen Jenkins & Jeff Larrimore, 2011. "Estimating trends in US income inequality using the Current Population Survey: the importance of controlling for censoring," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 9(3), pages 393-415, September.
    3. Stefan Bach & Giacomo Corneo & Viktor Steiner, 2013. "Effective Taxation of Top Incomes in Germany," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 14(2), pages 115-137, May.
    4. Katharina Jenderny, 2016. "Mobility of Top Incomes in Germany," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 62(2), pages 245-265, June.
    5. Andreas Peichl & Nico Pestel, 2013. "Multidimensional affluence: theory and applications to Germany and the US," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(32), pages 4591-4601, November.
    6. Paul Makdissi & Myra Yazbeck, 2015. "On the measurement of plutonomy," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 44(4), pages 703-717, April.
    7. Bartels, Charlotte & Waldenström, Daniel, 2021. "Inequality and top incomes," GLO Discussion Paper Series 959, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    8. Piketty, Thomas & Bozio, Antoine & Garbinti, Bertrand & Goupille-Lebret, Jonathan & Guillot, Malka, 2020. "Predistribution vs. Redistribution: Evidence from France and the U.S," CEPR Discussion Papers 15415, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    9. Junyi Zhu, 2014. "Bracket Creep Revisited - with and without r > g: Evidence from Germany," Journal of Income Distribution, Ad libros publications inc., vol. 23(3), pages 106-158, November.
    10. Timm Bönke & Markus M. Grabka & Carsten Schröder & Edward N. Wolff & Lennard Zyska, 2019. "The Joint Distribution of Net Worth and Pension Wealth in Germany," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 65(4), pages 834-871, December.
    11. Richard V. Burkhauser & Nicolas Hérault & Stephen P. Jenkins & Roger Wilkins, 2018. "Survey Under‐Coverage of Top Incomes and Estimation of Inequality: What is the Role of the UK's SPI Adjustment?," Fiscal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 39(2), pages 213-240, June.
    12. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/vbu6kd1s68o6r34k5bcm3iopv is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Facundo Alvaredo & Anthony Atkinson & Lucas Chancel & Thomas Piketty & Emmanuel Saez & Gabriel Zucman, 2016. "Distributional National Accounts (DINA) Guidelines : Concepts and Methods used in WID.world," Working Papers halshs-02794308, HAL.
    14. Bertrand Garbinti & Jonathan Goupille-Lebret & Thomas Piketty, 2017. "Income Inequality in France, 1900-2014: Evidence from Distributional National Accounts," Working Papers 201704, World Inequality Lab.
    15. Bartels, Charlotte, 2019. "Top Incomes in Germany, 1871–2014," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 79(3), pages 669-707, September.
    16. Eckhard Hein, 2015. "Finance-dominated capitalism and re-distribution of income: a Kaleckian perspective," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 39(3), pages 907-934.
    17. Thomas Piketty, 2015. "A Historical Approach to Property, Inequality and Debt: Reflections on Capital in the 21st Century," CESifo Forum, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 16(01), pages 40-49, May.
    18. Philippe De Donder & John E. Roemer, 2017. "The dynamics of capital accumulation in the US: simulations after piketty," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 15(2), pages 121-141, June.
    19. Schäfer, Andreas & Prettner, Klaus, 2016. "The fall and rise of inequality," VfS Annual Conference 2016 (Augsburg): Demographic Change 145806, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    20. Benhabib, Jess & Bisin, Alberto & Zhu, Shenghao, 2015. "The wealth distribution in Bewley economies with capital income risk," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 159(PA), pages 489-515.
    21. Kroh Tanja, 2016. "Wie wirken Steuern auf die Einkommens- und Vermögensverteilung?," Zeitschrift für Wirtschaftspolitik, De Gruyter, vol. 65(1), pages 022-046, May.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H24 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Personal Income and Other Nonbusiness Taxes and Subsidies
    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement

    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:zbw:vfsc13:80039. 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/vfsocea.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.