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Incidence of Capital Income Taxation in a Lifecycle Economy with Firm Heterogeneity

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  • Chung Tran
  • Sebastian Wende

Abstract

We study the incidence of capital income taxation in a dynamic general equilibrium model with heterogeneous firms and lifecycle households. In this incomplete market setting, marginal excess burdens of three capital taxes, namely corporate income, dividend and capital gains taxes, are vastly different due to heterogeneous responses of firms and households, and heterogeneous effects of general equilibrium adjustments. It is indeed important to account for firm heterogeneity in productivity and investment financing as well as household heterogeneity in age and skill. Overall, taxing capital with a corporate income tax at the firm level results in higher excess burden than taxing capital with dividend and capital gains taxes at the household level. Given the existing U.S. tax treatment for capital income, reforms that shift tax burden from the firm to household side potentially result in efficiency gains and overall welfare improving. However, the welfare benefits of the tax reforms are quite different across households and generations over transition time, depending on skill, age-cohort and budget balancing tax instruments. In particular, majority of currently alive households, especially retirees, experience welfare gains under moderate corporate income tax cuts, but suffer from welfare losses under more radical tax cuts.

Suggested Citation

  • Chung Tran & Sebastian Wende, 2020. "Incidence of Capital Income Taxation in a Lifecycle Economy with Firm Heterogeneity," ANU Working Papers in Economics and Econometrics 2019-670, Australian National University, College of Business and Economics, School of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:acb:cbeeco:2019-670
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Danilo Stojanovic, 2022. "The 2003 Tax Reform and Corporate Payout Policy in the US," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp727, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Excess burden; Tax incidence; Distributional effects; Overlapping generations; Dynamic general equilibrium;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D21 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Theory
    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory
    • H21 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Efficiency; Optimal Taxation
    • H22 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Incidence
    • H25 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Business Taxes and Subsidies

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