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Tax buyouts

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Abstract

The paper studies a fiscal policy instrument that can reduce fiscal distortions, without affecting revenues, in a politically viable way. The instrument is a private contract (tax buyout), offered by the government to each individual citizen, whereby the citizen can choose to pay a fixed price up front in exchange for a given reduction in her tax rate for a prespecified period of time. We consider a dynamic overlapping-generations economy, calibrated to match several features of the U.S. income and wealth distribution, and show that, under simple pricing, the introduction of the buyout is revenue neutral and at the same time can benefit a significant fraction of the population and lead to sizable increases in labor supply, income, consumption, and welfare.

Suggested Citation

  • Marco Del Negro & Fabrizio Perri & Fabiano Schivardi, 2010. "Tax buyouts," Staff Reports 467, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fednsr:467
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    Other versions of this item:

    • Marco Del Negro & Fabrizio Perri & Fabiano Schivardi, 2010. "Tax buyouts," NBER Working Papers 15847, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Marco Del Negro & Fabrizio Perri & Fabiano Schivardi, 2010. "Tax buyouts," Staff Report 441, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    • Marco Del Negro & Fabrizio Perri & Fabiano Schivardi, 2010. "Tax Buyouts," EIEF Working Papers Series 1007, Einaudi Institute for Economics and Finance (EIEF), revised Mar 2010.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
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    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. How to remove tax distortions with revenue neutrality
      by Economic Logician in Economic Logic on 2010-05-11 19:22:00
    2. Ett innovativt skatteförslag
      by Niclas Berggren in Nonicoclolasos on 2010-05-18 14:27:32

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    Cited by:

    1. Laszlo Goerke, 2015. "Income tax buyouts and income tax evasion," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 22(1), pages 120-143, February.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Fiscal policy; Contracts; Taxation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • 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
    • H31 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Household

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