This paper has two objectives. The first is to study the revenue from the gift, inheritance, and estate taxes in Sweden during more than a century. The second is to focus on a unique episode during the second half of the 1940s when gifts and gift tax revenue exploded. This episode has never before been discussed in the research literature. It gives an extremely clear illustration of behavioral response to taxes in general, and the impact of expectations of future tax increases in particular. It is also a very interesting episode in the economic history of Sweden. I have access to aggregate tax revenue data since 1884. Moreover, I have constructed a rich micro data set of all gifts reported during the period 1942–1949 in one county. A first main result is that gift tax revenue during the 1940s started to increase long before a new estate tax and increased wealth taxation were decided and implemented. The increase even began before the legislative process started. Second, both the number and the average values of gifts increased. Promissory notes were, in value, the most common way to give. Finally, gifts, inheritances, and estates were never important sources of tax revenue. Revenue as a share of GDP reached a peak already in the 1930s. The role of these taxes has instead primarily been equity and to provide integrity for other tax bases.
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Paper provided by Uppsala University, Department of Economics in its series Working Paper Series with number
2007:23.
Length: 25 pages Date of creation: 10 Sep 2007 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:hhs:uunewp:2007_023
Contact details of provider: Postal: Department of Economics, Uppsala University, P. O. Box 513, SE-751 20 Uppsala, Sweden Phone: + 46 18 471 25 00 Fax: + 46 18 471 14 78 Email: Web page: http://www.nek.uu.se/ More information through EDIRC
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Find related papers by JEL classification: D10 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - General D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution H24 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Personal Income and Other Nonbusiness Taxes and Subsidies N33 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Income, and Wealth - - - Europe: Pre-1913 N34 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Income, and Wealth - - - Europe: 1913-
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