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On the Undesirability of Commodity Taxation Even When Income Taxation is Not Optimal

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Louis Kaplow

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Abstract

An important result due to Atkinson and Stiglitz (1976) is that differential commodity taxation is not optimal in the presence of an optimal nonlinear income tax (given weak separability of utility between labor and all consumption goods). This article demonstrates that their conclusion holds regardless of whether the income tax is optimal. In particular, given any commodity tax and income tax system, differential commodity taxation can be eliminated in a manner that results in a Pareto improvement. Also, differential commodity taxation can be proportionally reduced so as to generate a Pareto improvement. In addition, for commodity tax reforms that do not eliminate or proportionally reduce differential taxation, a simple efficiency condition is offered for determining whether a Pareto improvement is possible.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 10407.

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Date of creation: Apr 2004
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:10407

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
H21 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Efficiency; Optimal Taxation
H24 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Personal Income and Other Nonbusiness Taxes and Subsidies

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  1. Saez, Emmanuel, 2004. "Direct or indirect tax instruments for redistribution: short-run versus long-run," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(3-4), pages 503-518, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. Atkinson, A. B. & Stiglitz, J. E., 1976. "The design of tax structure: Direct versus indirect taxation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 6(1-2), pages 55-75. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. C. C. Yang & Hans Haller, 1993. "On Directions of Commodity Tax Reform in the Presence of a Given Non-linear Income Tax Schedule," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 26(2), pages 469-80, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Cremer, Helmuth & Pestieau, Pierre & Rochet, Jean-Charles, 2001. "Direct versus Indirect Taxation: The Design of the Tax Structure Revisted," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 42(3), pages 781-99, August.
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  5. J. A. Mirrlees, 1976. "Optimal Tax Theory: A Synthesis," Working papers 176, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Department of Economics.
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  6. Deaton, Angus, 1979. "Optimally uniform commodity taxes," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 2(4), pages 357-361. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Saez, Emmanuel, 2002. "The desirability of commodity taxation under non-linear income taxation and heterogeneous tastes," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(2), pages 217-230, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  8. Christiansen, Vidar, 1984. "Which commodity taxes should supplement the income tax?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 195-220, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Stiglitz, Joseph E., 1987. "Pareto efficient and optimal taxation and the new new welfare economics," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 15, pages 991-1042 Elsevier. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  10. Hylland, Aanund & Zeckhauser, Richard, 1979. " Distributional Objectives Should Affect Taxes but not Program Choice or Design," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 81(2), pages 264-84.
  11. Louis Kaplow, 2004. "On the (Ir)Relevance of Distribution and Labor Supply Distortion to Government Policy," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 18(4), pages 159-175, Fall. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  12. MARCHAND, Maurice & PESTIEAU, Pierre & DEL MAR RACIONERO, Maria, 2003. "Optimal redistribution when different workers are indistinguishable," CORE Discussion Papers 2003018, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE). [Downloadable!]
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  13. Konishi, Hideo, 1995. "A Pareto-improving commodity tax reform under a smooth nonlinear income tax," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(3), pages 413-446, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Louis Kaplow, 2008. "Taxing Leisure Complements," NBER Working Papers 14397, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Louis Kaplow, 2006. "Capital Levies and Transition to a Consumption Tax," NBER Working Papers 12259, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Peter Diamond, 2009. "Taxes and Pensions," CESifo Working Paper Series CESifo Working Paper No. , CESifo Group Munich. [Downloadable!]
  4. John W. Diamond & George R. Zodrow, 2007. "Economic Effects of A Personal Capital Income Tax Add-on to a Consumption Tax," International Studies Program Working Paper Series, at AYSPS, GSU paper0715, International Studies Program, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  5. Blumkin, Tomer & Ruffle , Bradley J. & Ganun , Yosef, 2007. "Are Income and Consumption Taxes Ever Really Equivalent? Evidence from a Real-Effort Experiment with Real Goods," MPRA Paper 6479, University Library of Munich, Germany. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  6. Louis Kaplow, 2008. "Optimal Policy with Heterogeneous Preferences," NBER Working Papers 14170, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Stéphane Gauthier & Guy Laroque, 2008. "Separability and public finance," IFS Working Papers W08/07, Institute for Fiscal Studies. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  8. Louis Kaplow, 2006. "Optimal Control of Externalities in the Presence of Income Taxation," NBER Working Papers 12339, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Gilbert Metcalf & David Weisbach, 2008. "The Design of a Carbon Tax," Discussion Papers Series, Department of Economics, Tufts University 0727, Department of Economics, Tufts University. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  10. Louis Kaplow, 2004. "On the (Ir)Relevence of Distribution and Labor Supply Distortion of Government Policy," NBER Working Papers 10490, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  11. Canegrati, Emanuele, 2007. "A Contribution to the Positive Theory of Indirect Taxation," MPRA Paper 6116, University Library of Munich, Germany. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  12. Martin Hellwig, 2008. "A Note on Deaton's Theorem on the Undesirability of Nonuniform Excise Taxation," Working Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2008_45, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods. [Downloadable!]
  13. Martin Hellwig, 2008. "A Generalization of the Atkinson-Stiglitz (1976) Theorem on the Undesirability of Nonuniform Excise Taxation," Working Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2008_47, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods. [Downloadable!]
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