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Is the Taxable Income Elasticity Sufficient to Calculate Deadweight Loss? The Implications of Evasion and Avoidance

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Raj Chetty

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Abstract

Since Feldstein (1999), the most widely used method of calculating the excess burden of income taxation is to estimate the effect of tax rates on reported taxable income. This paper reevaluates the taxable income elasticity as a measure of excess burden when individuals can evade or avoid taxes. In many cases, part of the cost of evasion and avoidance reflects a transfer to another agent in the economy. I show that in such situations, excess burden depends on a weighted average of the taxable income and total earned income elasticities, with the weight determined by the marginal resource cost of sheltering income from taxation. This generalized formula implies that the efficiency cost of taxing high income individuals is not necessarily large despite evidence that their reported incomes are highly sensitive to tax rates.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 13844.

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Date of creation: Mar 2008
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13844

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
H21 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Efficiency; Optimal Taxation
J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply
J33 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Compensation Packages; Payment Methods

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  1. Adam Looney & Monica Singhal, 2006. "The Effect of Anticipated Tax Changes on Intertemporal Labor Supply and the Realization of Taxable Income," NBER Working Papers 12417, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. Roger H. Gordon & Joel Slemrod, 1998. "Are "Real" Responses to Taxes Simply Income Shifting Between Corporate and Personal Tax Bases?," NBER Working Papers 6576, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Martin Feldstein, 1999. "Tax Avoidance And The Deadweight Loss Of The Income Tax," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 81(4), pages 674-680, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  4. Jon Gruber & Emmanuel Saez, 2000. "The Elasticity of Taxable Income: Evidence and Implications," NBER Working Papers 7512, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. Austan Goolsbee, 2000. "What Happens When You Tax the Rich? Evidence from Executive Compensation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(2), pages 352-378, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  6. Martin Feldstein, 2006. "The Effect of Taxes on Efficiency and Growth," NBER Working Papers 12201, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Joel Slemrod, 2001. "A General Model of the Behavioral Response to Taxation," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer, vol. 8(2), pages 119-128, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  8. Pissarides, Christopher A. & Weber, Guglielmo, 1989. "An expenditure-based estimate of Britain's black economy," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 17-32, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Allingham, Michael G. & Sandmo, Agnar, 1972. "Income tax evasion: a theoretical analysis," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 1(3-4), pages 323-338, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. Clotfelter, Charles T, 1983. "Tax Evasion and Tax Rates: An Analysis of Individual Returns," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 65(3), pages 363-73, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  11. Austan Goolsbee, 1999. "Evidence on the High-Income Laffer Curve from Six Decades of Tax Reform," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 30(1999-2), pages 1-64. [Downloadable!]
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  1. Blomquist, Sören & Selin, Håkan, 2008. "Hourly Wage Rate and Taxable Labor Income Responsiveness to Changes in Marginal Tax Rates," Working Paper Series 2008:16, Uppsala University, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
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  2. Sören Blomquist & Vidar Christiansen & Luca Micheletto, 2008. "Public Provision of Private Goods and Nondistortionary Marginal Tax Rates," CESifo Working Paper Series CESifo Working Paper No. , CESifo Group Munich. [Downloadable!]
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