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Distributional Effects of Adopting a National Retail Sales Tax

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  • Daniel R. Feenberg
  • Andrew W. Mitrusi
  • James M. Poterba

Abstract

This paper describes a new household-level data file based on merged information from the IRS Individual Tax File, the Current Population Survey, the National Medical Expenditure Survey, and the Consumer Expenditure Survey. This new file includes descriptive data on household income as well as consumption. The data file can be linked to the NBER TAXSIM program and used to evaluate the distributional effects of changing the federal income tax code, as well as the distributional effects of replacing the individual income tax with a consumption tax. We use this data file to analyze the long-run distributional effects of adopting a national retail sales tax that raises enough revenue to replace the current federal individual income tax and corporation income tax, as well as federal estate and gift taxes. Our results highlight the sensitivity of the change in distributional burdens to provisions such as lump sum transfers, sometimes called 'demogrants,' the retail sales tax plan, and to the choice between income and consumption as a basis for categorizing households in distribution tables.

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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 5885.

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Date of creation: Jan 1997
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Publication status: published as Daniel R. Feenberg, Andrew W. Mitrusi, James M. Poterba. "Distributional Effects of Adopting a National Retail Sales Tax," in James M. Poterba, editor, "Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 11" MIT Press (1997)
Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:5885

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  1. William M. Gentry & R. Glenn Hubbard, 1997. "Distributional Implications of Introducing a Broad-Based Consumption Tax," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 11, pages 1-48 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  2. Poterba, James M, 1989. "Lifetime Incidence and the Distributional Burden of Excise Taxes," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(2), pages 325-30, May.
  3. Kotlikoff, L.J., 1992. "The Economic Impact of Replacing Federal Income Taxes with a Sale Tax," Papers 14, Boston University - Department of Economics.
  4. Gilbert E. Metcalf, 2006. "Value-Added Tax," Discussion Papers Series, Department of Economics, Tufts University 0608, Department of Economics, Tufts University.
  5. James M. Poterba & Julio J. Rotemberg & Lawrence H. Summers, 1985. "A Tax-Based Test for Nominal Rigidities," Working papers 376, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Department of Economics.
  6. Gilbert E. Metcalf, 1994. "Life Cycle versus Annual Perspectives on the Incidence of a Value Added Tax," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 8, pages 45-64 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  7. David Bradford, . "Consumption Taxes: Some Fundamental Transition Issues," EPRU Working Paper Series 95-15, Economic Policy Research Unit (EPRU), University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
  8. Joel B. Slemrod, 1992. "Taxation and Inequality: A Time-Exposure Perspective," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 6, pages 105-128 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  9. Arnold C. Harberger, 1962. "The Incidence of the Corporation Income Tax," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 70, pages 215.
  10. Martin Feldstein, 1988. "Imputing Corporate Tax Liabilities to Individual Taxpayers," NBER Working Papers 2349, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  11. Robert E. Hall, 1996. "The Effects of Tax Reform on Prices and Asset Values," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 10, pages 71-88 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  12. Benjamin Okner, 1974. "Data Matching and Merging: An Overview," NBER Chapters, in: Annals of Economic and Social Measurement, Volume 3, number 2, pages 49-54 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  13. Davies, James B & St-Hilaire, France & Whalley, John, 1984. "Some Calculations of Lifetime Tax Incidence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 74(4), pages 633-49, September.
  14. Mankiw, N Gregory & Summers, Lawrence H, 1986. "Money Demand and the Effects of Fiscal Policies," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 18(4), pages 415-29, November.
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Citations

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Cited by:
  1. Berthold U. Wigger, 2004. "On the Intergenerational Incidence of Wage and Consumption Taxes," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 6(1), pages 1-23, 02.
  2. Michael Keen, 1997. "Peculiar institutions: A British perspective on tax policy in the United States," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 18(4), pages 371-400, November.
  3. James Poterba, 1997. "The Estate Tax and After-Tax Investment Returns," NBER Working Papers 6337, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  4. Fullerton, Don & Metcalf, Gilbert E., 2002. "Tax incidence," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 26, pages 1787-1872 Elsevier.
  5. George R. Zodrow, 2007. "Should Capital Income be Subject to Consumption-Based Taxation?," Working Papers 0715, Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation.
  6. Isabel Correia, 2010. "Consumption Taxes and Redistribution," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(4), pages 1673-94, September.
  7. David Albouy, 2008. "Are Big Cities Bad Places to Live? Estimating Quality of Life across Metropolitan Areas," NBER Working Papers 14472, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  8. Alan D. Viard, 2000. "The transition to consumption taxation, part 1: the impact on existing capital," Economic and Financial Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, issue Q3, pages 2-22.
  9. Besley, Timothy J. & Rosen, Harvey S., 1998. "Vertical externalities in tax setting: evidence from gasoline and cigarettes," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(3), pages 383-398, December.
  10. Gilbert E. Metcalf, 1998. "A Distributional Analysis of an Environmental Tax Shift," NBER Working Papers 6546, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  11. William G. Gale & Joel B. Slemrod, 2001. "Rethinking the Estate and Gift Tax: Overview," NBER Working Papers 8205, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  12. William M. Gentry & R. Glenn Hubbard, 1997. "Distributional Implications of Introducing a Broad-Based Consumption Tax," NBER Working Papers 5832, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  13. Dale W. Jorgenson & Kun-Young Yun, 2002. "Lifting the burden: fundamental tax reform and U.S. economic growth," Working Paper Research 21, National Bank of Belgium.
  14. Andrew Mitrusi & James Poterba, 2000. "The Distribution of Payroll and Income Tax Burdens, 1979-1999," NBER Working Papers 7707, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

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