One recurring issue in the debate over the estate tax is its impact on the non-profit sector. With the top marginal rate of federal estate tax currently at 49 percent, abolishing the tax would approximately double the price of a charitable bequest relative to an ordinary bequest for the wealthiest estates. It would also, however, raise the after-tax wealth of decedents, so the ultimate impact of any particular policy change depends in part on the relative sizes of the price and wealth elasticities. This paper estimates the impact of taxes on charitable bequests using an econometric framework that exploits the fact that federal and state tax rates on estates and inheritances have changed over time in different ways across states and real wealth levels. The effect of federal and state inheritance and estate taxes on charitable bequests is estimated using pooled cross-sectional data spanning several decades information from federal estate tax returns. Under several different specifications, we find evidence that the incentives for charitable giving present in state and federal estate and inheritance taxes have a strong positive effect on charitable bequests. Our estimates that rely on differences in the time path of state and federal tax rates across groups provide a more credible source of identification than the previous literature of a large and significant price elasticity of charitable bequests.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
file. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number
9661.
Length: Date of creation: May 2003 Date of revision: Publication status: published as Bakija, Jon M., William G. Gale and Joel B. Slemrod. "Charitable Bequests And Taxes On Inheritances And Estates: Aggregate Evidence From Across States And Time," American Economic Review, 2003, v93(2,May), 366-370. Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:9661
Note: PE Contact details of provider: Postal: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A. Phone: 617-868-3900 Email: Web page: http://www.nber.org More information through EDIRC
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: ().
References listed on IDEAS 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.: