Much of the literature on the effects of estate taxation on charitable bequests has relied on cross sectional data, reflecting the uniqueness of death. Few have explored longitudinal data to exploit exogenous variations in tax regimes. The latter, however, continue to be susceptible to omitted variable as well as measurement error biases attributable to changes in the treatment of spousal bequests and frequent changes in tax regimes. This paper explores the effects of the estate tax on charitable bequests using administrative data from two tax regimes where earlier biases are minimized. The deductibility of charitable bequests is found to have significant implications for giving. However, the effects of estate tax repeal are much smaller. These findings are sensitive to expectations of the tax regime in effect at time of death.
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Paper provided by EconWPA in its series Public Economics with number
0505004.
Length: 32 pages Date of creation: 14 May 2005 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwppe:0505004
Note: Type of Document - pdf; pages: 32. pdf document, 32 pages, uses US estate (inheritance) tax data over two period. Contact details of provider: Web page: http://129.3.20.41
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Find related papers by JEL classification: D19 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Other H24 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Personal Income and Other Nonbusiness Taxes and Subsidies H31 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Household
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B. Douglas Bernheim, 1987.
"Does the Estate Tax Raise Revenue?,"
NBER Chapters,
in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 1, pages 113-138
National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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