IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/dyncon/v129y2021ics0165188921001226.html

Higher taxes at the top? The role of tax avoidance

Author

Listed:
  • Uribe-Terán, Carlos

Abstract

How does the presence of endogenous tax compliance alter optimal taxation in the United States? Using a full-scale macroeconomic model augmented with endogenous tax avoidance, I show that extremely high marginal tax rates for top earners cannot be sustained in equilibrium. Revenue- and welfare-maximising tax rates range between 36.4% and 38.4% in the long run, which are very close to the status quo. These results are robust to the calibration of the labour supply’s Frisch elasticity, and the labour response explains, at most, 60% of the variation of taxable income in the short run. Moreover, tax hikes on top earners are not effective redistribution mechanisms in the presence of tax avoidance.

Suggested Citation

  • Uribe-Terán, Carlos, 2021. "Higher taxes at the top? The role of tax avoidance," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:dyncon:v:129:y:2021:i:c:s0165188921001226
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jedc.2021.104187
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165188921001226
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jedc.2021.104187?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Peter Diamond & Emmanuel Saez, 2011. "The Case for a Progressive Tax: From Basic Research to Policy Recommendations," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 25(4), pages 165-190, Fall.
    2. 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.
    3. Heathcote, Jonathan & Storesletten, Kjetil & Violante, Giovanni L., 2020. "Optimal progressivity with age-dependent taxation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 189(C).
    4. repec:hal:pseose:halshs-00944873 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Mariacristina De Nardi & Giulio Fella, 2017. "Saving and Wealth Inequality," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 26, pages 280-300, October.
    6. Hansen, G D, 1993. "The Cyclical and Secular Behaviour of the Labour Input: Comparing Efficiency Units and Hours Worked," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 8(1), pages 71-80, Jan.-Marc.
    7. Thomas Piketty & Emmanuel Saez & Stefanie Stantcheva, 2014. "Optimal Taxation of Top Labor Incomes: A Tale of Three Elasticities," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 6(1), pages 230-271, February.
    8. Blundell, Richard & Macurdy, Thomas, 1999. "Labor supply: A review of alternative approaches," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 27, pages 1559-1695, Elsevier.
    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.
    10. Anmol Bhandari & Serdar Birinci & Ellen R. McGrattan & Kurt See, 2020. "What Do Survey Data Tell Us about US Businesses?," American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Association, vol. 2(4), pages 443-458, December.
    11. Karel Mertens & José Luis Montiel Olea, 2018. "Marginal Tax Rates and Income: New Time Series Evidence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 133(4), pages 1803-1884.
    12. Barillas, Francisco & Fernandez-Villaverde, Jesus, 2007. "A generalization of the endogenous grid method," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 31(8), pages 2698-2712, August.
    13. Carroll, Christopher D., 2006. "The method of endogenous gridpoints for solving dynamic stochastic optimization problems," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 91(3), pages 312-320, June.
    14. Giertz, Seth H., 2007. "The Elasticity of Taxable Income Over the 1980s and 1990s," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 60(4), pages 743-768, December.
    15. Hintermaier, Thomas & Koeniger, Winfried, 2010. "The method of endogenous gridpoints with occasionally binding constraints among endogenous variables," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 34(10), pages 2074-2088, October.
    16. Anmol Bhandari & Serdar Birinci & Ellen R. McGrattan, 2019. "Data Appendix: What Do Survey Data Tell Us about U.S. Businesses?," Staff Report 578, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    17. Alessandro Di Nola & Georgi Kocharkov & Almuth Scholl & Anna-Mariia Tkhir, 2021. "The Aggregate Consequences of Tax Evasion," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 40, pages 198-227, April.
    18. Emmanuel Saez, 2001. "Using Elasticities to Derive Optimal Income Tax Rates," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 68(1), pages 205-229.
    19. Feldstein, Martin, 1995. "The Effect of Marginal Tax Rates on Taxable Income: A Panel Study of the 1986 Tax Reform Act," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(3), pages 551-572, June.
    20. Guner, Nezih & Lopez-Daneri, Martin & Ventura, Gustavo, 2016. "Heterogeneity and Government revenues: Higher taxes at the top?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 69-85.
    21. Roland Benabou, 2002. "Tax and Education Policy in a Heterogeneous-Agent Economy: What Levels of Redistribution Maximize Growth and Efficiency?," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(2), pages 481-517, March.
    22. Joel Slemrod, 2001. "A General Model of the Behavioral Response to Taxation," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 8(2), pages 119-128, March.
    23. Slemrod, Joel & Yitzhaki, Shlomo, 2002. "Tax avoidance, evasion, and administration," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 22, pages 1423-1470, Elsevier.
    24. James Alm, 1988. "Compliance Costs and the Tax Avoidance-Tax Evasion Decision," Public Finance Review, , vol. 16(1), pages 31-66, January.
    25. Gruber, Jon & Saez, Emmanuel, 2002. "The elasticity of taxable income: evidence and implications," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(1), pages 1-32, April.
    26. De Nardi, Mariacristina & Yang, Fang, 2014. "Bequests and heterogeneity in retirement wealth," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 182-196.
    27. Emmanuel Saez & Joel Slemrod & Seth H. Giertz, 2012. "The Elasticity of Taxable Income with Respect to Marginal Tax Rates: A Critical Review," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 50(1), pages 3-50, March.
    28. Yitzhaki, Shlomo, 1974. "Income tax evasion: A theoretical analysis," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(2), pages 201-202, May.
    29. Juan Carlos Conesa & Sagiri Kitao & Dirk Krueger, 2009. "Taxing Capital? Not a Bad Idea after All!," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(1), pages 25-48, March.
    30. Alejandro Badel & Mark Huggett & Wenlan Luo, 2020. "Taxing Top Earners: a Human Capital Perspective," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 130(629), pages 1200-1225.
    31. Badel, Alejandro & Huggett, Mark, 2017. "The sufficient statistic approach: Predicting the top of the Laffer curve," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 1-12.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Alessandro Di Nola & Georgi Kocharkov & Almuth Scholl & Anna‐Mariia Tkhir & Haomin Wang, 2025. "Taxation Of Top Incomes And Tax Avoidance," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 66(3), pages 983-1018, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Carina Neisser, 2021. "The Elasticity of Taxable Income: A Meta-Regression Analysis [The top 1% in international and historical perspective]," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 131(640), pages 3365-3391.
    2. Alessandro Di Nola & Georgi Kocharkov & Almuth Scholl & Anna‐Mariia Tkhir & Haomin Wang, 2025. "Taxation Of Top Incomes And Tax Avoidance," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 66(3), pages 983-1018, August.
    3. Louis Kaplow, 2024. "Optimal Income Taxation," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 62(2), pages 637-738, June.
    4. repec:ecr:col037:5367 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Kristoffer Berg & Thor O. Thoresen, 2020. "Problematic response margins in the estimation of the elasticity of taxable income," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 27(3), pages 721-752, June.
    6. Michaël Sicsic, 2023. "L’élasticité de l’offre de travail et des revenus dans la littérature. Une analyse comparative des méthodes et des résultats sur données microéconomiques," Revue de l'OFCE, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 0(4), pages 5-40.
    7. Emmanuel Saez & Joel Slemrod & Seth H. Giertz, 2012. "The Elasticity of Taxable Income with Respect to Marginal Tax Rates: A Critical Review," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 50(1), pages 3-50, March.
    8. Louis Kaplow, 2022. "Optimal Income Taxation," NBER Working Papers 30199, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Duccio Gamannossi degl’Innocenti & Matthew D. Rablen, 2017. "Tax avoidance and optimal income tax enforcement," IFS Working Papers W17/08, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    10. Macnamara, Patrick & Pidkuyko, Myroslav & Rossi, Raffaele, 2024. "Marginal tax rates and income in the long run: Evidence from a structural estimation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(C).
    11. Joshua Rauh & Ryan Shyu, 2024. "Behavioral Responses to State Income Taxation of High Earners: Evidence from California," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 16(1), pages 34-86, February.
    12. Fabian Kindermann & Dirk Krueger, 2022. "High Marginal Tax Rates on the Top 1 Percent? Lessons from a Life-Cycle Model with Idiosyncratic Income Risk," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(2), pages 319-366, April.
    13. repec:cgr:cgsser:03-02 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Seth H. Giertz, 2004. "Recent Literature on Taxable-Income Elasticities: Technical Paper 2004-16," Working Papers 16189, Congressional Budget Office.
    15. Philipp Doerrenberg & Denvil Duncan & Clemens Fuest & Andreas Peichl, 2012. "Nice Guys Finish Last: Are People with Higher Tax Morale Taxed more Heavily?," CESifo Working Paper Series 3858, CESifo.
    16. Nicholas Lawson, 2014. "Taxing the Job Creators: Effcient Progressive Taxation with Wage Bargaining," Working Papers halshs-01059604, HAL.
    17. Jeffrey Thompson, 2012. "Raising Revenue from High-Income Households: Should States Continue to Place the Lowest Tax Rates on Those with the Highest Incomes?," Published Studies revenue_peri_march5, Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
    18. Thomas Piketty & Emmanuel Saez, 2012. "Optimal Labor Income Taxation," NBER Working Papers 18521, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Hans Schytte Sigaard, 2022. "Labor Supply Responsiveness to Tax Reforms," Economics Working Papers 2022-04, Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University.
    20. Kleven, Henrik & Best, Michael & Spinnewijn, Johannes & Waseem, Mazhar & Brockmeyer, Anne, 2013. "Production vs Revenue Efficiency With Limited Tax Capacity: Theory and Evidence From Pakistan," CEPR Discussion Papers 9717, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    21. Soren Blomquist & Anil Kumar & Che-Yuan Liang & Whitney K. Newey, 2014. "Individual heterogeneity, nonlinear budget sets, and taxable income," CeMMAP working papers 21/14, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    22. Florian Scheuer & Joel Slemrod, 2020. "Taxation and the Superrich," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 12(1), pages 189-211, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory
    • 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

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:dyncon:v:129:y:2021:i:c:s0165188921001226. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jedc .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.