IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/oxecpp/v42y1990i1p256-67.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Second Best Theory of Differential Capital Taxation

Author

Listed:
  • Feldstein, Martin

Abstract

An important proposition in the theory of efficient taxation is that, if capital income is taxed, all types of capital income should be taxed at the same rate. This conclusion has motivated extensive empirical analysis of the tax rates on different types of capital income. It has also been the basis for a variety of proposals to revise actual tax rules.The present paper emphasizes that the comventional view must be modified in the very common situation in which some capital tax rate is politically constrained to something other than its optimal value, e.g., the zero rates on the imputed income on owner-occupied housing. The formal analysis of the paper examines the case in which there are three types of capital income and one of the tax rates is arbitrarily constrained to be zero.Three general "rule of thumb" results emerge from the specific analysis: First, if the several types of capital can be regarded as independent in production, the optimal tax rates on the taxable types of capital income should depart from equality in the direction of an inverse elasticity rule. Second, in comparison to these rates, capital that is a complement to the untaxed capital should generally be taxed more heavily while capital that is a substitute for the untaxed capital should be taxed less heavily. Third, variations in the degree of complementarity or substitutability between the two types of capital should alter the two tax rates in a way that maintains a constant difference in the total taxes on each type of capital. Although these rule-of-thumb results help to modify the conventional equal-tax-rates rule in an appropriate way, the most important implication of the present analysis is that any departure from optimal taxation makes it very difficult to set other capital tax rates optimally.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Feldstein, Martin, 1990. "The Second Best Theory of Differential Capital Taxation," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 42(1), pages 256-267, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:oxecpp:v:42:y:1990:i:1:p:256-67
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0030-7653%28199001%292%3A42%3A1%3C256%3ATSBTOD%3E2.0.CO%3B2-V&origin=bc
    File Function: full text
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to JSTOR subscribers. See http://www.jstor.org for details.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alan J. Auerbach, 1979. "The Optimal Taxation of Heterogeneous Capital," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 93(4), pages 589-612.
    2. Shoven, John B. & Whalley, John, 1972. "A general equilibrium calculation of the effects of differential taxation of income from capital in the U.S," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 1(3-4), pages 281-321, November.
    3. Diamond, Peter A & Mirrlees, James A, 1971. "Optimal Taxation and Public Production: I--Production Efficiency," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 61(1), pages 8-27, March.
    4. Alan J. Auerbach, 1983. "Corporate Taxation in the United States," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 14(2), pages 451-514.
    5. Diamond, Peter A & Mirrlees, James A, 1971. "Optimal Taxation and Public Production II: Tax Rules," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 61(3), pages 261-278, June.
    6. Arnold Harberger, 1964. "Taxation, Resource Allocation, and Welfare," NBER Chapters, in: The Role of Direct and Indirect Taxes in the Federal Reserve System, pages 25-80, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Mervyn A. King & Don Fullerton, 1984. "The Taxation of Income from Capital: A Comparative Study of the United States, the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Germany," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number king84-1, March.
    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. Blackorby, Charles & Brett, Craig, 2004. "Capital Taxation In A Simple Finite-Horizon Olg Model," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 709, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    2. Ctirad Slavík & Hakki Yazici, 2019. "On the consequences of eliminating capital tax differentials," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 52(1), pages 225-252, February.
    3. Conesa, Juan C. & Domínguez, Begoña, 2013. "Intangible investment and Ramsey capital taxation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(8), pages 983-995.
    4. Amacher, Gregory S. & Brazee, Richard J., 1997. "Designing Forest Taxes with Varying Government Preferences and Budget Targets," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 323-340, March.
    5. Don Fullerton & Andrew B. Lyon, 1988. "Tax Neutrality and Intangible Capital," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy: Volume 2, pages 63-88, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Sergey Sinelnikov-Murylev & Elena Shkrebela, 2011. "Improvement of corporate profit tax in the Russian Federation in the medium term," Research Paper Series, Gaidar Institute for Economic Policy, issue 149P.
    7. Slavík, Ctirad & Yazici, Hakki, 2014. "Machines, buildings, and optimal dynamic taxes," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 47-61.

    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. Homburg, Stefan, 2010. "Allgemeine Steuerlehre: Kapitel 1. Grundbegriffe der Steuerlehre," EconStor Books, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, number 92547, July.
    2. Ctirad Slavík & Hakki Yazici, 2019. "On the consequences of eliminating capital tax differentials," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 52(1), pages 225-252, February.
    3. Alan J. Auerbach, 2006. "The Future of Capital Income Taxation," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 27(4), pages 399-420, December.
    4. Juan Pablo Gama & Rodrigo J. Raad, 2023. "Larde public expenditure shocks in a Ramsey taxation model with default," Textos para Discussão Cedeplar-UFMG 665, Cedeplar, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais.
    5. Sanz Labrador, Ismael & Sanz-Sanz, José Félix, 2013. "Política fiscal y crecimiento económico: consideraciones microeconómicas y relaciones macroeconómicas," Macroeconomía del Desarrollo 5367, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL).
    6. Thomann Christian, 2014. "Recent developments in Corporate Taxation in Sweden," Nordic Tax Journal, Sciendo, vol. 2014(2), pages 195-214, November.
    7. Rachel Griffith, 1996. "A note on the taxation of capital income in the Czech Republic and Poland," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 17(3), pages 91-103, August.
    8. Claudio Agostini, 2004. "Tax Interdependence in American States," Econometric Society 2004 Latin American Meetings 155, Econometric Society.
    9. Goulder, Lawrence H. & Thalmann, Philippe, 1993. "Approaches to efficient capital taxation : Leveling the playing field vs. living by the golden rule," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 169-196, February.
    10. Yoshitomo Ogawa & Nobuhiro Hosoe, 2020. "Optimal indirect tax design in an open economy," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 27(5), pages 1081-1107, October.
    11. Auerbach, Alan J., 1989. "The deadweight loss from `non-neutral' capital income taxation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 1-36, October.
    12. Slavík, Ctirad & Yazici, Hakki, 2014. "Machines, buildings, and optimal dynamic taxes," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 47-61.
    13. Etro, Federico, 2016. "Research in economics and public finance," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(1), pages 1-6.
    14. Lans Bovenberg, A. & Jacobs, Bas, 2005. "Redistribution and education subsidies are Siamese twins," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(11-12), pages 2005-2035, December.
    15. Kenneth L. Judd, 2011. "The Importance of Asymmetric Tax Policy and Dangers of Aggregation," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 43(s1), pages 175-205, August.
    16. Börjesson, Maria & Asplund, Disa & Hamilton, Carl, 2021. "Optimal kilometre tax for electric passenger cars," Working Papers 2021:3, Swedish National Road & Transport Research Institute (VTI).
    17. Parry, Ian W.H., 2008. "How should heavy-duty trucks be taxed?," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 651-668, March.
    18. Tim Besley & Rohini Pande, 1998. "Read my lips: the political economy of information transmission," IFS Working Papers W98/13, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    19. Alberto Gago & Xavier Labandeira & Xiral López Otero, 2014. "A Panorama on Energy Taxes and Green Tax Reforms," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 208(1), pages 145-190, March.
    20. Jaume Sempere, 2022. "On potential Pareto gains from free trade areas formation," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 24(6), pages 1502-1518, December.

    More about this item

    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:oup:oxecpp:v:42:y:1990:i:1:p:256-67. 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: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/oep .

    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.