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Capital Taxation under Political Constraints

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  • Scheuer, Florian
  • Wolitzky, Alexander

Abstract

This paper studies optimal dynamic tax policy under the threat of political reform. A policy will be reformed ex post if a large enough political coalition supports reform; thus, sustainable policies are those that will continue to attract enough political support in the future. We find that optimal marginal capital taxes are either progressive or U-shaped, so that savings are subsidized for the poor and/or the middle class but are taxed for the rich. U-shaped capital taxes always emerge when the salient reform threat consists of radically redistributing capital and individuals' political behavior is purely determined by economic motives.

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  • Scheuer, Florian & Wolitzky, Alexander, 2015. "Capital Taxation under Political Constraints," CEPR Discussion Papers 10418, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:10418
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    Cited by:

    1. Jang-Ting Guo & Alan Krause, 2018. "Changing social preferences and optimal redistributive taxation," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 70(1), pages 73-92.
    2. Florian Scheuer & Joel Slemrod, 2020. "Taxation and the Superrich," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 12(1), pages 189-211, August.
    3. Michael J. Boskin & Diego J. Perez & Daniel S. Bennett, 2019. "The Political Economy of Social Security Reform," NBER Working Papers 25985, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Craig Brett & John A. Weymark, 2019. "Optimal nonlinear taxation of income and savings without commitment," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 21(1), pages 5-43, February.
    5. Jérémy BOCCANFUSO & Antoine FEREY, 2019. "Inattention and the Taxation Bias," Working Papers 2019-16, Center for Research in Economics and Statistics.
    6. Florian Scheuer & Alexander Wolitzky, 2016. "Capital Taxation under Political Constraints," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(8), pages 2304-2328, August.
    7. Golosov, M. & Tsyvinski, A. & Werquin, N., 2016. "Recursive Contracts and Endogenously Incomplete Markets," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 725-841, Elsevier.
    8. Felix J. Bierbrauer & Pierre C. Boyer & Andreas Peichl, 2021. "Politically Feasible Reforms of Nonlinear Tax Systems," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 111(1), pages 153-191, January.
    9. Ilzetzki, Ethan, 2018. "Tax reform and the political economy of the tax base," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 197-210.
    10. Spencer Bastani & Daniel Waldenström, 2021. "Perceptions of Inherited Wealth and the Support for Inheritance Taxation," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 88(350), pages 532-569, April.
    11. Darong Dai, 2020. "Voting over selfishly optimal tax schedules: Can Pigouvian tax redistribute income?," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 22(5), pages 1660-1686, September.
    12. Fidel Perez-Sebastian & Ohad Raveh, 2016. "Federal Tax Policies, Congressional Voting, and the Fiscal Advantage of Natural Resources," OxCarre Working Papers 182, Oxford Centre for the Analysis of Resource Rich Economies, University of Oxford.
    13. Haucap, Justus, 2017. "The rule of law and the emergence of market exchange: A new institutional economic perspective," DICE Discussion Papers 276, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).
    14. Florian Scheuer & Joel Slemrod, 2021. "Taxing Our Wealth," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 35(1), pages 207-230, Winter.
    15. Marcus Berliant & Pierre C. Boyer, 2022. "Politics and Income Taxes: Progress and Progressivity," CESifo Working Paper Series 10041, CESifo.
    16. Felix Bierbrauer & Pierre Boyer & Andreas Peichl & Daniel Weishaar, 2023. "The Taxation of Couples," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 405, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    17. Spencer Bastani & Daniel Waldenström, 2020. "How Should Capital Be Taxed?," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(4), pages 812-846, September.
    18. Antoine Ferey & Benjamin Lockwood & Dmitry Taubinsky, 2021. "Sufficient Statistics for Nonlinear Tax Systems with General Across-Income Heterogeneity," NBER Working Papers 29582, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Chirvi, Malte & Schneider, Cornelius, 2019. "Stated preferences for capital taxation - tax design, misinformation and the role of partisanship," arqus Discussion Papers in Quantitative Tax Research 242, arqus - Arbeitskreis Quantitative Steuerlehre.
    20. Yuta Saito & Yosuke Takeda, 2022. "Capital taxation with parental incentives," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 24(6), pages 1310-1341, December.
    21. Gerardi, Dino, 2018. "Dynamic Contracting with Limited Commitment and the Ratchet Effect," CEPR Discussion Papers 12699, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Coalition formation; Inequality; Tax reforms; Wealth taxation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D3 - Microeconomics - - Distribution
    • D6 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics
    • D9 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics
    • E6 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook
    • H2 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue
    • P5 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Comparative Economic Systems

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