IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/mlb/wpaper/1085.html

The Elasticity of Taxable Income:

Author

Listed:
  • John Creedy

Abstract

This paper provides an introduction to the concept of the elasticity of taxable income with respect to the net-of-tax rate. This elasticity aims to capture all potential responses to income taxation in a single elasticity measure, without the need to specify the nature of the various adjustment processes involved or consider the details of tax regulations. These adjustments include, as well as labour supply changes, income shifting between sources which are taxed at different rates, and tax evasion through non-declaration of income. The use of such a ‘reduced form’ approach has proved to be very attractive. The elasticity of taxable income has the added attraction that, under certain assumptions, it is sufficient to obtain a measure of the excess burden of income taxation. Emphasis is placed on the assumptions behind the approach.

Suggested Citation

  • John Creedy, 2009. "The Elasticity of Taxable Income:," Department of Economics - Working Papers Series 1085, The University of Melbourne.
    • Handle: RePEc:mlb:wpaper:1085
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://fbe.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/801175/1085.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. John Creedy & Norman Gemmell, 2006. "Modelling Tax Revenue Growth," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 4073, June.
    3. John Creedy, 1998. "Measuring Welfare Changes and Tax Burdens," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 1579, June.
    4. Jorge Onrubia?Fernández & José Félix Sanz?Sanz, 2009. "Reported Taxable Income and Marginal Tax Rates: Evidence for Spain Based on the Fiscal Drag," Department of Economics - Working Papers Series 1075, The University of Melbourne.
    5. 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.
    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. Vincenzo Prete & Alessandro Sommacal & Claudio Zoli, 2016. "Optimal Non-Welfarist Income Taxation for Inequality and Polarization Reduction," Working Papers 23/2016, University of Verona, Department of Economics.
    2. Iris Claus & John Creedy & Josh Teng, 2012. "The Elasticity of Taxable Income in New Zealand," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 33(3), pages 287-303, September.
    3. Yu kun Wang & Li Zhang, 2021. "Underground economy and GDP growth: Evidence from China’s tax reforms," Journal of Tax Reform, Graduate School of Economics and Management, Ural Federal University, vol. 7(1), pages 87-107.
    4. John Creedy & Norman Gemmell, 2020. "The elasticity of taxable income of individuals in couples," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 27(4), pages 931-950, August.
    5. John Creedy & Norman Gemmell, 2010. "Behavioural responses to corporate profit taxation," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 193(2), pages 109-130, June.
    6. Johannes Hermanus Kemp, 2020. "The elasticity of taxable income: New data and estimates for South Africa," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2020-29, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).

    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. repec:ecr:col037:5367 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Iris Claus & John Creedy & Josh Teng, 2012. "The Elasticity of Taxable Income in New Zealand," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 33(3), pages 287-303, September.
    3. José Félix Sanz Sanz, 2025. "Measuring the effectiveness of statutory tax rates as generators of revenue and progressivity," Working Papers 2025-13, FEDEA.
    4. Miguel Almunia & David Lopez-Rodriguez, 2019. "The elasticity of taxable income in Spain: 1999–2014," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 10(3), pages 281-320, November.
    5. John Creedy & Norman Gemmell, 2020. "The elasticity of taxable income of individuals in couples," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 27(4), pages 931-950, August.
    6. John Creedy, 2015. "The elasticity of taxable income, welfare changes and optimal tax rates," New Zealand Economic Papers, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(3), pages 227-248, August.
    7. Iris Claus & John Creedy & Josh Teng, 2012. "The Elasticity of Taxable Income in New Zealand," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 33(3), pages 287-303, September.
    8. Sanz-Sanz, José Félix, 2016. "The Laffer curve in schedular multi-rate income taxes with non-genuine allowances: An application to Spain," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 42-56.
    9. Creedy, John & Gemmell, Norman, 2012. "Revenue-Maximising Elasticities of Taxable Income in Multi-Rate Income Tax Structures," Working Paper Series 18713, Victoria University of Wellington, Chair in Public Finance.
    10. Díaz-Caro, Carlos & Onrubia, Jorge, 2018. "How do taxable income responses to marginal tax rates differ by sex, marital status and age? Evidence from Spanish dual income tax," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy, vol. 12, pages 1-25.
    11. Sanz-Sanz, José Félix, 2022. "A full-fledged analytical model for the Laffer curve in personal income taxation," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 795-811.
    12. Oguzhan Akgun & David Bartolini & Boris Cournède, 2017. "The capacity of governments to raise taxes," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 1407, OECD Publishing.
    13. Jäntti, Markus & Pirttilä, Jukka & Selin, Håkan, 2015. "Estimating labour supply elasticities based on cross-country micro data: A bridge between micro and macro estimates?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 87-99.
    14. 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.
    15. Jeffrey L. Coles & Elena Patel & Nathan Seegert & Matthew Smith, 2022. "How Do Firms Respond to Corporate Taxes?," Journal of Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 60(3), pages 965-1006, June.
    16. Parry, Ian, 2015. "Designing Fiscal Policy to Address the External Costs of Energy," International Review of Environmental and Resource Economics, now publishers, vol. 8(1), pages 1-56, May.
    17. Jacob, Martin, 2014. "Cross-base tax elasticity of capital gains," arqus Discussion Papers in Quantitative Tax Research 169, arqus - Arbeitskreis Quantitative Steuerlehre.
    18. Wojciech Kopczuk, 2012. "Taxation of Intergenerational Transfers and Wealth," NBER Working Papers 18584, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Liam C. Malloy, 2016. "Do Lower Top Marginal Tax Rates Slow the Income Growth of Workers?," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 30(1), pages 61-87, March.
    20. Jongen, Egbert L. W. & Stoel, Maaike, 2019. "The Elasticity of Taxable Labour Income in the Netherlands," IZA Discussion Papers 12090, IZA Network @ LISER.
    21. Fack, Gabrielle & Landais, Camille, 2016. "The effect of tax enforcement on tax elasticities: Evidence from charitable contributions in France," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 23-40.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    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:mlb:wpaper:1085. 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: Dandapani Lokanathan (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/demelau.html .

    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.