IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/mlb/wpaper/1104.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Elasticity of Taxable Income in New Zealand

Author

Listed:
  • Iris Claus
  • John Creedy
  • Josh Teng

Abstract

This paper reports estimates of the elasticity of taxable income with respect to the net-of-tax rate for New Zealand taxpayers. The elasticity of taxable income was estimated to be substantially higher for the highest income groups. Generally it was higher for men than for women. Changes in the timing of income flows for the higher income recipients were found to be an important response to the announcement of a new higher-rate bracket. The marginal welfare costs of personal income taxation were consistent across years, being relatively small for all but the higher tax brackets. For the top marginal rate bracket of 39 per cent, the welfare cost of raising an extra dollar of tax revenue was estimated to be well in excess of a dollar. Furthermore, for the top bracket the marginal tax rate was often found to exceed the revenue-maximising tax rate.

Suggested Citation

  • Iris Claus & John Creedy & Josh Teng, 2010. "The Elasticity of Taxable Income in New Zealand," Department of Economics - Working Papers Series 1104, The University of Melbourne.
    • Handle: RePEc:mlb:wpaper:1104
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://fbe.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/801078/1104.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. John Creedy & Nicolas Hérault & Guyonne Kalb, 2011. "Measuring welfare changes in behavioural microsimulation modelling: Accounting for the random utility component," Journal of Applied Economics, Universidad del CEMA, vol. 14, pages 5-34, May.
    2. Lewis Evans & Arthur Grimes & Bryce Wilkinson, 1996. "Economic Reform in New Zealand 1984-95: The Pursuit of Efficiency," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 34(4), pages 1856-1902, December.
    3. Seth H. Giertz, 2004. "Recent Literature on Taxable-Income Elasticities: Technical Paper 2004-16," Working Papers 16189, Congressional Budget Office.
    4. Lindsey, Lawrence B., 1987. "Individual taxpayer response to tax cuts: 1982-1984 : With implications for the revenue maximizing tax rate," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 173-206, July.
    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.
    6. John Creedy, 2009. "The Elasticity of Taxable Income:," Department of Economics - Working Papers Series 1085, The University of Melbourne.
    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. John Creedy & Nicolas Hérault & Guyonne Kalb, 2007. "Comparing Welfare Change Measures with Income Change Measures in Behavioural Policy Simulations," Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series wp2007n21, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne.
    9. John Creedy, 1998. "Measuring Welfare Changes and Tax Burdens," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 1579.
    10. 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.
    11. Giertz, Seth, 2004. "Recent Literature on Taxable-Income Elasticities," MPRA Paper 16159, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. 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.
    13. A. B. Atkinson & Andrew Leigh, 2008. "Top Incomes In New Zealand 1921–2005: Understanding The Effects Of Marginal Tax Rates, Migration Threat, And The Macroeconomy," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 54(2), pages 149-165, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. 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. 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.
    3. Lang (Kate) Yang & Bradley T. Heim, 2017. "Responsiveness of Income to Local Income Taxes: Evidence from Indiana," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 70(2), pages 367-392, June.
    4. 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.
    5. Jos順鬩x Sanz-Sanz & Mar𨁁rrazola-Vacas & Nuria Rueda-L󰥺 & Desiderio Romero-Jordᮠ, 2015. "Reported gross income and marginal tax rates: estimation of the behavioural reactions of Spanish taxpayers," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(5), pages 466-484, January.
    6. 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 (IfW Kiel), vol. 12, pages 1-25.
    7. Blomquist, Sören & Selin, Håkan, 2010. "Hourly wage rate and taxable labor income responsiveness to changes in marginal tax rates," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(11-12), pages 878-889, December.
    8. Enrico Rubolino & Daniel Waldenström, 2020. "Tax progressivity and top incomes evidence from tax reforms," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 18(3), pages 261-289, September.
    9. Varga, Gergely & Nobilis, Benedek & Svraka, András, 2018. "Adóköteles jövedelmek rugalmassága – egy identifikációs kísérlet a családi adókedvezmény 2011-es bevezetése alapján [Elasticity of Taxable Income: An Experiment for Identification Based on the Intr," MPRA Paper 88229, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Arrazola, María & de Hevia, José & Romero, Desiderio & Sanz-Sanz, José Félix, 2014. "Personal Income Tax Reforms and the Elasticity of Reported Income to Marginal Tax Rates: An Empirical Analysis Applied to Spain," Working Paper Series 18851, Victoria University of Wellington, Chair in Public Finance.
    11. Áron Kiss & Pálma Mosberger, 2015. "The elasticity of taxable income of high earners: evidence from Hungary," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 48(2), pages 883-908, March.
    12. John Creedy, 2009. "The Elasticity of Taxable Income:," Department of Economics - Working Papers Series 1085, The University of Melbourne.
    13. Aron Kiss, 2013. "The optimal top marginal tax rate: Application to Hungary," European Journal of Government and Economics, Europa Grande, vol. 2(2), pages 100-118, December.
    14. Benedek, Dóra & Kiss, Áron, 2011. "Mikroszimulációs elemzés a személyi jövedelemadó módosításainak hatásvizsgálatában [Micro-simulation analysis in examination of the effects of personal income-tax changes]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(2), pages 97-110.
    15. Carey, Simon & Creedy, John & Gemmell, Norman & Teng, Josh, 2012. "Regression Estimates of the Elasticity of Taxable Income and the Choice of Instrument," Working Paper Series 18710, Victoria University of Wellington, Chair in Public Finance.
    16. 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).
    17. Claudia Keser & David Masclet & Claude Montmarquette, 2020. "Labor Supply, Taxation, and the Use of Tax Revenues: A Real-Effort Experiment in Canada, France, and Germany," Public Finance Review, , vol. 48(6), pages 714-750, November.
    18. 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.
    19. Ligia Alba Melo-Becerra & Héctor Zárate-Solano & Andrés Camilo Gómez-Molina, 2018. "Elasticidad del ingreso corporativo gravable en Colombia," Borradores de Economia 1046, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
    20. 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.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Income taxation; Taxable income; Elasticity of taxable income; Excess;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • 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

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:1104. 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.