Income taxation, uncertainty and stability

Abstract

This paper develops a political model to analyze the stability of income tax schedules. It is assumed that agents perceive any proposed alternative tax policy as more uncertain than the status quo. A tax policy is stable if it is a Condorcet winner. It is well known that in a model without uncertainty the existence of such a policy is very rare. We show, however, that in real cases this might not be a serious problem since small amounts of uncertainty can bring stability to the status quo. It is also shown that linear tax functions can only be stable in economies with very egalitarian income distributions and high taxation levels.