Optimal Tax Schedule Research Articles

When Only Death Remains Certain: Optimal Tax Mix with Tax Non-Compliance

Although developing countries face high levels of income inequality, they rely more on consumption taxes, which tend to be linear and are less effective for redistribution than a non-linear income tax. One explanation for this pattern is that the consumption taxes are generally more enforceable in these economies. This paper studies the optimal combination of a linear consumption tax, with a non-linear income tax, for redistributive purposes. In our model, households might not comply with the income tax code by reporting income levels that differ from their true income. However, the consumption tax is fully enforceable. We derive a formula for the optimal income tax schedule as a function of the consumption tax rate, the recoverable elasticities, and the moments of the taxable income distribution. Our equation differs from those of Mirrlees (1971) and Saez (2001) because households respond to income tax not only through labor supply but also through mis-reporting their incomes. We then characterize the optimal mix between a linear consumption tax rate and a non-linear income tax schedule. Finally, we find that the optimal consumption tax rate is non-increasing in the redistributive motives of the social planner.

Optimal Income Tax Rates for the Korean Economy

Based on a quantitative, heterogeneous agent general equilibrium model, we compute the optimal tax rates for labor and capital incomes for the Korean economy. According to our model, a more progressive income tax schedule along with a higher capital tax rate can increase average welfare by as much as 0.86% of permanent consumption. Approximately 64% of house-holds, those with low assets and low productivity, are better off when a more progressive optimal tax schedule is adopted. Despite the potentially significant welfare gains, our calculation should be interpreted with caution because our benchmark model does not take into account possible capital outflows or the increased administrative costs associated with high taxes.

Optimal Taxation When People Do Not Maximize Well-Being

I derive the optimal nonlinear income tax when individuals do not necessarily maximize their own well-being. This generates a corrective argument for taxation: optimal marginal taxes are higher (lower) if individuals work too much (too little) from a well-being point of view. I allow for multi-dimensional heterogeneity and derive the optimal tax schedule in terms of measurable sufficient statistics. One of these statistics measures the degree to which individuals fail to optimize their labor supply. I empirically estimate this by using British life satisfaction data as a measure of well-being. I find that low-income workers tend to work 'too little' and high-income workers 'too much,' providing a motive for lower marginal tax rates at the bottom and higher marginal tax rates at the top of the income distribution.

Optimal Spatial Taxation: Are Big Cities Too Small?

We analyze the role of optimal income taxation across different local labor markets. Should labor in large cities be taxed differently than in small cities? We find that a planner who needs to raise revenue and is constrained by free mobility of labor across cities does not choose equal taxes for cities of different sizes. The optimal tax schedule is location specific and tax differences between large and small cities depends on the level of government spending and on the concentration of housing wealth. Our estimates for the US implies higher marginal rates in big cities, but lower than what is observed. Simulating the US economy under the optimal tax schedule, there are large effects on population mobility: the fraction of population in the 5 largest cities grows by 8.0% with 3.5% of the country-wide population moving to bigger cities. The welfare gains however are smaller. Aggregate consumption goes up by 1.53%. This is due to the fact that much of the output gains are spent on the increased costs of housing construction in bigger cities. Aggregate housing consumption goes down by 1.75%.

A Theory of Income Taxation Under Multidimensional Skill Heterogeneity

We develop a unifying framework for optimal income taxation in multi-sector economies with general patterns of externalities. Agents in this model are characterized by an N-dimensional skill vector corresponding to intrinsic abilities in N potentially externality-causing activities. The private return to each activity depends on individual skill and an aggregate activity-specific return, which is a fully general function of the economy-wide distribution of activity-specific efforts. We show that the N dimensional heterogeneity can be collapsed to a one-dimensional, endogenous statistic sufficient for screening. The optimal tax schedule features a multiplicative income specific correction to an otherwise standard tax formula. Because externalities change the relative returns to different activities, corrective taxes induce changes in the across activity allocation of effort. These relative return effects cause the optimal correction to diverge, in general, from the Pigouvian tax that would align private and social returns. We characterize this divergence and its implications for the shape of the tax schedule both generally and in a number of applications, including externality free economies, increasing and decreasing returns to scale, zero-sum activities such as bargaining or rent extraction, and positive or negative spillovers.

Taxation of Couples under Assortative Mating

I present a simple and tractable model of the optimal taxation of married couples, working off of the multidimensional screening framework of Armstrong and Rochet (1999). In particular, I study how the tax code varies with the degree of assortative mating. One result is that the “negative jointness” of marginal tax rates found in Kleven, Kreiner, and Saez (2007, 2009) for couples with uncorrelated earnings should be attenuated in the presence of assortative mating. When mating is sufficiently assortative, the optimal tax schedule is separable: an individual's taxes do not depend on his or her spouse's income. (JEL D82, H21, H24, J12)

The Optimal Inheritance Tax in the Presence of Investment in Education

This paper provides an example aimed at calculating the optimal inheritance tax in a model in which inheritances are used to finance investment in education. Two results are obtained: (1) The optimal inheritance tax schedule includes a threshold, estimated between 2.5 and 5.5 times per-capita GDP. This result holds for a Rawlsian social planner that maximizes the welfare of the poorest individual, who does not leave bequests. (2) Contrary to the result of a 100 % tax on pure accidental bequests, the optimal simulated tax rates are between 28 %, for the case of educational bequests, and 57 %, for the case where educational and accidental bequests interact. This range is in line with existing schedules in developed economies.

A la recherche d'une fiscalité optimale des revenus

Cet article présente la théorie économique déterminant la forme d’un barème fiscal non linéaire permettant d’arbitrer au mieux entre les gains en équité que permet un barème plus progressif et le découragement à travailler davantage qu’un tel barème induit. On tient compte non seulement des effets du barème sur les incitations à travailler davantage pour les personnes en emploi (la marge intensive), mais aussi sur les incitations à travailler ou non (la marge extensive). On présente d’abord une dérivation heuristique de la formule de taxation optimale permettant de clarifier les intuitions économiques. On explique ensuite comment cette formule peut être rigoureusement obtenue en utilisant les techniques mathématiques de contrôle optimal.

The Taxation of Couples under Assortative Mating: A Reassessment

I present a simple and tractable model of the optimal taxation of married couples, working off of the multidimensional screening framework of Armstrong and Rochet (1999). In particular, I study how the tax code varies with the degree of assortative mating. One result is that the negative jointness of marginal tax rates found in Kleven, Kreiner, and Saez (2007, 2009) for couples with uncorrelated earnings should be attenuated in the presence of assortative mating. When mating is sufficiently assortative, the optimal tax schedule is separable: an individual's taxes do not depend on his or her spouse's income.

Redistributive Taxation in the Roy Model*

Abstract We consider optimal redistribution in a model where individuals can self-select into one of several possible sectors based on heterogeneity in a multidimensional skill vector. We first show that when the government does not observe the sectoral choice or underlying skills of its citizens, the constrained Pareto frontier can be implemented with a single nonlinear income tax. We then characterize this optimal tax schedule. If sectoral inputs are complements, a many-sector model with self-selection leads to optimal income taxes that are less progressive than the corresponding taxes in a standard single-sector model under natural conditions. However, they are more progressive than in canonical multisector economies with discrete types and without occupational choice or overlapping sectoral wage distributions.

Tax Me If You Can! Optimal Nonlinear Income Tax between Competing Governments

We investigate how the optimal nonlinear income tax schedule is modified when taxpayers can evade taxation by emigrating. We consider two symmetric countries with Maximin governments. Workers choose their labor supply along the intensive margin. The skill distribution is continuous, and, for each skill level, the distribution of migration cost is also continuous. We show that optimal marginal tax rates are nonnegative at the symmetric Nash equilibrium when the semi-elasticity of migration is decreasing in the skill level. When the semi-elasticity of migration is increasing in the skill level, either optimal marginal tax rates are positive everywhere or they are positive for the lower part of the skill distribution and then negative. Numerical simulations are calibrated using plausible values of the semi-elasticity of migration for top income earners. We show that the shape of optimal tax schedule varies significantly, depending on the profile of the semi-elasticity of migration over the entire skill distribution - a profile over which we lack empirical evidence.

Optimal taxation over the life cycle

We derive the optimal labor income tax schedule for a life cycle model with deterministic productivity variation and complete asset markets. An individual chooses whether and how much to work at each date. The government must finance a given expenditure and does not have access to lump sum taxation. We develop a solution method that uses the primal approach to solve for the optimal non-linear tax function. The average tax rate determines when an individual will work while the marginal tax rate determines how much she will work. Even in the absence of redistributive concerns, the optimal tax schedule has an increasing average tax rate at low levels of income to encourage labor market participation. The marginal tax rate at the top is strictly positive. Finally, the model is used to assess the effects of changing the current tax schedule to the optimal one. Under the preferred parameters, this delivers a welfare gain equivalent to 0.67 percent of lifetime consumption.

Optimal Income Taxation with Career Effects of Work Effort

The literature on optimal income taxation has operated on the assumption that wage rates are generated exogenously by innate ability and therefore do not respond to behavior and taxation. This is in stark contrast to a large empirical literature documenting a strong effect of work effort on future wage rates. Considering a two-period Mirrlees model where work effort as young affects the wage rate as old, we provide analytical characterizations and numerical simulations of optimal nonlinear tax schedules that depend on per-period earnings and potentially on age. We show that career effects of work effort have important implications for the optimal tax schedule in both the age-independent and age-dependent cases. In the age-independent case, the presence of career effects make marginal tax rate schedules less progressive than in standard models with exogenous wage rates. In the age-dependent case, career effects create a strong argument for lower taxes on the old, opposite the recommendation in the recent literature on age-dependent taxation. This result is driven by a combination of career incentive effects and the fact that increasing earnings over the career path for each ability level imply a negative correlation between age and innate ability, conditional on earnings, creating an equity argument for lower income taxes on the old.

Stigma, Optimal Income Taxation, and the Optimal Welfare Program: A Numerical Simulation Approach

This article integrates the theory of welfare stigma and the theory of optimal income taxation. We study optimal income taxation and an optimal welfare program within a unified framework while taking welfare stigma into account. In our framework, the government is assumed to have two policy instruments, namely general income taxation and a welfare program. Individuals are assumed to be heterogeneous along two dimensions, namely wages (skill) and welfare stigma. The government cannot observe the two characteristics of individuals. Each individual is assumed to take the income tax schedule and the parameters of the welfare program as given and make labor supply decisions to maximize his utility. The government is assumed to choose both an optimal income tax schedule and an optimal welfare program so as to maximize a social welfare function subject to its own revenue budget constraint and individuals’ behavioral response to the income tax schedule and the parameters of the welfare program. As the model cannot be solved analytically, we take a numerical simulation approach. Our simulations show that (1) it is optimal for the government to offer both a negative income tax schedule and a welfare program, which is consistent with the theoretical result obtained by An in a much-simplified version of our model, and (2) the actual welfare program in the United States might be less generous than the optimal welfare program.

On the qualitative properties of the optimal income tax

We explore the precise requirements for the qualitative results on optimum income taxation to hold, with the aim of extending their application to a larger space of solutions than that of continuous, piecewise differentiable functions assumed in the literature. In particular, properties (R1)–(R8) in Ebert (1992) are shown to hold when the endogenous variables of the problem are defined by non-smooth or even discontinuous functions, provided consumption is supposed to be normal and leisure non-inferior. Moreover, the referred properties continue to hold, without assuming the normality of consumption, if it is supposed that the function descriptive of gross income becomes absolutely continuous. In addition, a characterization of the set of potential solutions stemming from Lebesgue’s Decomposition Theorem has been used to analyze the relevance of properties (R1)–(R8), vis-à-vis other possible features of optimal tax schedules. The conclusion is that, even assuming the normality of consumption, the case for regressivity should be viewed, on the lines suggested by Kaneko (1982) within a somehow different model, as an exceptional outcome versus other income tax structures that may arise at the optimum.

Nonlinear taxes for spatially mobile workers

This article examines optimal nonlinear taxes with worker mobility. We devise a model in which two qualitatively different types of workers choose to live in either of two jurisdictions. Residence decisions and labor–leisure choices are influenced by the tax schedules operating in the two regions. Within worker category, individuals may differ in attachment to one or the other of the regions. We show how worker mobility affects the optimal tax schedule, and address the spatial distribution of the population under optimal taxation. We examine a special case in which it is possible to make statements about the second‐best distribution of population.

Optimal Taxation and Monopsonistic Labor Market: Does Monopsony Justify the Minimum Wage?

We analyze optimal taxation in an economy with monopsonistic labor markets. The individuals, whose only decisions are whether to work, or not, have heterogeneous productivities and opportunity costs of work. Given its preferences for redistribution, the government, which does not observe the opportunity costs of work, chooses a tax scheme implementing the second best allocation. We compare the optima in the competitive and monopsonistic environments. We find that the government can always implement the second best allocation of the competitive economy in the monopsonistic environment. The optimal tax schedule comprises employment subsidies financed by taxes on profits. In this setup, there is no room for a minimum wage.

Optimal nonlinear taxes for families

The problem faced by a taxation authority choosing a tax schedule for families is modeled as a multi-dimensional screening problem. A description of the possible constrained Pareto-efficient mechanisms is given. The implications of a standard redistributive assumption on the sign of marginal tax rates is explored. In contrast to unidimensional taxation models, the redistributive assumption does not imply that marginal tax rates are everywhere non-negative. The qualitative features of optimal tax schedules are discussed. It is concluded that taxation based solely on total family income is rarely optimal.

Optimal Government Policies in Models with Heterogeneous Agents

In this paper we develop a new methodology for finding optimal government policies in economies with heterogeneous agents. The methodology is solely based on three classes of equilibrium conditions from the government's and individual agent's optimization problems: 1) the first order conditions; 2) the stationarity condition on the distribution function; and, 3) the aggregate market clearing conditions. These conditions form a system of functional equations which we solve numerically. The solution takes into account simultaneously the effect of government policy on individual allocations and (from the government's point of view) optimal distribution of agents in the steady state. This general methodology is applicable to a wide range of optimal government policies in models with heterogeneous agents. We illustrate it on a steady state Ramsey problem with heterogeneous agents, finding the optimal tax schedule.

Optimal incentives for labor force participation

Optimal taxation is analyzed under a Rawlsian criterion in an economy where the only decision of the agents is to participate, or not, to the labor force. The model allows for heterogeneity both in the agent's productivities and aversions to work. At a first-best optimal schedule, the marginal agent who decides to work pockets all of her productivity, while being just compensated for her work aversion. When the planner does not observe work aversion, financial compensation for work is lower than productivity. Theory puts little restrictions on the shape of the optimal tax schedules. The usual first-order conditions involving the elasticities of participation only apply for sufficiently regular economies. We qualitatively show how the optimal incentive schemes depend on the underlying structure of the preferences: 100% marginal tax rates or subsidies to work are related to specific features of the economies.