Working Paper: NBER ID: w7512
Authors: Jon Gruber; Emmanuel Saez
Abstract: A central tax policy parameter that has recently received much attention, but about which there is substantial uncertainty, is the overall elasticity of taxable income. We provide new estimates of this elasticity which address identification problems with previous work, by exploiting a long panel of tax returns to study a series of tax reforms throughout the 1980s. This identification strategy also allows us to provide new evidence on both the income effects of tax changes on taxable income, and on variation in the elasticity of taxable income by income group. We find that the overall elasticity of taxable income is approximately 0.4; the elasticity of real income, not including tax preferences, is much lower. We also estimate small income effects on tax changes on reported income, implying that the compensated and uncompensated elasticities of taxable income are very similar. We estimate that this overall elasticity is primarily due to a very elastic response of taxable income for taxpayers who have incomes above $100,000 per year, who have an elasticity of 0.57, while for those with incomes below $100,000 per year the elasticity is less than one-third as large. Moreover, high income taxpayers who itemize are particularly responsive to taxation. We then derive optimal income tax structures using these elasticities. Our estimates suggest that the optimal system for most redistributional preferences consists of a large demogrant that is rapidly taxed away for low income taxpayers, with lower marginal rates at higher income levels.
Keywords: No keywords provided
JEL Codes: H21; H31; J22
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Optimal income tax structure (H21) | Large demogrant for low-income taxpayers (H29) |
| Tax reforms during the 1980s (E65) | Changes in taxable income (H29) |
| Changes in marginal tax rates (H31) | Changes in taxable income (H29) |
| Income level of taxpayers (H29) | Elasticity of taxable income (H31) |
| High-income taxpayers (H24) | Elasticity of taxable income (H31) |
| Tax changes (H29) | Reported income (D31) |
| Elasticity of taxable income (H31) | Elasticity of real income (D11) |
| High-income taxpayers who itemize deductions (H20) | Responsiveness to taxation (H26) |