Behavioral Responses to Wealth Transfer Taxation: Bunching Evidence from Germany

Behavioral Responses to an Annual Wealth Tax: Evidence from Sweden

This paper addresses the behavioral effects of an annual wealth tax. I use Swedish tax records over the period 2000-2006 to estimate bunching at kink points in the progressive tax schedule and find significant estimates of the implied elasticity of taxable net wealth in the range [0.1, 0.3]. I decompose the effects into a reporting response and a real saving response. Using asset-level data on ...

Wealth transfer taxation: a survey

The purpose of this paper is to survey the theoretical literature on wealth transfer taxation. The focus is normative: we are looking at the design of an optimal tax structure from the standpoint of both equity and efficiency. The gist of this survey is that the optimal design closely depends on the assumed bequest motives. Alternative bequest motives are thus analyzed either in isolation or co...

Online Appendix for: Behavioral Responses to Wealth Taxes: Evidence from Sweden

Information and Behavioral Responses to Taxation: Evidence from an Experiment with EITC Clients at H&R Block

This paper tests whether providing information about the work incentives created by the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) ampli…es its e¤ects on labor supply. We conducted a randomized …eld experiment with 43,000 EITC claimants at H&R Block in which half the clients were provided simple, personalized information about the EITC schedule. We obtain three results. First, tax …lers initially in the i...

Estate Taxation , Entrepreneurship , and Wealth

Since its introduction in 1916, the estate tax has been one of the most controversial parts of the United States tax code. Estate tax opponents dub it a “death tax,” claim that it hurts business activity and job creation, and assert that its negative effects are thus felt by all households, including those that never pay the tax. For these reasons, they call for abolishing it. In contrast, its ...