Marrying into a Tax Bracket: A New Approach to Estimating Tax Elasticities

嫁入税级：估计税收弹性的新方法

• 批准号: 2858465
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University College London
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2858465
• 关键词: Marrying; into; Tax; Bracket; New

Despite economists long-standing interest in estimating tax elasticities, there are few studies providing disaggregated estimates. The typical approach to estimating tax elasticity typically relies on reforms that target a particular demographic group and thus provide measures for that particular demographic group (for example, by studying the response of labour supply to cuts in top-income tax rates). The lack of separate estimates of tax elasticity by base income, household income rank and gender leaves much room for controversy about optimal household taxation with many economists arguing that joint taxation of income hinders the integration of women into the labour market. The design of the income tax system in France and the availability of the Housing and Individual Demographic Files (Fideli), provide a unique new opportunity for more disaggregated estimations of tax elasticities, across multiple points of the income distribution and for primary and secondary earners separately. The strategy makes uses of the stepped design of the French marginal tax schedule to construct a quasi-experiment. Because of those steps, couples with marginally different household incomes immediately before marriage fall into different tax brackets after marriage.Economic theory predicts that the marginal tax bracket defines the perception of how much work "pays". Couples with a household income of 55000euro face a marginal tax rate of 30% after marriage, and will likely to be less incentivised to continued work than members of households with a joint income of 54900 euro (100 euro less), facing a marginal tax of 11% after marriage. The elasticity is a measure of the sensitivity of choices to those different tax rates - which may be very well depend on baseline income, rank (breadwinner or not) and gender. To isolate the effect of the tax from other factors that may influence the labour supply decision, the strategy is to compare couples just before and just after the threshold level of household income at which the tax rate jumps. The assumption is that any differences in socio-economic characteristics between observations to the right and left of the threshold are continuous and that the only difference between the two groups in the aggregate is the tax rate. Although the proposed strategy can be used to analyse margins of non-labour related tax elasticities, such as fertility or divorce rate elasticities, perhaps the margin of greatest policy relevance is that of second income labour market participation. The latter is important for assessing the validity of the common claim that joint household taxation hampers women's labour market integration with second income rates that are more dissuasive compared to those second earners would face under individual taxation. Since marriage is available to all incomes and there are many income thresholds to assess, the method will provide a broader and more generalizable evidence base than the literature. The latter typically relies on idiosyncratic income tax reforms, affecting a particular decile of the distribution in a specific policy and macroeconomic context. Fideli's longitudinal form and the use of marriage as quasi-experimental source will provide more disaggregated estimates while reducing the risk of macroeconomic or political bias.

尽管经济学家长期以来对估计税收弹性感兴趣，但很少有研究提供分类估计。估计税收弹性的典型方法通常依赖于针对特定人口群体的改革，从而为该特定人口群体提供措施（例如，通过研究劳动力供应对最高收入税率削减的反应）。由于缺乏按基本收入、家庭收入排名和性别对税收弹性进行单独估计，因此对于最佳家庭税收留下了很大的争议空间，许多经济学家认为，对收入进行联合征税会阻碍妇女融入劳动力市场。法国所得税制度的设计以及住房和个人人口统计档案（Fideli）的可用性，为对收入分配的多个点以及主要和次要收入者的税收弹性进行更分类的估计提供了独特的新机会。该策略利用法国边际税表的阶梯式设计构建了一个准实验。由于这些步骤，婚前家庭收入略有不同的夫妇在婚后会落入不同的税级。经济理论预测，边际税级定义了人们对工作“支付”多少的看法。家庭收入为 55000 欧元的夫妇婚后面临 30% 的边际税率，并且与共同收入为 54900 欧元（少 100 欧元）的家庭成员相比，他们继续工作的积极性可能较低，后者面临的边际税率为婚后11%。弹性是衡量选择对不同税率的敏感性的指标——这很可能取决于基线收入、等级（是否养家糊口）和性别。为了将税收的影响与可能影响劳动力供给决策的其他因素分开，策略是比较家庭收入阈值水平之前和之后税率跃升的夫妇。假设阈值左右观察之间的社会经济特征的任何差异都是连续的，并且两组之间的唯一差异是税率。尽管所提出的策略可用于分析非劳动力相关的税收弹性边际，例如生育率或离婚率弹性，但也许最大的政策相关性是第二收入劳动力市场参与的边际。后者对于评估共同主张的有效性非常重要，即家庭联合征税阻碍了妇女融入劳动力市场，与个人征税下的第二收入者相比，第二收入者的第二收入率更具劝阻性。由于婚姻适用于所有收入，并且有许多收入门槛需要评估，因此该方法将提供比文献更广泛和更普遍的证据基础。后者通常依赖于特殊的所得税改革，影响特定政策和宏观经济背景下特定的十分之一的分配。 Fideli的纵向形式和使用婚姻作为准实验来源将提供更分类的估计，同时减少宏观经济或政治偏见的风险。