Income Tax Incentives to Promote Saving

We examine six alternative plans which might be discussed in an effort to increase consumer savings through the personal income tax system in the United States. These plans attempt to affect savings through an increase in the real rate of return either by direct tax cuts on savings or by indexing tax rates against inflation. The paper presents estimates of static and dynamic resource allocation effects for the six plans, and compares them to results obtained in earlier work on the impacts of more sweeping reforms. A medium-scale numerical general equilibrium model is used which integrates the U. S. tax system with consumer demand behavior by household and producer behavior by industry.