This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of the role of capital taxation in advanced economies with a focus on the Swedish experience. We synthesize the existing theoretical literature, present facts about the capital stock and its distribution, review current capital tax practices and...

While little agreement exists regarding the taxation of bequests in general, there is a widely held view that accidental bequests should be subject to a confiscatory tax. We propose to reexamine the optimal taxation of accidental bequests in an economy where individuals care about what they...

This paper studies the design of the optimal linear taxation of bequests when individuals differ in wage as well as in their risks of both mortality and old-age dependence. We assume that the government cannot distinguish between bequests motives, that is whether bequests resulted from...

We study the optimal tax system in a dynamic model where differences in wages induce differences in inheritances, and the transition from parent ability to child ability is described by a Markov chain. We characterize expected inheritances in the steady state and show that the Atkinson-Stiglitz...

Altruistic parents may transfer resources to their offspring by providing education, and by leaving bequests. We show that in the presence of wage taxation, a small bequest tax may improve efficiency in an overlapping-generations framework with only intended bequests, by enhancing incentives of...

I study a model of a representative individual who has a motive for leaving bequests and is at risk of needing long-term care in old age. I assume - as is typical for OECD countries - that the individual is not fully insured against this risk. Moreover, at realization the individual is unable to...