This paper explores the effect of estate and gift taxes on the after-tax rate of return earned by savers. The estate tax affects only a small fraction of households -- taxable decedents represented only 1.4 percent of all deaths in 1995 -- but the affected households account for a substantial...

“Pass-through” businesses like partnerships and S-corporations now generate over half of U.S. business income and account for much of the post-1980 rise in the top- 1% income share. We use administrative tax data from 2011 to identify pass-through business owners and estimate how much tax...

This paper presents new evidence on the rate of return on tangible assets in the Unitedquot; States, incorporating the recently-revised national accounts as well as new estimates of thequot; replacement cost of the reproducible physical capital stock. The pretax return on capital in thequot;...

This paper presents new evidence on how corporate payout policy responds to the differential between the tax burden on dividend income and that on accruing capital gains. It describes the construction of weighted average marginal tax rate series for the period since 1929, and it suggests that...

Aggregate consumption Euler equations fit financial asset return data poorly. But they fit the return on the capital stock well, which leads us to three empirical findings relating to the capital income tax burden. First, capital taxation drives a wedge between consumption growth and the...

This working paper presents Chapter 7 of a book to be published for the National Bureau of Economic Research by the University of Chicago Press. The point of the book is to compare taxes on income from capital in four countries,accounting for corporate, personal, and property taxes, and...

In this paper, we evaluate existing tax law as of 1980, President Reagan's tax reform initiatives as enacted in the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 (ERTA) and the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982 (TEFRA), as well as other proposals that were not enacted. For each law, we...

Life cycle and insurance-type considerations dominate redistribution policy. Wage and fiscal prospects of ageing dominate migration policy. The paper compares distinct policy regimes, directed at migration and redistribution issues. Migration quotas, provision of social benefits, labor income...

The quot;Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Act of 2003quot; (JGTRA03) contained a number of significant tax provisions, but the most noteworthy may have been the reduction in dividend tax rates. The political debate over the dividend tax reductions of 2003 took a number of surprising twists and turns....

This paper analyzes how corporate capital gains taxes affect the capital gain realization decisions of firms. The paper outlines the tax treatment of corporate capital gains, the consequent incentives for firms with gains and losses, the efficiency consequences of these taxes in the context of...