Women may want greater taxes and redistributional spending than men if male incomes exceed female incomes and men and women are not always married. Cross-section evidence from opinion polls provides indirect support for this view. Women express greater favorability toward redistributional...

This paper examines the effective tax rates faced by low income working families. The effective tax rate (ETR) is a generic concept which encompasses both tax payable and also loss of benefits as income rises.

A simple model of indirect taxation, evasion, and enforcement is presentedin which some surprising results emerge. Because of a 'market- thinning' effect of high prices, high taxes lead to multiple equilibria (low-price black markets and high-price legal markets), and black- market comparative...

While rent taxation in some theories is neutral, and the tax rate could not be set to one hundred percent to minimize the need for distortionary taxes, this does not occur in practice. An important reason for this is the transfer incentives that would result. Monitoring to prevent transfer...

This paper provides a unified framework in which to examine income and consumption tax revenue elasticities. In addition, new results are established in relation to consumption taxes. These results help to provide a better understanding of the determinants of the revenue responsiveness...

Governments in many developed economies provide occupational pension plans with significant taxation incentives. However, as many retirement income systems are now being reviewed due to demographic, social and economic pressures, these taxation arrangements are also under scrutiny. This paper...

This paper shows that, where the relative levels and general evolution of labour, capital and consumption tax rates are concerned, the conclusions drawn on the basis of ECFIN's rates are robust with respect to alternative definitions used by the OECD and by 'Structures of the Taxation Systems in...

This paper reviews the analytical and empirical evidence on certain issues in commodity tax design that have not received much attention. These include the impact on optimal commodity taxes of allowing the following: (i)non linear Engel curves, (ii)Household composition and child subsidy,...

This paper studies the optimal direct/indirect tax mix in a setting where individuals differ in several unobservable characteristics (productivity and endowments). Tax instruments (income and commodity taxes) are constrained solely by the information structure.