We analyze optimal income taxes with deductions for work-related or consumptive goods. We consider two cases. In the first case (called a complex tax system) the tax authorities can exactly distinguish between consumptive and work-related expenditures. In the second case (called a simple tax...

We analyze optimal income taxes with deductions for work-related or consumptive goods. We consider two cases. In the first case (called a complex tax system) the tax authorities can exactly distinguish between consumptive and work-related expenditures. In the second case (called a simple tax...

We analyze optimal income taxes with deductions for work-related or consumptive goods. We consider two cases. In the first case (called a complex tax system) the tax authorities can exactly distinguish between consumptive and work-related expenditures. In the second case (called a simple tax...

In this paper we use a simple median voter model to analyze the effects of tax systems with differing degrees of progressivity. We find that relatively high taxes on middle incomes have two important advantages: on the one hand, they help to ensure that all citizens are better off than they...