We study the optimality of taxing capital income according to a Rate-of-Return Allowance proposed by the Mirrlees Review. In a mean-variance framework the optimal tax on risk-free returns is zero with constant returns to scale in private investment, but positive with decreasing returns to scale,...

Wealthier households obtain higher returns on their investments than poorer ones. How should the tax system account for this return inequality? I study capital taxation in an economy in which return rates endogenously correlate with wealth. The leading example is a financial market, where the...

We study the optimal taxation of risk-free and excess capital income with heterogeneous rates of return, alongside an optimal nonlinear earnings tax. Households can hold three assets: one risk-free, one risky but diversifiable, and one a private investment with idiosyncratic risk whose expected...

Wealthier households obtain higher returns on their investments than poorer ones. How should the tax system account for this return inequality? I study capital taxation in an economy in which return rates endogenously correlate with wealth. The leading example is a financial market, where the...

We study the optimality of taxing capital income according to a Rate-of-Return Allowance proposed by the Mirrlees Review. In a mean-variance framework the optimal tax on risk-free returns is zero with constant returns to scale in private investment, but positive with decreasing returns to scale,...

We study the optimal taxation of risk-free and excess capital income with heterogeneous rates of return, alongside an optimal nonlinear earnings tax. Households can hold three assets: one risk-free, one risky but diversifiable, and one a private investment with idiosyncratic risk whose expected...

This paper examines alternative ways that the value of CO2 emissions allowances created under cap-and-trade policy could be returned to households. One approach (based on principles of economic efficiency) is effectively a "tax shift" that would use revenues from an auction of CO2 emissions...