Although the Ricardian Equivalence Theorem holds under a linear estate tax schedule, it fails to hold under a nonlinear estate tax schedule. In a representative consumer economy, a temporary lump-sum tax increase reduces contemporaneous consumption. If different consumers face different marginal...

Presidential candidates Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have both proposed ambitious new annual wealth taxes based on academic work by Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman. They project these proposals to raise trillions of dollars over the next ten years. Some critics challenge the Saez-Zucman...

Wealth is very unequally distributed in Germany. To effect a long-term reduction, the new Federal Government could focus on more effectively promoting home ownership, supplementary retirement provision, and other precautionary savings. However, a universal capital endowment could decrease wealth...

The rising importance of bequests as a source of personal income lead to renewed interest in the taxation of wealth transfers. Empirical evidence on distortionary effects of bequest taxation is relatively scarce. On the basis of administrative data for Germany, this paper assesses the extent to...

I study bequest and wealth accumulation behavior of the wealthy (subject to the estate tax) shortly before death. The onset of a terminal illness leads to a very significant reduction in the value of estates reported on tax returns - 15 to 20% with illness lasting "months to years" and about 5...

Several countries have recently abolished or significantly reduced their taxes on bequests. Bequest taxes, on the other hand, were among the first to be introduced when modern systems of taxation were developed at the end of the nineteenth century. We propose an explanation for these facts which...