Tax-preferenced retirement plans are designed to be vehicles for saving for retirement, not massive tax shelters for wealthy individuals. Because tax preferences for retirement savings cause a loss in federal tax revenue, and are one of the largest sources of tax expenditures, it has long been a...

We examine the incidence on household consumption of the introduction of tax incentives to retirement saving. First, using data from a panel of tax returns we document that most contributions to pension funds are by older/high-income individuals. Then we use panel data from a consumption survey...