This paper examines how adjusting for family size in distributional analysis affects the distribution of tax burdens. We find that average tax rates for low-income families fall and average tax rates for some high-income families rise when the measured ability to pay is adjusted for family size,...

Charles E. Boynton is a program manager and senior program analyst with the IRS Large and Midsize Business Division Office of Research and Workload Identification. From September 2000 through May 2006, he was a Surrey Senior Research Fellow for the Treasury Office of Tax Analysis. He has been a...

Because electricity is a higher fraction of spending for those with low income, carbon taxes are believed to be regressive. Many argue, however, that their revenues can be used to offset the regressivity. We assess these claims by employing data on 322,000 families in the U.S. Treasury’s...