We study wealth inequality in childhood using Danish wealth records from three decades. While teenagers have some earnings, we estimate that transfers account for at least 50 percent of wealth at age 18, and much more so for the rich children. Inheritance from grandparents does not appear...

Using Danish administrative data, we estimate the impact of bequests on the level and inequality of wealth. We employ an event study design where we follow the distribution of wealth over time of people who are 45-50 years old, and divide them into treatment group and control group depending on...

Existing tax bases, though, depend on a broader range of information about each individual than just labor income. In principle, this supplementary information can help in designing a tax that has more attractive distributional properties, by more closely approximating an ability tax. The...

Houses and apartments sold in New York and New Jersey at prices above $1 million are subject to the so-called 1% "mansion tax" imposed on the full value of the transaction. This policy generates a discontinuity (a "notch") in the overall tax liability. We rely on this and other discontinuities...

In 2004 Norwegian authorities announced a reform introducing dividend taxation for personal (but not corporate) owners to take effect starting in 2006. This change provided incentives to maximize dividends in 2004 and 2005, and to retain earnings in the following years. Using Norwegian registry...

find strong evidence that strategic misreporting was present but conclude that its remaining quantitative extent after enforcement actions already taken by the tax authorities was relatively small. Firms tend to misreport 4 percent more often than expected, and the actual support paid out was 5...

This paper analyzes the Reagan Administratioris tax reform proposal in terms of its three stated objectives --fairness, simplicity, and economic growth -- and considers its likely effecton labor supply, saving and investment, and housing. The paper also attempts to place the tax reform debate in...

The purpose of this paper is to provide estimates of the probable saving in the resource cost of complying with the tax law that would result from simplifying the individual income tax law. These estimates are based on an econometric analysis of the tax filing behavior in 1982 of a sample of...

This paper develops a methodology in integrating the information from a micro-unit data file of tax returns into the framework of a general equilibrium model of taxation with endogenous financial behavior. It discusses how the available information on capital income flows can be used to impute...

This paper deals with the allocational effects and implications for efficiency of a tax system in which the rate of tax on capital income differs depending on the recipient of the income and on the type of capital producing the income. It suggests that, in their attempts to measure the...