federal and state tax policies in the united states offer substantial incentives to donate to charity. The federal income tax and most state income taxes give taxpayers the choice between an itemized deduction for expenditures such as charitable donations, mortgage interest , and state and local taxes, or a standard deduction, which at the federal level amounts to $12,200 for married taxpayers ...

This chapter reviews a variety of issues related to the taxation of cigarettes and other tobacco products. The empirical evidence showing that higher cigarette taxes result in higher cigarette prices is reviewed. This is followed by a discussion of the econometric literature examining the impact of prices and taxes on the demands for tobacco products. The small but growing body of research for ...

The case for progressive income taxation is often based on the classic result of Jakobsson (1976) and Fellman (1976), according to which progressive and only progressive income taxes—in the sense of increasing average tax rates on income—ensure a reduction in income inequality. This result has been criticized on the grounds that it ignores the possible disincentive effect of taxation on work ef...

This paper analyzes optimal linear taxes on capital and labor incomes in a life-cycle model of human capital investment, financial savings, and labor supply with heterogenous individuals. A dual income tax with positive marginal tax rates on not only labor but also capital income is optimal. The key function of the tax on capital income is to reduce labor tax distortions on human capital accumu...

In federal countries, such as the United States, state and local governments play an important role. They provide many different types of local public goods and services and are able to tailor the amount and quality of these goods to the preferences of their constituencies. To provide these services, state and local governments must raise tax revenues from their residents using a menu of differ...

Recent Changes to the Railroad Retirement Act* The Social Security taxes shown are the employee taxes only and are derived by applying the combined OASDI and HI tax rates in the present law to the projected earnings amounts. The Federal income taxes shown are approximate and are based on a summary of the provisions of The Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 (Public Law 97-34). For the years 1985 ...

In many countries, taxes on businesses are less progressive than labor income taxes. This paper provides a justification for this pattern based on adverse selection that entrepreneurs face in credit markets. Individuals choose between becoming entrepreneurs or workers and differ in their skill in both of these occupations. I find that endogenous cross-subsidization in the credit market equilibr...

Objective To assess how raising cigarette excise taxes in Peru might impact cigarette consumption, and to determine if higher taxes would be regressive. Methods Total demand price elasticity was estimated by income groups using two datasets: quarterly time-series data from 1993 - 2012 and data from a cross-sectional survey of income and expenses conducted in 2008 - 2009 . A functional form of...

We combine the subjective well-being and the public finance literature analyzing the effect of paying taxes on individual happiness. Using a long panel of very rich German household data we show that conditional on net income paying taxes is associated with higher levels of happiness. Increasing taxes by 1 standard deviation yields an increase in happiness by 2.7 standard deviations. In accorda...