A Characterization for Marginal Income Tax Schedules

Oztek, Abdullah Selim (2019): A Characterization for Marginal Income Tax Schedules.

Abstract

The paper studies the optimal income taxation with a finite number of types. It is shown that Rawlsian social welfare and maximax social welfare functions constitute upper and lower bounds for the second-best optimal marginal tax schedules. Therefore any marginal tax schedule with a higher tax rate than Rawlsian bound or with a lower tax rate than maximax bound would be inefficient. Moreover, it is shown that reasonable marginal tax schedules between these two benchmarks could be supported as a second-best tax schedule with appropriate social weights. These results are also valid when bunching is optimal. Additionally, some characterization for the total tax rates at the top and bottom of the income distribution are given.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Public Economics; Optimal Income Taxation
• Subjects: H - Public Economics > H2 - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue; H - Public Economics > H2 - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue > H21 - Efficiency ; Optimal Taxation

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