[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/11208.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

U.S. capital gains and estate taxation: a status report and directions for a reform

Author

Listed:
  • Kopczuk, Wojciech
Abstract
Recent changes in the U.S. estate taxation significantly reduced its reach and revenue, although the tax continues to contribute to progressivity of the overall tax system and is likely to play a role in influencing the long term concentration of wealth. I discuss recent changes, empirical evidence and theory applying to this form of taxation. I then discuss directions for a reform of the tax. The interaction between estate taxation and other components of the tax system is most important in the context of capital gains, with step up in basis partially compensating for high marginal rates while at the same time creating very strong deferral incentives. Modifying this interaction is long overdue and experience from the temporary repeal of the tax in 2010 is helpful in understanding challenges. I discuss options for modifying this interaction, including implications both for estate tax design and for the great majority of taxpayers who are not subject to the estate tax. Eliminating the step-up in basis would allow for increasing the efficiency of the tax system, while the additional revenue could be used to either mitigate the consequences for the affected taxpayers by reducing the estate tax burden or increasing the overall progressivity. I note that any exemption for capital gains at death does retain deferral incentives for individuals with unrealized capital gains smaller than the exemption and suggest that a lifetime exemption would have better incentive properties. I also note that the treatment of spousal transfers under any capital gains at death approach is critical for the revenue implications.

Suggested Citation

  • Kopczuk, Wojciech, 2016. "U.S. capital gains and estate taxation: a status report and directions for a reform," CEPR Discussion Papers 11208, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:11208
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP11208
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Douglas Holtz-Eakin & David Joulfaian & Harvey S. Rosen, 1993. "The Carnegie Conjecture: Some Empirical Evidence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 108(2), pages 413-435.
    2. Bernheim, B. Douglas & Lemke, Robert J. & Scholz, John Karl, 2004. "Do estate and gift taxes affect the timing of private transfers?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(12), pages 2617-2634, December.
    3. Emmanuel Farhi & Iván Werning, 2010. "Progressive Estate Taxation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(2), pages 635-673.
    4. Auten, Gerald & Joulfaian, David, 2001. "Bequest taxes and capital gains realizations," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(2), pages 213-229, August.
    5. Modigliani, Franco, 1988. "The Role of Intergenerational Transfers and Life Cycle Saving in the Accumulation of Wealth," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 2(2), pages 15-40, Spring.
    6. Wojciech Kopczuk, 2007. "Bequest and Tax Planning: Evidence from Estate Tax Returns," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(4), pages 1801-1854.
    7. Villalonga, Belen & Amit, Raphael, 2006. "How do family ownership, control and management affect firm value?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(2), pages 385-417, May.
    8. Simon H. Boserup & Wojciech Kopczuk & Claus T. Kreiner, 2016. "The Role of Bequests in Shaping Wealth Inequality: Evidence from Danish Wealth Records," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(5), pages 656-661, May.
    9. Nicholas Bloom & John Van Reenen, 2007. "Measuring and Explaining Management Practices Across Firms and Countries," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(4), pages 1351-1408.
    10. Joulfaian, David, 2004. "Gift taxes and lifetime transfers: time series evidence," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(9-10), pages 1917-1929, August.
    11. Goupille-Lebret, Jonathan & Infante, Jose, 2018. "Behavioral responses to inheritance tax: Evidence from notches in France," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 21-34.
    12. Peter Kuhn & Peter Kooreman & Adriaan Soetevent & Arie Kapteyn, 2011. "The Effects of Lottery Prizes on Winners and Their Neighbors: Evidence from the Dutch Postcode Lottery," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(5), pages 2226-2247, August.
    13. Elinder, Mikael & Erixson, Oscar & Waldenström, Daniel, 2018. "Inheritance and wealth inequality: Evidence from population registers," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 17-30.
    14. Elinder Mikael & Erixson Oscar & Ohlsson Henry, 2012. "The Impact of Inheritances on Heirs' Labor and Capital Income," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 12(1), pages 1-37, December.
    15. William G. Gale & John Karl Scholz, 1994. "Intergenerational Transfers and the Accumulation of Wealth," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 8(4), pages 145-160, Fall.
    16. Cagetti, Marco & De Nardi, Mariacristina, 2008. "Wealth Inequality: Data And Models," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 12(S2), pages 285-313, September.
    17. Aiyagari, S Rao, 1995. "Optimal Capital Income Taxation with Incomplete Markets, Borrowing Constraints, and Constant Discounting," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(6), pages 1158-1175, December.
    18. Judd, Kenneth L., 1985. "Redistributive taxation in a simple perfect foresight model," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 59-83, October.
    19. Page, Benjamin R., 2003. "Bequest taxes, inter vivos gifts, and the bequest motive," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(5-6), pages 1219-1229, May.
    20. Annette Alstadsæter & Martin Jacob & Wojciech Kopczuk & Kjetil Telle, 2016. "Accounting for Business Income in Measuring Top Income Shares: Integrated Accrual Approach Using Individual and Firm Data from Norway," NBER Working Papers 22888, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    21. Guido W. Imbens & Donald B. Rubin & Bruce I. Sacerdote, 2001. "Estimating the Effect of Unearned Income on Labor Earnings, Savings, and Consumption: Evidence from a Survey of Lottery Players," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(4), pages 778-794, September.
    22. Karen E. Dynan & Jonathan Skinner & Stephen P. Zeldes, 2002. "The Importance of Bequests and Life-Cycle Saving in Capital Accumulation: A New Answer," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(2), pages 274-278, May.
    23. Mariacristina De Nardi, 2004. "Wealth Inequality and Intergenerational Links," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 71(3), pages 743-768.
    24. Douglas Holtz-Eakin & Donald Marples, 2001. "Distortion Costs of Taxing Wealth Accumulation: Income Versus Estate Taxes," NBER Working Papers 8261, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    25. Diamond, Peter A, 1998. "Optimal Income Taxation: An Example with a U-Shaped Pattern of Optimal Marginal Tax Rates," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(1), pages 83-95, March.
    26. Ohlsson, Henry, 2011. "The legacy of the Swedish gift and inheritance tax, 1884–2004," European Review of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 15(3), pages 539-569, December.
    27. Kotlikoff, Laurence J & Summers, Lawrence H, 1981. "The Role of Intergenerational Transfers in Aggregate Capital Accumulation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(4), pages 706-732, August.
    28. Paul Johnson & Gareth Myles, 2011. "The Mirrlees Review," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 32(3), pages 319-329, September.
    29. Robert D. Brown, 1991. "A Primer on the Implementation of Wealth Taxes," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 17(3), pages 335-350, September.
    30. Kathleen McGarry, 2000. "Inter Vivos Transfers or Bequests? Estate Taxes and the Timing of Parental Giving," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 14, pages 93-122, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    31. Jesse Bricker & Lisa J. Dettling & Alice Henriques Volz & Joanne W. Hsu & Kevin B. Moore & John Edward Sabelhaus & Jeffrey P. Thompson & Richard Windle, 2014. "Changes in U.S. Family Finances from 2010 to 2013: Evidence from the Survey of Consumer Finances," Federal Reserve Bulletin, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.), vol. 100(4), September.
    32. Brunetti, Michael J., 2006. "The estate tax and the demise of the family business," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(10-11), pages 1975-1993, November.
    33. Jack M. Mintz, 1991. "The Role of Wealth Taxation in the Overall Tax System," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 17(3), pages 237-247, September.
    34. Emmanuel Saez, 2001. "Using Elasticities to Derive Optimal Income Tax Rates," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 68(1), pages 205-229.
    35. Scheve, Kenneth & Stasavage, David, 2012. "Democracy, War, and Wealth: Lessons from Two Centuries of Inheritance Taxation," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 106(1), pages 81-102, February.
    36. Davies, James B. & Shorrocks, Anthony F., 2000. "The distribution of wealth," Handbook of Income Distribution, in: A.B. Atkinson & F. Bourguignon (ed.), Handbook of Income Distribution, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 11, pages 605-675, Elsevier.
    37. Chamley, Christophe, 1986. "Optimal Taxation of Capital Income in General Equilibrium with Infinite Lives," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 54(3), pages 607-622, May.
    38. James M. Poterba, 2000. "Stock Market Wealth and Consumption," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(2), pages 99-118, Spring.
    39. Margarita Tsoutsoura, 2015. "The Effect of Succession Taxes on Family Firm Investment: Evidence from a Natural Experiment," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 70(2), pages 649-688, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Glogowsky, Ulrich, 2021. "Behavioral responses to inheritance and gift taxation: Evidence from Germany," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 193(C).
    2. repec:ces:ifodic:v:16:y:2018:i:2:p:50000000002755 is not listed on IDEAS

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Wojciech Kopczuk, 2012. "Taxation of Intergenerational Transfers and Wealth," NBER Working Papers 18584, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Goupille-Lebret, Jonathan & Infante, Jose, 2018. "Behavioral responses to inheritance tax: Evidence from notches in France," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 21-34.
    3. Margit Schratzenstaller, 2023. "Behavioral Responses to Inheritance Taxation. A Review of the Empirical Literature," WIFO Working Papers 668, WIFO.
    4. Marta Melguizo Garde, 2007. "La motivación de las transmisiones lucrativas entre generaciones de una familia: modelos teóricos y evidencia empírica," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 181(2), pages 81-118, June.
    5. Alexander Krenek & Margit Schratzenstaller-Altzinger & Klaus Grünberger & Andreas Thiemann, 2021. "INTAXMOD – Inheritance and Gift Taxation in the Context of Ageing," WIFO Working Papers 645, WIFO.
    6. Elinder, Mikael & Erixson, Oscar & Waldenström, Daniel, 2018. "Inheritance and wealth inequality: Evidence from population registers," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 17-30.
    7. James R. Hines & Niklas Potrafke & Marina Riem & Christoph Schinke, 2019. "Inter vivos transfers of ownership in family firms," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 26(2), pages 225-256, April.
    8. Spencer Bastani & Daniel Waldenström, 2020. "How Should Capital Be Taxed?," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(4), pages 812-846, September.
    9. Wojciech Kopczuk, 2010. "Economics of estate taxation: a brief review of theory and evidence," NBER Working Papers 15741, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Sommer, Eric, 2017. "Wealth Transfers and Tax Planning: Evidence for the German Bequest Tax," IZA Discussion Papers 11120, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. Elinder Mikael & Erixson Oscar & Ohlsson Henry, 2012. "The Impact of Inheritances on Heirs' Labor and Capital Income," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 12(1), pages 1-37, December.
    12. Oscar Erixson, 2017. "Health responses to a wealth shock: evidence from a Swedish tax reform," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 30(4), pages 1281-1336, October.
    13. Waldenstrom, Daniel & Bastani, Spencer, 2018. "How Should Capital Be Taxed? Theory and Evidence from Sweden," CEPR Discussion Papers 12880, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    14. Saez, Emmanuel & Stantcheva, Stefanie, 2018. "A simpler theory of optimal capital taxation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 120-142.
    15. Boháček, Radim & Kejak, Michal, 2018. "Optimal government policies in models with heterogeneous agents," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 834-858.
    16. Elinder, Mikael & Erixson, Oscar & Escobar, Sebastian & Ohlsson, Henry, 2014. "Estates, bequests, and inheritances in Sweden - A look into the Belinda databases," Working Paper Series, Center for Fiscal Studies 2014:14, Uppsala University, Department of Economics.
    17. von Werder, Marten, 2018. "Intergenerational transfers: How do they shape the German wealth distribution?," Discussion Papers 2018/15, Free University Berlin, School of Business & Economics.
    18. Wojciech Kopczuk & Joseph P. Lupton, 2007. "To Leave or Not to Leave: The Distribution of Bequest Motives," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 74(1), pages 207-235.
    19. Caballé, Jordi & Moro-Egido, Ana I., 2021. "Do aspirations reduce differences in wealth accumulation?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    20. Siha Lee & Kegon Teng Kok Tan, 2023. "Bequest Motives and the Social Security Notch," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 51, pages 888-914, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Estate tax; Capital gains tax;

    JEL classification:

    • H20 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - General
    • H30 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:11208. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.