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On the Marginal Excess Burden of Taxation in an Overlapping Generations Model

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  • Chung Tran
  • Sebastian Wende
Abstract
We quantify marginal excess burden, defined as the change in deadweight loss for an additional dollar of tax revenue, for different taxes. We use a dynamic general equilibrium, overlapping generations model featured with heterogeneous agents and a realistic structure of corporate finance and taxes. Our main results, based on an economy calibrated to Australian data, indicate that company taxes are more distorting than personal income and consumption taxes. Specifically, the marginal excess burden for the company income tax is 83 cents per dollar of tax revenue raised, compared to 34 cents and 24 cents for the personal income and consumption taxes, respectively. A broader analysis of more tax instruments confrim that the relatively larger excess burden of company taxes ultimately falls on households. Importantly, the marginal excess burden is distributed unevenly across skill types, generations and ages. This highlights political challenges when obtaining popular support for raising taxes. Hence, our analysis demonstrates that marginal excess burden can be an useful tool for evaluating both eciency and distributional implications of a tax increase at the margin.

Suggested Citation

  • Chung Tran & Sebastian Wende, 2017. "On the Marginal Excess Burden of Taxation in an Overlapping Generations Model," ANU Working Papers in Economics and Econometrics 2017-652, Australian National University, College of Business and Economics, School of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:acb:cbeeco:2017-652
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    File URL: https://www.cbe.anu.edu.au/researchpapers/econ/wp652.pdf
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    5. Janine M. Dixon & Jason Nassios, 2018. "A Dynamic Economy-wide Analysis of Company Tax Cuts in Australia," Centre of Policy Studies/IMPACT Centre Working Papers g-287, Victoria University, Centre of Policy Studies/IMPACT Centre.
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    9. Chung Tran & Sebastian Wende, 2020. "Incidence of Capital Income Taxation in a Lifecycle Economy with Firm Heterogeneity," ANU Working Papers in Economics and Econometrics 2019-670, Australian National University, College of Business and Economics, School of Economics.
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Taxation; scal distortion; overlapping generations; skill hetero-geneity; corporate nance; deadweight loss; dynamic general equilibrium; welfare;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory
    • H21 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Efficiency; Optimal Taxation
    • H22 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Incidence
    • H24 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Personal Income and Other Nonbusiness Taxes and Subsidies
    • H25 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Business Taxes and Subsidies

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