Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/246312 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Series/Report no.: 
Working Paper No. 2022
Version Description: 
First version: August 2015
Publisher: 
Johannes Kepler University of Linz, Department of Economics, Linz
Abstract: 
The desirability of inheritance and gift taxes depends on individuals' tax responsiveness. This paper demonstrates how strongly, and in what way, the German inheritance and gift tax influences taxpayer behavior. To that end, it combines administrative data with cross-bracket tax variation: a convex kink in the tax liability precedes a concave kink. Extending the bunching approach to such double-kinked tax schedules, I document that individuals tailor their taxable wealth transfers to the schedules. One type of response dominates for inheritances: testators engage in testament planning. The magnitude of the testament-planning response is comparable to that of inter vivos gifts. However, neither the overall responses of gifts nor those of inheritances heavily interfere with tax revenue collection: the associated short-run net-of-tax elasticities of taxable wealth transfers lie below 0.1.
Subjects: 
Wealth-Transfer Tax
Inheritance Tax
Gift Tax
Estate Tax
Real Responses
Tax Avoidance
Tax Evasion
Behavioral Responses
Bunching at Kinks
JEL: 
H2
H20
H21
H24
H26
H31
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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