Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/207208 
Year of Publication: 
2019
Series/Report no.: 
CESifo Working Paper No. 7817
Publisher: 
Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo), Munich
Abstract: 
This paper addresses the modern optimal tax progressivity literature, which clarifies the key role of the behavioral response to taxation and accounts for the incomes of the superrich being qualitatively different than others. Some may be “superstars,” for whom small differences in talent are magnified into much larger earnings differences, while others may work in winner-take-all markets, such that their effort to climb the ladder of success reduces the returns to others. We stress that pivotal tax-rate elasticities are not structural parameters, and will be smaller the broader and less plastic is the tax base and the more effective is the enforcement of tax evasion. For this reason, normative analysis of tax rates should be accompanied by attention to the tax base, with special attention to capital gains, which comprise a large fraction of the taxable income of the superrich.
Subjects: 
superrich
tax systems
superstars
winter-take-all markets
plasticity of taxable income
wealth taxes
JEL: 
E60
H20
J30
Document Type: 
Working Paper
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