Chapter 36 Personal Income Taxes

Chapter 36Personal Income TaxesChapter OutlineHOW INCOME TAXES WORKISSUES IN INCOME TAXATIONINCENTIVES AND THE TAX CODE THE TAX DEBATE OF THE 1990s AND BEYONDWhere Personal Income Taxes FitIn 2000 the federal government collected $1,956 billion in taxes.$952 billion of that was collected from the personal income tax.The remainder was collected in payroll taxes (for Social Security and Medicare), corporate income taxes, tariffs and other taxes.How Income Taxes Work When people get a new job they fill out a W-4 which is used to calculate withholding (an estimate as to how much tax you are going to owe on the earned income). This money is taken out of a paycheck and sent, by the employer to the federal government.The estimate is reconciled with actual income taxes owed with the Income Tax Return filed by April 15th of the following year.The Vocabulary of Income TaxesAdjusted Gross Income (AGI)total net income from all sourcesExemptionsan amount by which AGI is reduced that is determined by the size of the familyDeductionsamounts by which AGI is reduced; the greater of either the standard deduction (the minimum level of deduction)or itemized deductions (deductions for particular expenses on which the government does not want taxes paid)Taxable IncomeAGI-Exemptions-DeductionsMore VocabularyFiling Statusthe type of household for tax purposes (Single, Married Filing Jointly, Married Filing Separately and Single Head of Household)Marginal Tax Rate the percentage of each dollar in that bracket that must be paid in taxTax CreditsThe reductions off of the amount of tax owed.How the Pieces Fit Together: 2000 Tax YearHorizontal Equityequal people should be treated equallyVertical Equitypeople across the income scale are treated fairly with regard to ability to payProgressive Income Taxwith higher income you pay a higher rate of tax. The marginal tax rate rises from 15% to 28% to 31% and higher as taxable income rises.Issues in Income Taxation: FairnessIssues in Income Taxation: The Equity-Simplicity TradeoffEconomists want a tax code to be neutral (a characteristic of a tax code that implies that it does not favor particular forms of income or expenditure).For neutrality to happen taxes must often be complicated. Consider capital gains (any profit you have from asset sales) as an example. It order to tax capital gains in a neutral way to other income you have to make capital gains tax rules very complicated.Capital GainsTo be neutral you should not tax the gains that exist only because of inflation,tax each year based on the paper increases or decreases in value (called on accrual) rather than when the asset is sold (called on realization)tax the capital gains on assets of those who have died before they sold their assets.To be simple you shouldtax all gains,tax only on realization,Forgive capital gains taxes on death (because locating the paperwork is difficult.What we doTax all gains on realization while forgiving gains for those who have died. The tax rate is lower for capital gains than for ordinary income.Incentives in the Tax SystemWhether the income tax discourages or encourages work or savings boils down to the income effect and the substitution effect of that tax policy.Income effect The effect on work or saving just accounting for the tax money taken away.Substitution effect The effect on work or saving just accounting for the change in the relative value of working or saving.Empirical Evidence on IncentivesWorkMost economists have found that there is nearly no impact of tax rates on number of hours worked. Some estimate that it takes an 8% increase in the marginal tax rate to reduce work by 1%.SavingThere are differing estimates of the impact but most economists agree that an increase in taxes reduces savings slightly. One estimate has a 2.5% decrease in the after-tax interest rate decreasing savings by 1%.Taxes for Social EngineeringTax Incentives exist to induce people toSave for college.Send their children to college.It is uncertain whether these tax provisions cause people to go to college.Who Pays the Federal Income Taxesthe bottom half of taxpayers pays only 5% of the income tax while the top half pays the remaining 95%. the top 10% of taxpayers accounts for 63% of federal income taxes paid The top 5% of taxpayers accounts for more than half of federal income taxes paid Who Pays Income Taxes: A Graphical PortrayalHigher income earners pay a higher percentage of the income than they receive in income. The red line indicates perfect equality and the income line is closer to equality than the tax line.Tax DebatesThe tax debates between Republicans and Democrats tend to boil down to whether tax cuts should go toThe people who pay federal income taxes. The people who “need” the money.An across-the-board tax cutwill go almost entirely to people in the top 50% of income earners and more than half will go the top 5%.will change the after-tax income distribution in favor of high-income taxpayers.