Measuring Top Incomes Using Tax Record Data: A Cautionary Tale from Australia

Richard Burkhauser, Markus Hahn and Roger Wilkins ()

Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series from Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne

Abstract: Atkinson, Piketty, and Saez (2011) survey an important new literature using income taxbased data to measure the share of income held by top income groups. But changes in tax legislation that expand the tax base to include income sources (e.g. capital gains, dividends, etc.) disproportionately held by these groups will conflate such an expansion with an increase in the share of income they hold. We provide a cautionary tale from Australia of how comprehensive tax reform legislation in 1985 substantially altered Australian top income series, especially those that do not separate taxable realized capital gains from other taxable income.

Keywords: Top incomes; income inequality; personal income; tax-based data (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D3 H2 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 72pp
Date: 2013-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-acc, nep-cwa and nep-ltv
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Measuring top incomes using tax record data: a cautionary tale from Australia (2015)
Working Paper: Measuring Top Incomes Using Tax Record Data: A Cautionary Tale from Australia (2013)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iae:iaewps:wp2013n24

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