Are Two Tax Rates Better than One?

Felix FitzRoy and Jim Jin ()

No 4167, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Should two-band income taxes be progressive given a general income distribution? We provide a negative answer under utilitarian and max-min welfare functions. While this result clarifies some ambiguities in the literature, it does not rule out progressive taxes in general. If we maximize total or weighted utility of the poor, as often intended by the society, progressive taxes can be justified, especially when the 'rich' are very rich. Under these objectives we obtain necessary conditions for progressive taxes, which only depend on aggregate features of income distributions. The validity of these conditions is examined using plausible income distributions.

Keywords: progressive tax; utilitarian; max-min; help the poor (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D40 H20 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 33 pages
Date: 2009-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-pub
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Working Paper: Are two tax rates better than one? (2009)
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