Taxation, Incentives and Disincentives, and Human Motivation

Lowell Harriss

American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 1985, vol. 44, issue 2, 129-136

Abstract: Abstract. In the national tax debate, many ignore the effect of taxes on human motivation. High—and rising—marginal tax rates must be depressing, hampering and frustrating. They do not spur people on to better performance nor do they reward socially necessary or desirable economic behavior. What they encourage is distortion of resource allocation, legal avoidance and illegal evasion, as well as decline in human and capital resources. At both ends of the income scale they approach confiscation. Land apart from its improvements is taxed lightly when it should be the revenue source of choice taxed the most heavily, while the heaviest exactions discourage labor, enterprise and all human effort as well as savings. Equity and fairness along with the social consequences argue for large cuts in high tax rates at the top and at the bottom of the income scale.

Date: 1985
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