Did the Death of Australian Inheritance Taxes Affect Deaths?

Joshua Gans and Andrew Leigh

The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, 2006, vol. 6, issue 1, 9

Abstract: In 1979, Australia abolished federal inheritance taxes. Using daily deaths data, we show that approximately 50 deaths were shifted from the week before the abolition to the week after. This amounts to over half of those who would have been eligible to pay the tax. Although we cannot rule out the possibility that our results are driven by misreporting, our results imply that over the very short run, the death rate may be highly elastic with respect to the inheritance tax rate.

Keywords: behavioural responses to taxation; timing of deaths; estate tax (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

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DOI: 10.2202/1538-0653.1654

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