All in the Family: Assessing Need in the Fiscal Unit

Kevin Milligan

Canadian Tax Journal, 2022, vol. 70, issue Supplement, 209-229

Abstract: This paper contrasts the measurement of family neediness based on economic units used for economic analysis and fiscal units used for tax purposes. The paper makes three contributions to the literature. First, the author identifies ways in which the economic unit and the fiscal unit are in discord and argues why this matters. Second, he presents evidence of the prevalence of discord between measures of neediness based on economic and fiscal units; he finds that about 28 percent of Canadians live in economic units that differ from their fiscal units. Third, the author demonstrates the quantitative relevance of this discord using two case studies. In a case study of the measurement of poverty, he finds that about half of the people living in fiscal units that appear needy when only the fiscal unit's income is considered are not below the official poverty line when the economic unit's income is used. In the other case study, the author finds that a proposed basic income scheme spends almost two-thirds of its budget on people who are not in poverty and 40 percent on children age 18 and over living with their parents.

Keywords: Income taxes; families; transfers; poverty; tax policy; Carter commission (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.ctf.ca/EN/Publications/CTJ_Contents/2022CTJSP.aspx (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ctf:journl:v:70:y:2022:i:supp:p:209-229

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
Canadian Tax Foundation, 145 Wellington Street West, Suite 1400, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5J 1H8
https://www.ctf.ca/E ... ns_ListingBooks.aspx

DOI: 10.32721/ctj.2022.70.supp.milligan

Access Statistics for this article

Canadian Tax Journal is currently edited by Kim Brooks, Kevin Milligan, and Daniel Sandler

More articles in Canadian Tax Journal from Canadian Tax Foundation Canadian Tax Foundation, 145 Wellington Street West, Suite 1400, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5J 1H8.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jim Lyons ().