Efficiency effects of tax deductions for work-related expenses

Wolfram Richter

International Tax and Public Finance, 2006, vol. 13, issue 6, 685-699

Abstract: This paper studies the efficiency effects of granting deductions for work-related expenses. It is shown that much depends on whether the expenses are required for increasing taxable income and on whether the expenses are social costs. Among the noteworthy results are the following. Expenses for commuting should be taxed rather than granted deduction, as the increasing effect of commuting on taxable income is doubtful. Deductions for private costs such as expenses for housework and child care may turn out to be allocationally neutral. If they are not neutral, however, the efficient degree of deduction depends on relative labor supply elasticities. Copyright Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2006

Keywords: Income tax deductions; Commuting; Housework; Child care; Educational expenses; Efficient taxation; Production efficiency (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10797-006-6602-6 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Efficiency Effects of Tax Deductions for Work-Related Expenses (2004)
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:kap:itaxpf:v:13:y:2006:i:6:p:685-699

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... ce/journal/10797/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s10797-006-6602-6

Access Statistics for this article

International Tax and Public Finance is currently edited by Ronald B. Davies and Kimberly Scharf

More articles in International Tax and Public Finance from Springer, International Institute of Public Finance Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().