Risk-Taking and Optimal Taxation with Nontradable Human Capital

Risk-Taking and Optimal Taxation with Nontradable Human Capital
Author: Zuliu Hu
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 22
Release: 1992-12-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1451947429

What are the effects of taxation on individual/entrepreneurs’ risk-taking behavior? This paper re-examines this old question in a continuous time life-cycle model. We demonstrate that the stream of uncertain income from human capital has systematic effects on demand for the risky physical capital asset. If labor supply is inelastic and real wages are known with certainty, then a labor income tax will reduce holdings of the risky physical asset. However, if there are random fluctuations in labor income, then the effect depends on the nature of interaction between wage risk and investment income risk. A labor income tax may actually raise demand for the risky capital asset if human capital risk and physical capital risk are positively correlated. The idiosyncratic risk and nontradability of human capital also have implications for optimal taxation. When the insurance and disincentive effects are jointly taken into account, a Pareto efficient tax structure implies a strictly positive tax rate.

Progressivity of Capital Gains Taxation with Optimal Portfolio Selection

Progressivity of Capital Gains Taxation with Optimal Portfolio Selection
Author: Andrew B. Lyon
Publisher:
Total Pages: 48
Release: 2010
Genre:
ISBN:

We provide new data on capital gains realizations using a five-year stratified panel of taxpayers covering 1985-1989. We find, as earlier studies have, that capital gains realizations are very concentrated among the highest income groups. We use these data and data from the Federal Reserve Board Survey of Consumer Finances to draw inferences from a simulation model of the effects on progressivity and efficiency of alternative tax treatment of capital gains. Tax payments alone are not an accurate indication of the burden of a tax. Taxes generally create costs beyond the dollar value collected by causing persons to change their behavior to avoid the tax. Risk is also affected by the tax system. Beneficial risk-sharing characteristics of the tax system are frequently overlooked when examining the treatment of capital gains, We find that reforms comprising reductions in the capital gains tax rate offset by increases in the tax rate on other investment income are efficiency reducing. Surprisingly, we find that for taxpayers for whom loss limits are not binding a switch to accrual taxation is also efficiency reducing. For those taxpayers for whom loss limits are potentially binding, we find that large efficiency gains can be achieved by increasing the amount of capital losses that may be deducted against ordinary income. These results are partly attributable to changes in risk-sharing encompassed in these reforms.

Dynamic Firm and Investor Behaviour under Progressive Personal Taxation

Dynamic Firm and Investor Behaviour under Progressive Personal Taxation
Author: Geert-Jan C.T.van Schijndel
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2012-12-06
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 3642466370

This book aims to include the effects of a progressive personal tax into the deterministic dynamic theory of the firm. To this end the author investigates the impact of a progressive personal tax on the optimal dividend, financing and investment policy of a shareholder-controlled, value-maximising firm. More specifically, the principal aim is the justification of the thesis that during each stage of their evolution, firms will be controlled by investors in different tax brackets. With this aim in mind, the author develops a dynamic equilibrium and portfolio theory under certainty, which considers: - the market value of an arbitrary firm such that no excess demand for or supply of shares exists, - the portfolio selection of differently taxed investors, - the succession of differently taxed investors, who possess the shares of any value-maximizing firm, in the course of time, - the optimal resulting policy string and corresponding evolution of a firm in the course of time.

Taxation and Portfolio Structure

Taxation and Portfolio Structure
Author: James M. Poterba
Publisher:
Total Pages: 68
Release: 2001
Genre: Economics
ISBN:

Overview of how taxation affects household portfolio structure. It begins by outlining six aspects of portfolio behavior that may be influenced by the tax system. These are asset selection, asset allocation, borrowing, asset location in taxable and tax-deferred accounts, asset turnover, and whether to hold assets directly or through financial intermediaries. The analysis considers how ignoring tax considerations may bias estimates of how other variables, such as income or net worth, affect the structure of household portfolios. The paper then describes the tax rules that apply to various portfolio instruments in a range of major industrialized nations. This illustrates the wide variation in the potential impact of tax rules on portfolio choice. Finally, the paper selectively reviews the existing evidence on how taxation affects portfolio choice. A small but growing literature, primarily based on the analysis of U.S. data, suggests that taxes have important effects on several aspects of portfolio choice. There remain a number of decisions, however, for which it appears difficult to reconcile household choices with tax-efficient behavior.

Portfolio Choices with Taxes

Portfolio Choices with Taxes
Author: Jennifer Huang
Publisher:
Total Pages: 130
Release: 2003
Genre:
ISBN:

I analyze the intertemporal portfolio problem of an investor who has access to both taxable and tax-deferred (retirement) accounts. In a complete-market setting, through a tax-arbitrage argument, I show that tax-deferred accounts have only a wealth effect on overall portfolio decisions through the effective tax subsidy provided, and the optimal location decision of where to place an asset is separable from the allocation decision of overall portfolio composition among different assets. Investors optimally hold only the asset that provides the highest effective tax subsidy in their tax-deferred accounts, and their optimal portfolio allocation is determined by reducing the two-account problem to a taxable-account-only problem with the wealth level adjusted for tax subsidies. I also provide heuristic rules to rank assets by their corresponding effective tax subsidies for application purposes. In incomplete markets when investors face borrowing and short-selling constraints, I first solve a reduced-form version of the general model to provide conditions under which the complete-market optimal location decision of preferring the higher-taxed assets in the tax-deferred account is violated, and derive analytical solutions for the optimal portfolio allocation by transforming the two-account problem into a mixture of two single-account problems (one with only a taxable account and one with only a tax-deferred account). For financial planning purposes, I also derive convenient "rules of thumb" to approximate theoretical results. I finally solve a version of the general model numerically both to access the performance of heuristic rules in approximating the optimal portfolio decisions, and to quantify the impact of tax-deferred investing on individual saving decisions.

Personal Taxation, Portfolio Choice and The Effect of the Corporation Income Tax

Personal Taxation, Portfolio Choice and The Effect of the Corporation Income Tax
Author: Martin Feldstein
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 1980
Genre:
ISBN:

Extending the traditional treatment of the corporate tax to an economy with a progressive personal tax fundamentally changes the analysis. While the corporate tax system (CTS) does increase the total tax rate on corporate source income for some investors, the exclusion of retained earnings implies that the CTS lowers the tax rate for high-income investors. Analyzing such an economy requires replacing the traditional "equal-yield" equilibrium condition with a more general portfolio balance model. In this model, introducing a CTS can actually increase the corporate share of the capital stock even though the relative tax rate on corporate income rises.