Distribution of the Tax Burden Across Individuals: An Overview

[摘要] This report discusses in the first section different philosophies about how the tax burden should be distributed, and what those philosophies imply for the shape of the tax system. In particular, it addresses the question of the justifications for a progressive tax system (one where the share of income collected as a tax rises as income rises). This section is presented for the interested reader, but is not a necessary preliminary to examining the analysis in the second section, which presents estimates of the distribution of the federal and total U.S. tax burden. The third section of the report discusses the measures that can be used to characterize the distributional effects of tax changes.

[发布日期] 2004-12-13 [发布机构] Library of Congress. Congressional Research Service.

[关键词] Tax incidence;Income tax;Tax policy;Taxation;Tax administration