TY - BOOK AU - Kaplow,Louis ED - National Bureau of Economic Research. TI - On the Taxation of Private Transfers T2 - NBER working paper series PY - 2010/// CY - Cambridge, Mass. PB - National Bureau of Economic Research N1 - March 2010; Hardcopy version available to institutional subscribers N2 - This essay considers the appropriate conceptual framework for assessing the taxation of private transfers to individuals. Although it is conventional to emphasize the role of estate and gift taxation or inheritance taxation in redistributing income from the rich to the poor, the revenue effects of transfer taxation, and its distortionary effect on labor supply and savings, it is suggested in line with some recent work that the dominant focus should be on positive and negative externalities attributable to giving. The fundamental reason is that transfer tax reform can be combined with adjustments to other aspects of the fiscal system, notably the income tax, so as to keep constant most effects other than externalities UR - https://www.nber.org/papers/w15818 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.3386/w15818 ER -