000 03168cam a22003497 4500
001 w22778
003 NBER
005 20211020105120.0
006 m o d
007 cr cnu||||||||
008 210910s2016 mau fo 000 0 eng d
100 1 _aClarke, Conor.
245 1 0 _aBusiness Income and Business Taxation in the United States Since the 1950s /
_cConor Clarke, Wojciech Kopczuk.
260 _aCambridge, Mass.
_bNational Bureau of Economic Research
_c2016.
300 _a1 online resource:
_billustrations (black and white);
490 1 _aNBER working paper series
_vno. w22778
500 _aOctober 2016.
520 3 _aIn theory, the U.S. tax system aims to attribute and tax all business income to individuals. But the tax treatment of this income varies. Pass-through income is taxed when earned; capital-gains income is taxed when realized; dividends when distributed; other forms of business income may escape taxation entirely. Business owners often have control over the timing and character of their income: They can often choose, for example, between reporting business income or deducting it as wages or fringe benefits. And laws change, changing the incentive and ability to shift income between the individual and corporate sectors.
520 3 _aWe integrate a wide variety of tax data to document the large long-run changes in the structure of business income and business taxation in the United States. These changes include the degree to which business incomes are taxed on a realization versus an accrual basis, the extent to which taxation is deferred, and the share of business income that is ultimately subject to taxation. We highlight the evolving relevance of retained earnings in the changing corporate sector and their relationship to equity values and unrealized capital gains. We also document the evolution of individual income components -- profits of pass-through entities, dividends, and capital gains (both taxable gains and those escaping taxation through step-up). As a result of these changes, business incomes are increasingly taxed through personal income taxes instead of a combination of corporate and personal taxes. In particular, this implies that the observability of business incomes on personal income tax returns has improved over time, a fact that has implications for measuring and understanding the income distribution.
530 _aHardcopy version available to institutional subscribers
538 _aSystem requirements: Adobe [Acrobat] Reader required for PDF files.
538 _aMode of access: World Wide Web.
588 0 _aPrint version record
690 7 _aD31 - Personal Income, Wealth, and Their Distributions
_2Journal of Economic Literature class.
690 7 _aH25 - Business Taxes and Subsidies
_2Journal of Economic Literature class.
700 1 _aKopczuk, Wojciech.
_914494
710 2 _aNational Bureau of Economic Research.
830 0 _aWorking Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research)
_vno. w22778.
856 4 0 _uhttps://www.nber.org/papers/w22778
856 _yAcceso en lĂ­nea al DOI
_uhttp://dx.doi.org/10.3386/w22778
942 _2ddc
_cW-PAPER
999 _c325344
_d283906