Publications
Publications
- 2021
The Incidence of the Corporate Income Tax Is Irrelevant for Its (Benefit-Based) Justification
Abstract
Robust support for corporate income taxation is a puzzle for standard tax theory because the tax’s incidence is uncertain and unreliable. We propose a resolution: if the corporate tax is seen as a benefit-based tax, its normative appeal depends on the correspondence between its incidence and that of the benefit which corporations derive from the state’s activities. We show that a simple mechanism makes this correspondence exact—and the net incidence of the tax zero—when the tax base matches what we call the benefit base. As a result, the appeal of the corporate income tax is independent of incidence as conventionally understood.
Keywords
Citation
Weinzierl, Matthew C. "The Incidence of the Corporate Income Tax Is Irrelevant for Its (Benefit-Based) Justification." NBER Working Paper Series, No. 29547, December 2021.
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