Affiliation:
1. Office of Tax Analysis, US Treasury Department, 1500 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20220 (email: )
2. Joint Committee on Taxation, US Congress, 502 Ford House Office Building, Washington, DC 20515 (email: )
Abstract
Many studies have used tax data to measure the U.S. income distribution, but their results vary widely. For example, in 2014 the top 1 percent share of income is 21.5 percent in Piketty and Saez (2003 and updates), 16.7 percent in the Congressional Budget Office (2018), and 13.1 percent in our analysis. What accounts for such large differences? We provide a step-by-step analysis of how methodological differences affect the results and address issues raised in Piketty, Saez, and Zucman (2018, 2019). Important differences include accounting for declining marriage rates, including social insurance and employer benefits, accounting for tax reforms, and including income missing from tax returns.
Publisher
American Economic Association
Cited by
26 articles.
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