Inflation and the Personal Income Tax

Abstract

Although it has long been recognised that inflation may have important consequences for the level and distribution of the burden of a progressive personal income tax, it is only with the recent sustained acceleration in the rate of increase of the general price level that these relationships have become matters of serious concern. A number of Western economies, including Iceland (in 1965), the Netherlands (1972) and, most recently, Canada (1974), have introduced schemes for linking the main parameters of the income tax to an index of consumer prices, and considerable interest has been shown in the possibility of a similar reform in this country.