Economics of estate taxation
Subtitle: a brief review of theory and evidence
By: Wojciech Kopczuk.
Contributors: National Bureau of Economic Research.
Series: NBER working paper series -- working paper 15741; Working paper series (National Bureau of Economic Research : Online) -- working paper no. 15741.
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research
Published: 2010
Place of publication: Cambridge, MA
Language: eng
Format: Electronic resource
Description: "The NBER Bulletin on Aging and Health provides summaries of publications like this.  You can sign up to receive the NBER Bulletin on Aging and Health by email.  This paper provides a non-technical overview of the economic arguments related to the desirability of transfer taxation and a summary of empirical evidence surrounding these issues.  Understanding optimal transfer taxation throughout the distribution requires understanding the nature of a bequest motive, a topic on which there is little consensus.  However, I argue that progress still can be made on the question of desirability and optimal level of estate taxation at the top of the distribution, because interpersonal externalities implied by the presence of bequest motive are irrelevant from the welfare point of view when the focus is on the wealthy.  I also examine the role of negative externalities from wealth concentration in providing justification for considering this type of taxation"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site.
Notes: Title from PDF file as viewed on 3/16/2010.

Includes bibliographical references.

Also available in print.

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Mode of access: World Wide Web.