TY  - JOUR
AU  - Feenberg,Daniel R.
AU  - Rosen,Harvey S.
TI  - Alternative Tax Treatments of the Family: Simulation Methodology and Results
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 497
PY  - 1980
Y2  - July 1980
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w0497
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w0497.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Daniel R. Feenberg
National Bureau of Economic Research
1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
Tel: 617/588-0343
Fax: 617/868-2742
E-Mail: feenberg@nber.org

Harvey S. Rosen
Department of Economics
Fisher Hall
Princeton University
Princeton, NJ 08544-1021
Tel: 609/258-4022
Fax: 609/258-6419
E-Mail: HSR@princeton.edu
M1  - published as Daniel R. Feenberg, Harvey S. Rosen. "Alternative Tax Treatments of the Family: Simulation Methodology and Results," in Martin Feldstein, ed., "Behavioral Simulation Methods in Tax Policy Analysis" University of Chicago Press (1983)

AB  - A number of suggestions have been made to reform the tax treatment of the family. None of these proposals has been accompanied by careful estimates of their effects on the income distribution, revenue collections, and labor supply. The purpose of this paper is to provide such information. Our analysis is based upon a series of simulations using the TAXSIM file of the National 3ureau of Economic Research, which contains information from a sample of tax returns filed in 1974. Substantial attention is devoted to the problem of imputing data that are absent from TAXSIM. The simulations assume that wives' labor supply behavior depends upon the tax system. The tax reforms simulated include various exemptions and credits for secondary workers, as well as changes in the rules governing filing status. In a number of cases we find that allowing for even a modest behavioral response leads to substantial changes in the revenue implications of the proposals.
ER  -