TY  - JOUR
AU  - Barro,Robert J.
AU  - Sahasakul,Chaipat
TI  - Measuring the Average Marginal Tax Rate from the Individual Income Tax
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 1060
PY  - 1984
Y2  - June 1984
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w1060
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w1060.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Robert J. Barro
Department of Economics
Littauer Center 218
Harvard University
Cambridge, MA 02138
Tel: 617/495-3203
Fax: 617/496-8629
E-Mail: rbarro@harvard.edu
AB  - The economic effects of taxation depend on the configuration of marginal tax rates. We consider here the appropriate measure of a marginal tax rate for the federal individual income tax, which has a graduated-rate structure and allows for numerous legal and illegal deductions from total income.Our conclusion is that the explicit marginal rate from the tax schedule is the right concept for many purposes.Hence, we construct approximately weighted averages of these marginal tax rates for 1916-80. When weighted by adjusted gross income, the arithmetic average of marginal tax rates is 5% in 1920, 2%in 1930, 6% in 1940, 20% in 1950, 23% in 1960, 24% in 1970, and 30% in 1980.We also discuss the dispersion of marginal tax rates, as well as the behavior of average tax rates and deductions from taxable income. One noteworthy result concerns the fraction of adjusted gross income that accrues to families that face a marginal tax rate of at least 35%. This fraction quadruples from 1964 to 1980.
ER  -