GM makes some excellent points, not the least of which is how deceptively the media and politicians talk about various tax plans.
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I would like to begin with what I hope is a noncontroversial proposition: Rich people are
not all the same.
I bring up this fact because we live in a time when inequality is high, when demonizing
the rich is popular in some political circles, and when various policies are being proposed to
increase the redistribution of economic resources. In this brief essay, I won’t comment on
whether we should redistribute more. That question is hard, and it involves less economics than political philosophy, which is not my comparative advantage. Rather, I will assume we are going
to increase redistribution and discuss alternative ways to do so. As we evaluate the many
proposals, it is worth keeping in mind some of the ways rich people differ from one another.
Consider two hypothetical CEOs of major corporations. Each of them earns, say, $10
million a year, putting them in the top one-hundredth of one percent of the income distribution.
But other than in their incomes, the two executives are very different.
One executive, whom I will call Sam Spendthrift, uses all his money living the high life.
He drinks expensive wine, drives Ferraris, and flies his private jet to lavish vacations. He gives
large amounts to political parties and candidates, hoping these contributions will get him an
ambassadorship someday. When that does not work, he spends large sums financing his own
quixotic run for the presidency.
The other executive, whom I will call Frank Frugal, makes just as much money as Sam,
but he takes a different approach to his good fortune. He lives modestly, saving most his earnings
and accumulating a sizable nest egg. He forgoes the opportunity to influence the political
process. Instead, he invests his money in successful start-ups, which he is quite good at
identifying. He plans to leave some of his wealth to his children, grandchildren, nephews, and
nieces. Most of his wealth, however, he plans to bequeath to the endowment of his alma mater,
where it will support financial aid for generations to come.
Ask yourself: Who should pay higher taxes? Sam Spendthrift or Frank Frugal?
I can see the case for taxing them the same. After all, they have the same earnings. One
might argue that how they choose to spend their money is not an issue for the government to
judge or influence.
I am more inclined, however, to think Mr. Frugal should be taxed less than Mr.
Spendthrift. The argument is Pigovian. Mr. Frugal’s behavior confers positive externalities, both
on members of his extended family and on the beneficiaries of his charitable bequest. Moreover,
by increasing the economy’s capital stock, his saving reduces the return to capital and increases
labor productivity and real wages. If one is concerned about the income distribution, this
pecuniary externality can also be viewed as desirable.
What I find hard to believe is that Mr. Frugal should face higher taxes than Mr.
Spendthrift. But that is what occurs under some of the policy proposals now being widely
discussed. I am referring in particular to the wealth taxes advocated by Senators Elizabeth
Warren and Bernie Sanders, both of whom are now running for the Democratic nomination for
president. These taxes, if successfully implemented, would hit Frank Frugal hard but would be
much easier on Sam Spendthrift.
There are better ways to redistribute economic resources, ways that do not penalize
frugality. In particular, I am attracted to the policy now being championed by Andrew Yang, the
former tech executive and entrepreneur who is also running for the Democratic nomination. Mr.
Yang proposes enacting a value-added tax and using the revenue to provide every American
adult with a universal basic income of $1,000 per month, which he calls a “freedom dividend.”
It’s easy to see how the Yang proposal would work. Value-added taxes are essentially
sales taxes, and they have proven remarkably efficient in raising revenue in many European
countries. And because the dividend is universal, it would be simple to administer.
The idea of a universal basic income is not new, but it is bold. Of course, the idea has its
critics. But, from my perspective, the critics often rely on arguments that do not hold up under
scrutiny. Let me use an example to explain why.
Consider two plans aimed at providing a social safety net. (For our purposes here, let’s
keep things simple by assuming both are balanced-budget plans.)
A. A means-tested transfer of $1,000 per month aimed at the truly need. The full
amount goes to those with zero income. The transfer is phased out: Recipients
lose 20 cents of it for every dollar of income they earn. These transfers are
financed by a progressive income tax: The government taxes 20 percent on all
income above $60,000 per year.
B. A universal transfer of $1,000 per month for every person, financed by a 20
percent flat tax on all income.
Would you prefer to live in a society with safety net A or safety net B?
When I asked this question to a group of Harvard undergraduates, over 90 percent
concluded that plan A is better. Their arguments were roughly as follows: Plan A targets transfer
payments on those who need the money most. As a result, it requires a smaller tax increase, and
the taxes are levied only on those with high incomes. Plan B is crazy. Why should rich people
like Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos receive a government transfer? They don’t need it, and we would
need to raise taxes more to pay for it.
Superficially, those arguments might seem compelling, but here is the rub: The two
policies are equivalent. Look at the net payment— that is, taxes less transfers. Everyone is
exactly the same under the two plans. A person with zero income gets $12,000 per year in both
cases. A person with annual income of $60,000 gets zero in both cases. A person with income of
$160,000 pays $20,000 in both cases. And everyone always faces an effective marginal tax rate
of 20 percent.
In other words, everyone’s welfare is identical under the two policies, and everyone faces
the same incentive. The difference between plan A and plan B is only a matter of framing.
This example teaches two lessons. First, if you find something like plan A attractive and
you recognize the equivalence of plan A and plan B, you should find something like plan B
attractive. Many critics of universal basic income fail to make this leap because they do not
notice the equivalence of these two approaches. Once you see the equivalence, Plan B is easier to
embrace. And it looks even better when you realize that universal benefits and flat taxes are
easier to administer than means-tested benefits and progressive taxes.
The second lesson from this example is how misleading it can be to focus on taxes and
transfers separately. It is accurate to say that Plan A has lower taxes, more progressive taxes, and
more progressive transfers. But so what? Those facts do not stop it from being precisely
equivalent to plan B. The equivalence is clear only when taxes and transfers are considered
together.
I stress this fact because it is all too common to see academic papers and media articles
describe the distribution of taxes without considering the distribution of the transfers they
finance. Such presentations of the data are incomplete to the point of being deceptive. With
incomplete reporting, one might be led conclude that a society using plan A is more progressive
than a society using plan B. But that is not the case because the policies are functionally the
same.
Finally, I should note that the safety net described by either plan A or plan B is just a
version of the negative income tax that Milton Friedman proposed in his book Capitalism and
Freedom back in 1962. I remember reading about it as a student 40 years ago and thinking it was
a good idea. And I was not alone in that judgment: In 1968, more than 1000 economists signed a
letter endorsing such a plan, including luminaries like James Tobin, Paul Samuelson, Peter
Diamond, and Martin Feldstein. Andrew Yang’s version, which focuses on taxing consumption
rather than income, is even better than Friedman’s, because it wouldn’t distort the incentive to
save and invest.
Could 1000 economists all be wrong? Well, yes, they could. But my judgment is that, in
this case, they are not. A universal basic income, financed by an efficient tax like a value-added
tax (or perhaps a carbon tax), might be a social safety net well worth considering.
I am not predicting that this idea will have much success in the current political
environment. But I find it reassuring that good ideas keep popping up in the political discourse.
Maybe someday they might even influence actual policy.
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