Taxation and household portfolio composition: US evidence from the 1980s and 1990s

• 成果类型: Article; Proceedings Paper
• 署名作者: Poterba, JM; Samwick, AA
• 署名单位: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); National Bureau of Economic Research; Dartmouth College; National Bureau of Economic Research
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2727
• DOI: 10.1016/S0047-2727(01)00168-2
• 发表日期: 2003
• 页码: 5-38
• 关键词: household assets; portfolio share; taxation

摘要

This paper explores the relationship between household marginal income tax rates, the set of financial assets that households own, and the portfolio shares accounted for by each of these assets. It analyzes data from the 1983, 1989, 1992, 1995, and 1998 Surveys of Consumer Finances and develops a new algorithm for imputing federal marginal tax rates to households in these surveys. The empirical findings suggest that marginal tax rates have important effects on asset allocation decisions. The probability that a household owns tax-advantaged assets, such as tax-exempt bonds or assets held in tax-deferred accounts, is positively related to its tax rate on ordinary income. In addition, the portfolio share invested in corporate stock, which is taxed less heavily than interest bearing assets, is increasing in the household's ordinary income tax rate. Holdings of heavily taxed assets, such as interest-bearing accounts, decline as a share of wealth as a household's marginal tax rate increases. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.