Higher Tax Rates on Labor? Evidence from German Panel Data

Abstract

This contribution investigates the justifiable spread between labor and capital income tax rates under a dual income tax, based on arguments put forth in Nielsen and Sørensen (1997). An efficient generalized instrumental variables estimator proposed by Hausman and Taylor (1981) is employed in a Mincer-type wage equation, which is estimated on recent data taken from the German Socio-Economic Panel. The estimated wage patterns yield approximations of the required divergence between the tax rates on labor and capital income for the case of university graduates. The required surcharges are sizable and exceed the ones prevailing under the current German income tax system.