The effect of marginal tax rates on income: a panel study of ‘bracket creep’

This paper uses a panel of individual tax returns and the ‘bracket creep’ as source of tax rate variation to construct instrumental variables estimates of the sensitivity of income to changes in tax rates. From 1979 to 1981, the US income tax schedule was fixed in nominal terms while inflation was high (around 10%). This produced a real change in tax rate schedules. Taxpayers near the top-end of a tax bracket were more likely to creep to a...