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Income Tax Hypothesis

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To test the hypothesis of increasing income taxes causes people to find ways to avoid tax or causes citizens to work less, ultimately reducing the tax rate can be tested at the national level, as well as, the state level. In one state a higher income tax rate could cause people to work more, but when increasing income taxes is tested at the national level the average might prove the opposite. In order to test the effects of increasing income taxes I would suggest a data set that is aimed more at the national level. The data set provided by the Internal Revenue Service has tax years from 1996 to 2013, ranging in different adjusted gross incomes of $0 to $10,000,000 or more. With the years provided as well as the different income brackets the data shows how many people were a part of a certain income level at one point of time and in another point of time when the tax rates can be increased how many people switched income brackets. Variable such as GDP and the unemployment rate could be factored in, which would allow a regression to be ran and then one could find out if the increasing tax rates does reduce the tax rate at the national level. …show more content…

The data set is provided by the United States Census Bureau and it breaks down income taxes as well as individual income tax by different states. Why I think looking at the effects of increasing income taxes at the state level is the certain states that might not have such a large population such as Montana or Alaska might have more of an effect on the reduction in the tax rate, and the opposite might prove true for states such as California, or Texas. The variables in these different states might be different such as the unemployment rate in California might be higher than it is in Montana so that might have more of an effect on the tax rate. In other words, to look at the whole one must look at the pieces

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