Taxation and the New 'Progressives'

Abstract

Larry Summers would like to portray himself as a progressive. In a paper he co-authored for the centrist Hamilton Project with his former PhD student Natasha Sarin and their research assistant Joe Kupferberg, Summers announced a “pragmatic approach” for making the tax system more progressive. Summers and his co-authors (SSK) take care to contrast their approach with the proposals of Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, and claim that the “pragmatic” approach can raise over $4 trillion in 2020-29. But a closer look at the SSK proposals shows that theirs is not a progressive approach at all, and that it is unlikely to generate the revenues they claim.

Keywords: progressively, wealth tax, mark to market

JEL Classification: H26