Lloyd D. Bender

Implications of Negative Tax Plans as Antipoverty Measures in Low-Income Regions

VARIOUS income maintenance plans based upon negative taxation have been proposed as measures to counter poverty [4]. Most peisons are familiar with positive taxes, those taxes based upon adjusted income multiplied by the appropriate tax rate-adjusted income being, of course, total income less exemptions and standard deductions. A negative tax would be based upon the same formula, but it would apply only when adjusted income is less than zero. This means that a negative tax liability would be incurred by the government when exemptions and deductions for a tax unit exceed total income. Using exemptions and standard deductions (

The Role of Services in Rural Development Policies

200 plus exemptions times

Halstead, John M., Robert A. Chase, Steve H. Murdock, and F. Larry Leistritz. Socioeconomic Impact Management: Design and Implementation. Boulder CO: Westview Press, 1984, xiv + 258 pp.

100), the government would incur a negative tax liability should a familys income fall below

32.50

900 for the first exemption plus

Nonmetropolitan Economic Bases and Their Policy Implications

700 for each additional exemption. The amount of the transfer payment from the government to the tax unit would depend, not only upon the negative difference between total income and exemptions plus deductions, but also on the tax rate applicable. Thus, a 75-percent negative tax rate would mean that the governments liability would be increased

Structural Differences and the Time Pattern of Basic Employment

750 per

Trickle‐down and Leakage in the War on Poverty

1,000 income decrease, or that an individual tax unit could keep

NEGATIVE TAXATION AND POVERTY

250 of each

Migration, Growth Centers, and the Ozarks

1,000 earned income increase if the unit were in a negative tax bracket. The objectives of negative tax plans generally are (a) to treat poverty more effectively, (b) to offer a substitute for present welfare assistance, and (c) to create work incentives. As a result of research on which this paper is based, the plans as presently constructed appear inadequate on all counts.