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In economics, deadweight loss is the loss of societal economic welfare due to production/consumption of a good at a quantity where marginal benefit (to society) does not equal marginal cost (to society) – in other words, there are either goods being produced despite the cost of doing so being larger than the benefit, or additional goods are not being produced despite the fact that the ...
This loss occurs because taxes create disincentives for production. The gap between taxed and the tax-free production is the deadweight loss. [4] Deadweight loss reduces both the consumer and producer surplus. [5] The magnitude of deadweight loss depends on the elasticities of supply and demand for the taxed good or service.
A common position in economics is that the costs in a cost-benefit analysis for any tax-funded project should be increased according to the marginal cost of funds, because that is close to the deadweight loss that will be experienced if the project is added to the budget, or to the deadweight loss removed if the project is removed from the budget.
Relatedly, the social MCF is the basis for the conditions of an optimal tax system and optimal spending on public services. Thus, the outcome of a tax reform can be calculated using pre- and post-reform MCFs as well as price indices. Practically, MCFs can be calculated based on the tax rate and the elasticities of demand and supply.
The filled-in "wedge" created by a tax actually represents the amount of deadweight loss created by the tax. [2] Deadweight loss is the reduction in social efficiency (producer and consumer surplus) from preventing trades for which benefits exceed costs. [2] Deadweight loss occurs with a tax because a higher price for consumers, and a lower ...
Another example of a tax with few deadweight costs is a lump sum tax such as a poll tax (head tax) which is paid by all adults regardless of their choices. Arguably a windfall profits tax which is entirely unanticipated can also fall into this category. Deadweight loss does not account for the effect taxes have in leveling the business playing ...
The tax burden measures the true economic effect of the tax, measured by the difference between real incomes or utilities before and after imposing the tax, and taking into account how the tax causes prices to change. For example, if a 10% tax is imposed on sellers of butter, but the market price rises 8% as a result, most of the tax burden is ...
Of the hundreds of provisions in the US tax code, for example, only a handful actually impose a tax (26 USC Sections 1, 11, 55, 881, 882, 3301, and 3311 are the primary examples). Instead, most of those provisions help to define how much income a taxpayer has—that is, their ability to pay.